I designed our programs to be design-friends with our invitation suite. I’m a stickler for consistency, so they work well together, but I also went a little more whimsical with these guys. The pressure was off for the programs, and I had quite a lot of fun with these. This weekend, Mr. Scissors and I spent a good two days printing, cutting, folding, measuring, nailing, threading, sewing, and assembling our eighty programs. He was a marvelous helper, and we are both so thrilled with the results.
The assembly of these guys was not an easy one, even though we knocked it out in two days. A quick run-down of the supplies used and, well, how in the heck we did it is most definitely in order. Spelling it all out makes us seem totally bonkers-me bonkers for coming up with it, and him bonkers for going along with it. Photos first, insanity second!
Oh, so you’re curious as to what all went into these puppies? WELL…
Supply List (for 80 programs)
- 400 sheets of 65 lb. cover
- Part of a spool of carpet yarn from the ’70s (My father works in textiles, and we have a mountain of this stuff around. It’s my favorite for pretty much everything.)
- Rotary trimmer
- Scissors
- Two tack nails
- Hammer
- IKEA catalog
- Bignormous needle
- Pencil
- Ruler
- Computer (le duh) equipped Illustrator and InDesign
- Printer with 2-sided printing capability and a butt-ton of extra ink (We have an Artisan 710. Love it for this stuff.)
- Fonts used: Gotham, Carousel, and Memoriam Pro
Assembly (for a single program)
- Print out cover from Illustrator and 4-pieces-of-paper-requiring booklet (the insides) from InDesign. Use 2-sided print settings with a saddle-stitch binding setting.
- Trim the paper to 6.5″ by 11.5″. The reason I didn’t just use a half-letter was that I didn’t want a “We printed this out and folded it in half” look. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I’m just nuts and a weirdo about sizing.
- Fold all 5 pieces of paper for the booklet. (Sweet Mr. Scissors did the majority of this step. This was the most time-consuming part, it seemed.)
- Stack the pieces of paper one-inside-of-the-other. This is where the saddle-stitch setting comes into play. Everything is magically lined up.
- On the innermost sheet, mark 2 inches in from the top and bottom along the fold.
- Over the IKEA catalog, keep the pages lined up and hammer the nail into each of the two marked points - this is to start the holes for the yarn.
- Thread the needle, and go in one set of holes and out the other. Be careful not to stab yourself. I did about 40 times.
- Tie a lovely little bow, and move on to the next program. Lather, rinse, repeat.
There you have it! Our crazy-sauce labor of program love. I hope our guests actually look through these guys. I need to find some people to hand out [read: be pushers of] our programs.
What approach did you take with your programs? Did you go to crazy lengths and develop an overly-involved (but totally fun) process?
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