Weddingbee Blog

Hive!! I’ve for sure been the worst, absent since Thanksgiving—sorry! Between school, and a full time job, and Howie, and weddings—I mean, we’re all in a similar boat, so you know how it is.

Anyway, my last post was about my invitations, and I got more than one message asking about the pocketfolds and how they worked with Vistaprint products. Well, two things—first, my mom and I actually handcrafted them. I’ll show you below how to do that. And second, regarding Vistaprint—in my experience, Vistaprint prints in two main sizes, half a page and a quarter of a page. For some reason, I was really opposed to having invitations that were clearly half of an 8.5” x 11” sheet of paper, so I altered them. Here’s how:

First, I used one of their standard templates, and put in all of the correct information in all of the allotted spaces. Then, I purchased the preview—I think it was a $1.99 charge. I printed out the preview, which was in the real size. On a separate piece of paper, I cut out a rectangle that was the size I wanted my invitations to be (for me, that was 4.5” x 6.5”). I outlined that smaller rectangle on the bottom right of my Vistaprint preview, and then went back into Vistaprint and moved each of the text boxes to fit into where the smaller rectangle was on my preview. Then, I bought another preview, printed it out, and cut it to the smaller size to see if everything was spaced correctly. I think it may have taken me two tries before everything was exactly where I wanted it. I went through the same process for my reception cards to make them smaller so they would fit into the pocket.

So, when I got my items from Vistaprint, the invitation was 8.5” x 5.5” (remember, the size of half of a sheet of paper), but all of the information was concentrated in the bottom right corner. My mom and I spent an episode of Grey’s (or two) cutting a portion of the top and left sides so that my final invitation was 6.5” x 4.5”, and then we mounted that on a sheet of white card stock so the final invitation piece was 6.75” x 4.75”. We also trimmed the reception card down to 3.5” x4.5” so it would fit.

So, then, once you have the invitation portion, you need the pocketfold portion. Here’s what you need for that:

This part is actually really simple, as long as you have the score board (I think it was $25 at Michaels, then I used a 25%-off coupon, and it was probably one of the best $13 I spent in the entire wedding). Anyway, lay your card stock down and score at the 2” line and at the 7” line. Now your invitation is separated into three parts—the flap, the main invite portion, and the pocket portion.

And now, to create the pocket. You need to score 1/2” on three sides—the two short sides and one long side. The center of the pocket should now measure 4” across—the height is really your preference.

The last thing you need to do it cut off the two bottom corners to avoid overlapping when you glue the edges down. Make sure that your cut reaches the point where the the two lines meet.

Now, I don’t have any assembly pictures, but it’s really simple. For the pocket, just fold back all three sides that you scored, apply glue, and press into place on the right side of your envelope. (A note: I used glue, but I might recommend adhesive squares instead—the glue sometimes made the card stock a bit wavy.) You can also adhere your invitation in the center portion of the pocketfold, and you’re all set!

Overall, I was pretty happy with these. They were certainly a bit of work but, honestly, I knocked them out over a few evenings of watching HIMYM re-runs. They weren’t difficult at all, and I’m certain that they were more cost effective than purchasing pre-made pocketfolds—after all, I guess I just bought the card stock for $2.50 for a pack of 50 sheets (so, at three packs, $7.50), the score board ($13), and the adhesive (maybe $5?), so it came out to be less than $30 for about 100 envelopes. Not bad, I don’t think!

Mmkay, hive—what was your most time-consuming project? Was it worth the time and effort?