Our DIY Invitations

A more detailed look at our wedding invitations.

I knew that I wanted to make them right away and I was confident that I would be able to do it. The biggest problem was making sure that they didn't come across as super homemade (aka: I just printed this off of microsoft word and shoved it in an envelope). After we decided on colors, I made thirty-two a few trips to our local Hobby Lobby to look at paper options. There weren't a whole bunch of patterend papers in our colors so I decided solids were the best way to go.

Inspiration:

When I ran across this diy escort card display, I decided I wanted to incorporate this idea into our invitations to make them special.

Martha Stewart Weddings

I had a much easier time finding fabrics in our colors than I did with patterend paper. So I bought 1/2 yard of 3 different fabrics ($6.80) and a 1.75 inch circle whole punch ($9.99) from HL. I also purchased a corner rounder to mimi the shape of the escort cards in the photo ($6.99).

Fonts:

I looked for font solutions right away because everyone has seen the "fancy" fonts offered by Microsoft Word. No thanks. I found dafont.com and it was awesome. You can search by the type of font your looking for and they are free to download. I ended up using Jellyka, Saint-Andrew's Queen for our names and envelope labels and Hanshand for the other wording on the invitations.

Extras:

I found the love bird stamp (so cute!) at HL on sale for $2.75 and picked up the inkpad for $2.99. I knew immediately that it would be used for the outside of the envelopes. Speaking of, we picked up plain, white greeting card envelopes (50) for $4.95 at Wal-Mart.

The Finished Product:

Total Spent on Invitations:
Stamp: $2.75
Ink Pad: $2.99
Pack of White Card Stock: $4.99
Yellow Paper: $7.93
Blue Paper: $12.39
Fabric: $6.80
Evelopes: $4.95
Hole Punch: $9.99
Corner Rounder: $6.99
Total: $59.78

**Note: The whole punch and corner rounder did push the invitation total over what I had expected to pay but I consider these two items investments for my future crafting!**

Our DIY Centerpieces - Tutorial

That's right, I'm doing our centerpieces and they are way more simple to assemble than those pesky invitations. Since we're not having a sit down dinner, we're having about 6-8 tabels inside that seat 6 people each. This way people don't have to stand and eat but they can just sit and get up as they please. No assigned seating. There are also picnic tables out on the deck so people can take a break from dancing but I'm pretty sure that there won't be any of these centerpieces on the outdoor tables. I defnitely wanted to keep them simple, classic, and close to the table. So here it goes.

I started out with a round, flat vase that I found at the Dollar Tree for (you guessed it) $1.00 each:

I went to Hobby Lobby and found bunches of tulips that were fifty percent off. I bought about six bunches (3 yellow and 3 white) for $3.50/ea. Before I started, I cut the wire stems to about 2 inches in length and removed the plastic tubing around them to make it easier to stick them in the foam.

You'll also need, a green foam block to keep them in place (I cut the one I bought in half with a knife because it was taller than the vase), double sided tape, and I used 2.25in Christmas ribbon that was the perfect width for the vase (bought after Christmas: 60 ft. for $2.50).

1. Wrap the ribbon once around the vase and secure it with the double-sided tape. Then place the green foam square inside.

2. Now begin assembling flowers.

3. Once I arranged all of the flowers, I sort of "fluffed" them up to fill all of the space. And "TADA", they are done.

Here's a picture of the yellow and white:

Total cost for all centerpiece material:

Flowers (6 bushels): $21.00

Vases (8): $8.00

Foam Blocks (4): $5.00

Ribbon (alot): $2.50

GRAND TOTAL: $36.50

(Pretty good, huh?)