Weddingbee Blog

I’ve been a little all over the map when it comes to programs. At first I wanted something simple and easy, probably similar to our save the dates, in a square fashion with card stock and paper.

Square program from the Knot

After immersing myself in the world of DIY, I thought it would be great to add a little personal effort and make programs that could double as fans for the Texas heat (although I’m hoping for not that much heat in April).

Fan Program via Mrs. Mouse on Weddingbee

I was pretty set on the fan programs after finding an easy-to-follow template online, so I pushed that thought aside and worked on other DIY mock-ups. One weekend, while reading Weddingbee archives, I came across Mrs. Sushi’s passport save the dates for her destination wedding and changed my mind once again on our programs.

Mrs. Sushi’s Awesome Save the Dates

I was in LOVE with the passport idea and knew that it would be perfect for our travel-themed reception.

I got the ball rolling by putting out an Alchemy request on Etsy for another custom stamp (my third custom stamp for wedding-related purposes). This stamp would be used on the cover of the passport since 1) I couldn’t justify purchasing a Gocco machine like Mrs. Sushi used, and 2) the card stock that I am using for our other paper products and my printer do NOT get along.

While waiting for the stamp to come in, I played around with the number of pages and layout of information for the content. I used a free template, found online here, for the sideways page, but all of the rest are my own layout.

Including the pages that are actually connected to the passport cover, we’ll have 10 pages of information. Don’t worry; there are no novels in there, so it’ll be a quick read for guests while they wait for the ceremony to start. When creating your own, remember that certain pages need to be on the back of other pages. Here’s how my pages lined up:

• Page 1 & Page 10 (which are stuck to the card stock)
• Page 2 & Page 9 (which are printed on the back of Page 3 & Page
• Page 4 & Page 7 (which are printed on the back of Page 5 & Page 6)

Once the stamp arrived, I followed these simple steps to complete my mock-up.

1. Print out information on home printer.

2. Use personal cutter to cut pages—I put a faint gray box around the pages so it was easier to know where to cut.

3. Trace and cut out cover from card stock. I could get two covers from each page of 12×12 paper.

4. Attach the first/last page to the inside of the cover. I used my Xryon to glue the page to the cover.

5. Attach other pages by using a stapler. A single staple in the middle should do it for you.

6. Round the edges of the paper. I justified the purchase of a corner rounder since we’ll be using it on the table names, as well as the escort cards.

7. Stamp the cover with embossing ink and cover with embossing powder. Use heat gun (or any other heat source you want) to heat the embossing powder. (More in-depth embossing instructions can be found here.)

8. Let dry, and there you go: passport programs! We’ll be doing half in blue and silver and half in green and gold.

Here’s some more detail on the embossing process:

I knew that embossing these bad boys would take some time, so I decided to do them ahead of schedule since I had some free weekend time.

Let’s take a quick photo tour of my embossing good time, shall we?

First off, the setup: I figured out that I had enough embossing powder to do three passport covers at a time.

A little commentary on my set up:

After much trial and error, I determined that I had to use two different powders. A sparklier one for the top half, and a different one for the text on the bottom so that it is readable.

Here’s a shot halfway through the heating process where you can see the image turning from powder to awesomeness.

The green card stock and gold powder was a lot darker prior to heating.

Here’s my little helper, Gypsy, doing what she does best!

A hundred and twenty covers later, and I’m all done!

A closeup of the blue/silver cover:

And here’s the green/gold cover:

I love love love these! Once we nail down the order of the ceremony with our pastor (closer to the wedding), I’ll print out the inside text and complete these.

What was your favorite DIY project to work on?