Weddingbee Blog

One of my best friends from college is getting married and I’m so thrilled to be a part of her wedding. She lives in Fresno, and damned if I’m going to drive down to sweltering Central CA to help her out, so I’m helping out as much as I can from my temperate 60-degree Berkeley living room. I kid. But seriously, Fresno is freaking hot.

Anyway, her shower is coming up, and I’ve been dying to make some fabric backed invites ever since I saw Miss Pudding’s fabric backed save the dates. How fabulous they were! How labor intensive they were! And so, I thought it’d be fun to make them for Lauren’s shower. I mean, how many people usually get invitations to showers? Like, 30? (My showers.)

Hmm… have you met Portuguese people? They LOVE their families. And they have big families. And Festas. Anyway, the point being that she is inviting 80 of her closest family and friends to her shower, but I’d already committed to the fabric backed invites before knowing the final count. Mrs. Pudding only made 30 for a reason. These things took a very long time but turned out pretty cute!

Lauren had 3 requests: green, purple, and a beach theme. I gladly obliged.

My biggest point of pride was that I didn’t have to buy any new paper for this project. I used leftovers that I had on hand, including the grey pocketfolds and white luxe paper from the fail invites I printed in the very very beginning of my wedding planning journey. I was unhappy with how these invites turned out, but didn’t toss them, thinking I could somehow reuse the paper. Finally, 3 years later, I did! (This is how the final invites turned out, in case you’re interested!)

I hacked the old invites and pocketfolds down to size, using the grey to be covered by the fabric and the backsides of the luxe white for Lauren’s invites.

Go go Gocco…

Rounded corners…

(I’ll say it again… do not buy this corner rounder if you are going to do a big project like invitations. Buy this one, from Fiskars. The one I own will cause your thumbs to blister and fall off, and if you don’t have thumbs anymore you’re basically a glorified dog or cat, right?)

I cut the fabric I bought from Jo-Ann’s so that it was an inch wider than the grey cardstock all around, then ironed it.

Following Mrs. Pudding’s instructions, I made the fabric backing, using a combination of spray adhesive and tacky glue to give an extra secure adhesion in the folded corners.

A little more spray adhesive to the backs of the actual invitations, and they were done!

I made these to fit an A2 envelope. Make sure to trim your cardstock a little smaller, as when you wrap it with fabric, it will take up much more room in the envelope than regular cardstock.