Weddingbee Blog

Unwrap these babies here!

Upon opening the box mailer, our guests will see this:

In addition to the belly band, we lined the lid of the box mailer with decorative paper. We bought different patterns as large sheets from a local paper shop and cut them to size. I must admit that my horrific math skills necessitated an intervention: after watching me struggle with how to maximize the large sheet of paper, Mr. Tartlet took over and finished the job in half the time. Hooray for the mathematically-inclined!

Chop, chop, chop

The same 3M General Spray Adhesive that we used for the belly bands was also used to adhere the cut sheets to the inside of the lid. However, because the box mailer was such a dark color, we ended up having to add an additional layer of white paper to back the decorative paper in order for the pattern to fully show through.

It took a bit of trial-and-error, and was a good example of the unpredictability of DIY projects. To ensure that the invitation didn’t jiggle around in the box too much, we padded the bottom with biodegradable Excelsior packing material. It’s soft shredded wood, and a little goes a looooooong way!

The suite was tied together with a 1/4″ double-faced vintage gold satin ribbon using Mrs. Lobster’s twine-tying tutorial, and the rad alphabet stamp that Mrs. Stripes introduced to us was used to make customized tags for each of our guests. The paper used for the tags was text weight Crane’s Palette in Pink (which I think is now in limited supply).

And the tags were simply threaded onto the ribbon before tying it off:

Untying the bundle reveals our full invitation suite:

I must give another huge shout out to local artist Michelle Baker of Elevated Press (a letterpress printing and design studio) who printed our main invitation. She was so accommodating and friendly, and an absolute pleasure to work with! Our main invitation was printed on 220 lb. Crane’s Lettra paper in Pearl White that I ordered from Keldon Paper Company (the same company that Mrs. Gloss used for her glorious invites). The rest of the suite was screen-printed onto 134 cover (365 gsm) Crane’s Palette paper in Pink (which I can’t find anywhere, now) using our Gocco PG-5.

We specifically chose to print our invitation on super-thick paper in order to accommodate an additional detail to the main invitation: edge painting! The gilded look of these was a throwback to the fancy leather-bound books where the pages are all edged in gold.

The directions map (which was on the reverse side of the Information card) was designed by moi, armed with Mrs. Ballet Flat’s tutorial and a combination of Google Maps, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Adobe Illustrator. The RSVP return envelope address was a custom stamp from Emilie Friday, and the use of animal icons for the meal choices was inspired from a slew of talented ladies including Mrs. Gloss and Mrs. Jellyfish. For the chicken and beef options, I used the Farm & Wild Animals font, and for the fish icon I used Efon font. Both are free to download at dafont.com.

As a side note, I recently learned from our very own Mrs. Sand Dollar that there is in fact a spell checker option for Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop (under the “Edit” menu, there lives the coveted “Check Spelling” option). I so, so wish I had known about this sooner. Some of you may have already raised an eyebrow once or twice throughout this post, but upon using this function post-mailing I’ve identified a number of glaring spelling errors on our invites despite having multiple people proof them. e.g. “Accomodations” on the Information card, and “Metroplitan” on the Directions card. *cringes* Another fine episode of “please learn from Tartlet’s mistakes!”

Regardless of the spelling blunders *cringes again*, Mr. Tartlet and I are still in love with our invites, and we hope our guests enjoyed receiving them as much as we enjoyed making them! Was anyone else thwarted by grave spelling errors in their invites?