I need help with invites...

[peckmiranda]

I can see it in my head, but I have no idea where to buy the supplies, or even what to ask for!!!

I think I know exactly what I want my invitations to look like. I saw something like this in one of the catalogs. It started out with a heavy black mat. I'm not sure if it's called a mat though. It's so heavy it's almost cardboard. On top of that, I would glue a piece of red cardstock, big enough to where the black is only a border maybe 1/2" wide. Then, I'm thinking at the very top I either want a ribbon or a custom monogram. You can get stamps custom-made, right? So if I found a monogram I loved I could just get a stamp made with it and just stamp all the invitations with it? And then, of course, the wording and whatnot. I really like this idea, because then my RSVPs and informals could just be a small piece of red cardstock, and I was thinking about getting a snowflake stamp and white ink and doing a couple of those on the RSVPs and informals. Plus, I like this idea because I could buy everything at a scrapbooking store and not have to buy the invitation kits. I've been looking at them, and they're all either so plain, or extremely expensive. Sooooo help me out, please!!!

[peckmiranda]

Okay...I found mat board on www.framingsupplies.com, but it comes in all different plys and I have no idea if I want 2 ply, 4 ply, 6 ply, etc.

[Heather]

I wouldn't get anything too hard. I don't know the grades of card stock but I would go with something like a normal greeting card feel.

I also wouldn't do a stamp. They can get messy and you may find yourself doing them over and over again. Instead, if you're gluing the red paper on that has all of the information on it, I would just do the monogram at the top of that on your computer. Kind of like: (but fancier)

HCF

Information Here
alksdjflaksdjflkasdjf;lks;fkas
sdjflksdjflaksdjfkljd
;lklksdjfalksdjfkljsd

You can still buy everything you need without having to buy an invitation kit.

[imstilldreaming]

We are doing our own invitations, and modeling them after our save the dates we did. (You can see my thread in April weddings, Jen and Casey). Anyway, we just got everything at the scrapbooking store and used our printer. It took awhile to get the formatting the way we wanted to, so that we didn't waste much paper. That was the most frustrating part. Once we got that taken care of though, it was pretty simple. We even had more steps than you--we tied vellum paper on top with a ribbon and used a stamp and embossing powder. I think for our invites we are going to do the stamp on the actual invite cardstock instead of on the vellum because it got messed up in the mail. The stamps weren't hard though. If we got some with missing parts of letters after we stamped them, we took toothpicks, dragged it in the ink and then filled in the missing parts. I think it was worth it, and I am definitely going to make our own invitations, too.