As a med student, I'm already in copious amounts of debt. Like, I can't even fathom how much money I owe the bank. Saving money in every possible MOH way was essential to me.
I knew that bachelorette invitations could get expensive fast, and I didn't want to waste money that could have been better spent elsewhere. (Alcohol, anyone?) Searching the web for templates turned up surprisingly few results, so I resulted to making my own.
Not only did I make my own invitations, but I also made my own envelopes (mainly because the invites were a weird size) and labels. Welcome to cheaptown, population: Taylor. In the end, my frustration and hard work was worth it. I was really, really pleased with them. Major bonus: collectively, everything ended up costing a total of only eight bucks!
DIY Invitations
What you need: Computer, card stock, a good printer, and a paper cutter (or scissors if you have a steadier hand than I).
I made my invites in power point. Let's get it out there right now that I am a total computer IDIOT. I'm sure there was probably an easier way to do this. I also use a mac and a 10,000 year old version of power point, so keep that in mind when you see these screenshots.
I decided I wanted to do vertical (portrait?) invitations. I did that by using the page setup option in power point:
Then click on the vertical slide under "orientation":
You should get something that looks like this:
Then I changed the background colors and started playing with what I wanted to say. I went with a grey background for a few reasons:
- I had images I wanted to use with both black and white in them.
- A grey background didn't seem as harsh as a black one.
- Black ink would have used up pretty much all of my printer ink.
Here's some of the ones I downloaded:
After I got my text down, and chose several fonts I liked, I started adding pictures. Again, I was pretty disappointed with my internet searches. Doesn't anyone else need a giant diamond ring and panty set on clip art? I ended up finding an etsy seller here that sold clip art made just for bachelorette parties. It was only 3 bucks, the pictures were really high quality, they come in .jpg and .png (which doesn't have a background) format, and they emailed me the download link within a minute. I can't recommend these guys enough!
This is the picture set I bought:
They turned out really cute!
After I had my slides saved, I went ahead and entered good old "view show" so that my invites took up the entire screen. They still looked great! I took a screen shot of the invites (command+shift+4 for you mac users) and put that picture in to a word document. I did this so that I could print two invites on one sheet of card stock. Trying to print through power point just didn't work for me. Once I had all of the invites printed, I just got out the paper cutter and went to town! It was fantastic. It took me about two hours, (because, again, I am a computer idiot) and was totally worth it. All I had to buy were the pictures because I already owned card stock.
Total cost: 3 dollars!
DIY Envelopes
What you need: Scrapbook paper, ruler, pencil, your already printed invites, cheap glue stick (one that sucks at actually holding things together), double sided tape, a paper cutter, scissors, and a lot of patience.
First off, you need to get a piece of good scrapbook paper. Going with my pink and black theme, I found this scrapbook paper from an old project back in undergrad. It was perfect!
Take the paper (I recommend starting with scratch paper, it took me a few tries) and lay it face down, you'll have to cut it to size. Here's a great website that tells you how big you need your paper depending on how big your invite is. Download the Diagonal Score Plate Envelopes PDF and it will tell you how big your paper should be depending on your envelope size.
For example, my invite was just larger than 4" by 6", so my scrap booking paper was about an 8.5" square. This is where the paper cutter comes in handy.
Lay your paper at a diagonal, so that the corners are pointing up and down. Lay your invitation on top of the paper and trace around it, with about 1/2 centimeter extra on each side of the invite. (Sorry, didn't get a pic before I cut.)
Then, with your lines surrounding the invite drawn, grab your ruler and continue the lines all the way to the sides. Where the lines intersect, you cut out a triangle.
I also drew lines from corner to corner so I knew where the center of the envelope was. That way, when I folded my flaps in, I knew where center was. I went back and erased the visible lines later.
Where the triangle have been cut out is where you fold. Fold the smaller two corners in first and crease them. You might want to fold them around the invite to make sure everything fits.
From here, fold up your bottom flap. Using double sided tape or glue (but quality glue) tape the bottom flap to the side flaps. Make sure no tape hangs over the side flaps, or your invitation could get taped to the envelope.
Now might be a good time to make sure your invite still fits. I learned this the hard way.
Yay! It fits!
From here, you'll want to put all your invites in their envelopes. Use your crappy glue stick (or more double stick tape) to get the top flap to stick. This way people won't destroy the envelope when they open it, because that glue lets up pretty easily.
Finally, with all you envelopes sealed, grab a cute sticker (I bought mine at target for 99 cents) and put the finishing touch on your personalized letter!
Overall, this was simple once I got the hang of it. Since I had the paper, glue, and tape at home, all I had to buy were my stickers!
Total cost: 99 cents!
DIY Labels
What you need: Computer, printable shipping labels, printer.
To make my own labels, I found a cute free downloadable template here.
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| Photo Credit: akimbo.com |
All I had to do was sign up for their email list. (I did have to go through "checkout," but I didn't have to put in any credit card information.)
I typed in my own information and my invitees information into the template. Super easy!
The template is a whole sheet of paper, but at office max, their full sheet mailing labels only came in packs of 100 and cost 50 bucks. Uh, no thanks.
I went to target and bought these for 4 dollars instead.
This is where my old friend screen shot came in handy. I just took a screen shot of the labels, (again, there was probably an easier way) and put both labels on one (word document) sheet of paper. I printed them out, and viola! Cut and stick and you're done!
In total, the labels took me about ten minutes. They were super easy and all I had to buy were the mailing labels.
Total cost: 4 dollars!
My finished project:
This project was totally worth all the work. I am extremely pleased with the outcome and have gotten tons of great feedback! I think they look great and only cost me 8 dollars total. I'm pretty pumped. Let me know what you think!
-Taylor
