Step 1:

Main invitation shape. I folded the 8.5x 11 cardstock into two, folding by the longest length, resulting with an 8.5×5.5 invitation.

Step 2:

Cut! Using a guillotine (oh, so much fun!), I cut the excess so that I would get 5.5″x5.5″ invitation. We rounded the corners using one of those punch rounders to make them look a little bit more finished.

Step 3:

Measure the ribbon around the front lap of the invitation, allowing for about 1/2″ overlapping area (the ribbon has to over lap to allow the two ends to be glued together).

To keep the ribbon in place before you glue the LOVE square, use double sided tape.

Step 4:

Emboss a small square (in our case 1.75×1.75) with the LOVE embossing template*.

Place the LOVE square in position (we centered it in the square) and glue the LOVE square onto the ribbon using rubber cement. Let dry.

Step 5:

After letting the rubber cement dry, we then proceeded to glue the information in the inner part of the invitation. The Philadelphia skyline that was used as a header was done by Thad (perhaps we’ll add a picture of that)

Step 6:

Stuff information in (RSVP card, reception information, maps, etc)**

Step 7:

Stuff in addressed envelopes.

Easy? Hmm…well, not THAT easy. Fun? Definitely! Worth the effort? I think so.

…well, we could have done without so much ribbon drama.

*How I made this embossing stamp will be shown in another post.
**Another small tutuorial on how to make the extra info stay “together” to come soon.

Of course, we’d have to change everything to our liking and translate accordingly (since my family is from Mexico, I wanted to have them in Spanish) so far we just had a basic idea for the shape.

The next things to be decided were: Colors; obviously red (we like darker shades of red quite a bit, so a burgundy was our winning color) and cream.
Personalization: we were originally going the mainstream way: to use our initials in the front of the invitation and then just add the details inside…Then a light bulb lit up! We’re in Philly! Why not incorporate that?

And the shopping got started! We raided a few Joann’s for the ribbon we chose, wiping two stores clean in the process, and bought a lot of card stock in the color we liked.

In addition to that, the personalization items: a LOVE embossing stencil (hand made by me as such a thing does not exist according to countless google searches) and a skyline outline later (done by Boombadeus) we were on our way to wedding invitation adventureland!

NOTE: all this “invitation brainstorming” didn’t go that smoothly. A few trial invitations were made, playing with card stock colors and ribbons.

The use of the LOVE embossing template was a pure chance too: I had just recently discovered the world of hand embossing and had played around with a cardboard template I had made just for fun.

Only after him saying “hey, this looks good” did I even think of using it seriously in the invitations…had he not mentioned he liked the template, the gate that opened the idea to Philadelphia centric invitations, the invitations would probably have been a little more mainstream…

Lesson learned for that day: Play around with what you know!

If you’re me, you thank the person and walk out. Then, later that afternoon, meet your significant other and the first words you say to him are “WE are making the invitations”.

Yup, I found it insane that the basic invitations were going to be that expensive (well, I’ve found the whole wedding thing a little bit crazy; everything costs 3X of what it normally does just because it carries the word “bridal” or “wedding”…but I digress) so the first thing that came to my mind was “I so can make this”.

I knew it wasn’t going to be fun (I lie, I knew I’d enjoy it) nor easy (well, that one I agree with) but having an adventurous significant other, it would at least be fun to give it a try.

And so, that’s how this crafty tale beings…