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| Photo courtesy of Wikipedia. |
I'm pretty "old school" when it comes to invitations--I like paper. So 1990 of me, I know. ;) But I suffered some major sticker shock when it came to the invitation styles I liked. It quickly became clear that it'd be far cheaper (and much more fun) to make the invitations myself.
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| Victoria pulled the paper from the printer before the ink had dried, and smudged my anonymized sample ticket. I'm too lazy to make another sample, but FYI I recommend doing this project WITHOUT a 1 year-old helper. |
To start, it would help if you had the proper materials. I didn't.
- Cardstock (~$15 for 50 sheets. Each sheet makes 4 tickets.)
- *Ink Jet* printer (I mistakenly tried our laser printer first)
- Ink for said printer (Our printer is older than Bertrand--so was the dry ink inside.)
- 3/4-Inch Hole Punch
(I liked the look of this size, but any hole punch should work.)
- Rotary Perforator (~$6.50)
- Paper cutter
- Large metal ruler (I had a tiny plastic one)
- Self-healing mat (I used a clean cutting board)
It took me over 2 hours to make the initial computer template, and another hour of printing and tweaking to get the spacing right. I'm a Mac user so it's in Pages format HERE. This is the hardest part, so you're welcome.
Step 2: Print on your card stock.
Card stock is too thick for most laser jet printers! Use an ink jet printer. Each 8.5x11 sheet will produce 4 tickets. I recommend printing a single page at a time. My printer still had issues with pulling the paper, so one at a time gave a better result.
Step 3: Trim (if necessary) and hole punch.
If the resulting image isn't perfectly aligned on the paper, trim it. Then, I just eyeballed the hole punches at each of the anticipated seams using the guides on the hole punch.
Step 4: Cut apart the tickets.
I recommend using a paper cutter.
Step 5: Perforate the tickets.
You pull the perforator toward yourself along the side of the ruler. Using a cutting mat instead of a hard kitchen cutting board would make your life easier. So would using a large metal ruler. (With a large metal ruler you could easily do this step before cutting the tickets apart.)
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| I think the perforation makes the ticket. |
Step 6: Ticket is complete.
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| I did the first batch of tickets at night while the kids were asleep. I think you can tell that Victoria was in my lap for this sample batch. Sorry! |
Since the envelopes I picked were the same color as the tickets, if I'd had additional time, I would've also lined the envelopes with candy-striped wrapping paper to provide some contrast. There's a good tutorial HERE. Yes, I deeply regret skipping this step.
