It’s the ladies of Antiquaria, back with another creative DIY project for you! Today they’re sharing a fun tutorial on how to make gorgeous rubber stamp wedding invitations with a floral motif!
We love the versatility and custom look that rubber stamps can give your invitation suite. This week, we wanted to show how the same stamp designs can lead to two very different wedding invitation suites: one designed for a festive tropical bash, and the other for more traditional, sophisticated affair! It’s as simple as changing the stamp pad and envelope colors! Let us show you…
Option 1: For the tropical fete… shades of coral, mango, and berry make the floral border. Lovely pool colored envelopes complement the suite.
Option 2: Traditional black and white convey elegance and sophistication.
Step 1: You’ll want to stamp your invitation wording first… it makes things much more simple. Ink your stamp (we used our classic invitation stamp) thoroughly, and center it over your paper. Press firmly but moderately, using the handle as your primary pressure point to avoid an uneven print. Let dry.
Step 2: Put a sheet of regular text weight paper underneath your already printed invitation. Using your border stamps, (we used our camellia pattern stamp, daisy pattern stamp and small leaves pattern stamp) begin stamping the motifs around the border, making sure not to cover any text. Go in a clockwise pattern and stamp the images sparsely first… you can always come back in and add more in each circular pass. It also helps to stamp off of the page, giving the invitation a full bleed effect. It would be wise to start with your largest motif and move to the smaller ones to fill in the border. If you are using multiple colors, be certain to make the overall border balanced in color and design.
Step 3: Print your reply card (we used our classic reply card stamp) in the same manner as you did the invitation text. If you like, you can also add your floral motifs to this card, like in the tropical suite, or keep it simple, as shown above.
Step 4: Stamp your return and reply addresses (we used our calligraphy return address stamp) on your envelopes. You can re-use the stamp long after your wedding is over… maybe on all those thank you notes!!!
Step 5: We’ve chosen to add a black text weight paper liner to the outer envelope. This is a great way to bring in some additional color to the suite and to create a nice balance. It’s simple to do as well… you can find envelope liner template kits or pre-cut liners at Paper Source and local craft stores. If you’re using square envelopes, you can also have your local print shop cut paper down to your envelope specifications. Then just put a line of double stick tape or stick glue across the top, slide them into position and press to secure. Fold at the crease with a bone folder to get a nice, crisp edge.
Now all that’s left is to tie the suite together, address them and hand them off to your post office to deliver to your lovely guests!!
Materials:
For the classic invitation suite
Calligraphy Return Address Stamp
Stamp Pad – in Black
Cover Weight Paper, cut to A7 (5″x7″) and 4bar (3″x5″)
Liner paper in black, cut to size
Double Stick tape
Twine – in black and white
For the tropical invitation suite
Calligraphy Return Address Stamp
Stamp Pad - in Coral, Mango Tango, Magenta and Antique Pewter
Cover Weight Paper, cut to A9 (5.5″x8.5″) and 4bar (3″x5″)
4bar Envelope - in Pool
It’s the ladies of Antiquaria, back with another creative DIY project for you! Today they’re sharing a gorgeous floral watercolor wedding invitation tutorial!
This week, we are challenging your inner artist and showing you how to design your own floral watercolor print invitation suite. We have so much fun putting together our artwork and painting watercolors for our online magazine, The Antiquarian Post, we thought, why not incorporate the same technique into a DIY invitation suite? We’ve chosen a coral, toffee and lavender-grey palate to work with but the options are as endless as your supply of paint!
No need to feel intimidated about this one though…we’ll take you through the process, step-by-step.
Step One: On an 8.5 x 11″ sheet of heavy watercolor paper, paint your botanical watercolor pattern. We used a palette of coral, toffee and lavender gray for our floral pattern. To create watercolor flowers, use 2 different size round brushes, one large and one small. Wet the large brush, dip it in the coral color and paint petals. The more non-uniform each petal is, the more organic and natural the flowers turn out. Wet the small brush, dip it into the toffee paint and add the centers of the flowers. Also with the small brush, you will want to fill in-between the large coral flowers with clusters of small lavender gray flowers. Fill in further with toffee leaves (made with the large brush). Fill the whole sheet of paper, making sure that the overall composition is balanced and full of pattern. Set aside to dry completely.
Step Two: On another 8.5 x 11″ sheet of heavy watercolor paper, measure out four 3.5 x 5″ rectangles. Lightly draw yourself an outline in pencil. Just outside the lines, draw yourself crop marks which will be used as guides to cut the final printed product. Paint a coral border in each rectangle making sure not to get to close to the edges. When the paint dries, erase your pencil guide lines leaving just your crop marks. For the envelope liner pattern, we used an simple striped pattern. On a clean 8.5 x 11″ sheet of watercolor paper, simply paint horizontal coral lines, as even or uneven as you please!
Step Three: Place each sheet of artwork on a flatbed scanner and scan at 300 dpi. Print the patterns 100% scale on high quality card stock (the thickest you can get through your printer). Make sure to set your printer margins to the smallest they will allow to maximize your printable area. For the striped pattern, print it on high quality text weight paper… you will be installing it later in the envelopes and thinner paper works better for this!
Out of each printed sheet of the floral pattern paper, cut a 5 x 7″ card and a 4 x 6″ card, as shown above. You will see that since you’ve created the whole page as a pattern, the cards will have a full bleed (meaning that the pattern will flow off the page).
Alternatively, you can take in your artwork to your local print shop (bring the scans on a zip drive or ask them to scan them for you). Here they can print out the paintings on card stock and text weight using a high quality digital printer. You can also have them professionally cut all the pieces down to your desired size!
Step Four: Now you can stamp your invitation! Ink your invitation stamp thoroughly (we used our “Sophisticate” Invitation Stamp) and line it up, centered over your card. Of course, you will be printing on the “back” blank side of the 5 x 7″ floral card. Press down on the stamp evenly and moderately with the handle to get a crisp image. Let dry.
Step Five: Using the crop marks, cut your reply cards (we typically use a paper cutter or x-acto and ruler) to size. Ink your reply stamp thoroughly (we used our “Sophisticate” Reply Stamp, option B) and line up, centered over your card. Press down on the stamp evenly and moderately with the handle to get a crisp image. Let dry. Notch in the corners, if you like, to create the look of a die cut card.
Step Six: On the back of the 4 x 6″ card, ink your accommodations stamp thoroughly (we used our “Sophisticate” Accommodations Stamp) and line up, centered over your card. Press down on the stamp evenly and moderately with the handle to get a crisp image. Let dry.
Step Seven: Cut the liners using a template made for your envelopes. These do the job well! Trace the template with a pencil and cut on the line. Use stick glue or double stick tape along the triangular end to adhere the liner to your envelope.
Step Eight: Once again, we are using stamps to save on our invitation budget. We printed our “Scripted” Return Address stamp for both the return address on the outer envelope and for the reply address. The great part is that you can also use it on your thank you notes!!
Now all that’s left is to tie them together with a beautiful ribbon, address the envelopes and get them into the post! Your guests will be thrilled to receive your very own watercolor artwork in the mail.
Materials List:
Sophisticate Wedding Invitation Stamp (from Antiquaria)
Sophisticate Reply Card Stamp (from Antiquaria)
Sophisticate Accommodations Card Stamp (from Antiquaria)
Large Scripted Return Address Stamp (from Antiquaria)
Stamp Pad, we used Antique Pewter
Water color paints (preferably in 3 or more colors)
Paint brushes, 1 large & 1 small
Jar filled with water to wash brushes
Card stock, in soft white
Text Paper, in soft white
Scanner
Printer
Paper cutter or x-acto knife
Ruler
Pencil
Scissors
Glue stick or double stick tape
Ribbon
Patterns painted by Emma James for Antiquaria. Custom watercolor invitations are available from Antiquaria’s Custom Design Division. Please email them for more information!
Photography by Jamie Simon of Intertwyned
It’s the ladies of Antiquaria, back with another creative DIY project for you! Today they’re sharing a wedding invitation tutorial inspired by the signature blue color of Tiffany & Co.
Have you ever felt the rush of excitement when a special friend, spouse, or loved one presents you with a gift packaged in the little blue box? This wedding invitation suite was designed to elicit that feeling when your guest receives it in the mail. Imagine their excitement when this feminine and traditional invitation finds its way into their mailbox. This DIY is fairly simple yet the colors and packaging tie the whole thing together and give it a feeling of luxury.
Step One: Cut your paper to size A7 (5″x7″). Since this is a luxurious suite, we would suggest a thick high quality cotton watercolor paper. Ink your stamp (we used our Vintage Calligraphy Invitation Stamp) thoroughly and center it over your card. Press down moderately to make the print. Too hard, the image may be blurry and too light and it may be splotchy. Let dry.
Step Two: In a similar fashion to printing the Invitation piece, you will now print the reply card. For this piece, you will want to cut a 4bar (3.5″x5″) card out of the same paper used for the invitation. Again, ink your stamp (we used our Vintage Calligraphy Reply Card stamp) thoroughly and make the print. Let dry.
Step Three: Using your return address stamp (we used our Calligraphy Accent Return Address stamp), stamp both the back flap of your A7 envelope and the front of your 4bar envelope. This is such a great place to pinch pennies in your stationery budget as you are able to use one stamp for both envelopes and you will have it to use after the event is over!
Step Four: To add a little extra flourish to the suite, we’ve used regular round doilies as an envelope liner. We love the way that the aqua peeks through the lace and think it would be so fun to be the recipient and have this surprise await us once the seal was broken. To install the doily liners, you will use spray adhesive. Make sure to do this outside (or in an extremely well ventilated room). Spray the back of the doily with a light mist of adhesive. Slide the doily into the envelope, making sure not to press until the doily is placed in its intended spot (as shown above). Let them dry & cure overnight.
Step Five: Use a thin ribbon to tie the suite together. This will keep the components together and give your guest the thrill of “unwrapping” your invitation.
Materials
Stamps:
Vintage Calligraphy Invitation stamp
Vintage Calligraphy Reply Card stamp
Calligraphy Accent Return Address stamp
Stamp Pad (we used black)
Heavy Watercolor Paper (for invitations & reply cards)
Ribbon, 1/8″ thickness
6″ Medallion Lace Paper Doilies
Photo Credits: Antiquaria
It’s the ladies of Antiquaria, back with their first fabulous and creative DIY project for you in the new year! This week they’re sharing an awesome DIY tutorial for Western rubber stamp wedding invitations and save the dates!
It really is true that the second you start sending out your save the dates, you begin setting the tone for your wedding. It’s always important to think about your venue, colors and tone of the day before deciding on any of your wedding stationery. Today’s DIY tutorial is for complementing save the dates and wedding invitations! We utilized many different stamps & paper components to illustrate our theme: A Vintage-Western Wedding Fete! Here’s how to put it all together:
Step 1: Starting with the save the date, use A2 cards or cut paper to 4.25″ x 5.5″”. Ink the stamp (we used our “Typography” Save the Date stamp) thoroughly and make a print. When you are making the print, be sure to center the stamp on the paper. You will want to apply moderate and even pressure to the stamp in order to get a good print. Also, it is important to stamp on a solid and stable surface. Any movement can cause shifting. Let each print dry to avoid smearing.
Step 2: Make the tags for the save the date. We stamped our website card (“Old West” web card stamp) on a grommeted gift tag. For our monogram tag, we used a small shipping tag and stamped our “Lucky in Love” Initial Monogram stamp on it.
Step 3: This save the date has a fabulous mix of textures and really sets the stage for the invitation and event to come. To combine all the pieces, simply tie basic thin kitchen twine around the save the date, going around multiple times. Secure it with a basic knot and trim the ends to desired length.
Step 4: A great way to save a little money on your wedding paper (and who doesn’t love doing that!) is to get one return address stamp for all of your envelopes. You will potentially be able to use it on your save the dates, invitations (even if you have them professionally printed), reply envelopes and lastly, your thank you notes. It can really help your bottom line in the long run. Once you’ve stamped your envelopes, simply address them, add postage (there are some fabulous new 2012 stamps out), and send them to your loved ones.
Step 5: Now on to the Invitation suite! Use and A6 card or cut paper into 4.5″ x 6.25″ rectangles. Following the same steps as the save the date, make prints of the stamp (we used our “Old West” Invitation stamp) on your cards.
Step 6: Vintage postcards are a great way to incorporate color and personality into your invitation suite. We chose a great image of the Grand Canyon and had it copied on linen card stock. On the back, we stamped our “Old West” Reply Postcard stamp.
Step 7: To tie it all together, we chose to create a monogram belly band. To do this, cut a piece of kraft card stock into 2″x11″ pieces (you’ll get 4 out of each 8.5″x11″ sheet). Then stamp your monogram (we used “Lucky in Love” Name monogram) in the center.
Step 8: Place the invitation, reply postcard, & a feather in a bundle. Wrap the belly band around the suite, centering the monogram. When you’re happy with the placement, make hard folds with your nail or a bone folder. Flip the suite over and secure the belly band with a 1.5″ long piece of double stick tape. Use the same return address (we used our “Navajo” return address stamp), stamping it this time on a beautiful coral envelope. Again, address, add postage to your invitation and let the compliments roll in!!
Materials:
Customized Rubber Stamps:
“Lucky in Love” Initial Monogram
“Old West” Reply, postcard option
“Lucky in Love” Names Monogram
Stamp Pad (we used a combination of chestnut and cocoa throughout this tutorial)
Linen Card Stock (you can find vintage designs online on websites like Café Press)
Scissors
Double Stick Tape
Antiquaria is a member of the Designer Rolodex – you can see more of their beautiful work right here!
Photo Credits: Antiquaria
p.s. Have you entered the giveaway from One Plus One yet? Check out the details right here!
Rolodex Featured Member – Top
Rolodex Featured Member – Photo
Rolodex Featured Member – Bottom Border
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