Its Invitation Time People! Time to let your guests know all about the amazing year you’ve spent planning, organizing, and dreaming of the perfect wedding event you’ve been planning. We here at Bridal Solutions have been inundated with invitations, brides asking about invites, handling RSVP’s for our clients and event assembling these fantastic ideas we come across.
While I don’t dare declare paper passé, I do predict that using unusual materials in invitations will continue to be a force in the wedding works of many years to come. As organize materials and inspired design continue to intersect, its only natural that hip couples find ways to incorporate eco-friendly projects into their ultra-stylish events. This project is dedicated to all of my fellow tree-hugging, organize-loving, design-snob friends !
For this invitation, wood veneer was an irresistible choice. Lightweight, flexible, and easy to print on, its a clever substitution for plain old card stock. The embellishment of choice is a graphic design that’s burned into the surface of the innovation with an inexpensive wood burning tool found at most craft and hobby stores.
Time-wise preparing and printing the invitation will go fairly quickly, but using the wood burning tool takes extra care and time to get clean straight lines. Allow yourself at least 10-15 minutes per invitations. Some men are “allergic” to crafting. When you ask your honey for help with the invites, he may head for the hills, but trust me on this: Burning wood + tools = FUN FOR YOUR FIANCE. He’ll dig this project big time!
Wood Laminate Invite
This project is an easy one for beginners, but using the wood burning tool can take some practice. Its best to have pieces of scrap veneer around for trial runs so that you can get a feel for the tool.
1. Using a heavy duty rotary paper cutter or shape craft knife and ruler, cut the sheets of veneer (they usually come in 3-foot sheets) into 6-inch-quare pieces and set them aside.
2. Now create your invitation wording on your computer word processing software and manage the sizes of the paper in page-set up to be 5X5 or 6X6 whichever size you select your final invite to be. HINT: Make sure your invitation envelopes will fit the paper size you select
3. Now its time to insert your invitation wording and clip art into the template. If you’re a font junkie like me, you’ll probably spend hours playing with this part of the invitation. that’s OK!! HINT: Try going to DaFont for unique and free fonts!!
4. Once you’ve found the perfect combination, fonts and clip art save your document and prepare to print your creation. You’ll notice that your veneer will have a grain to it: the piece will bend fairly easily along one axis but will remain stiff if bent along the other. Orient all the veneer pieces so that the grain is in the same direction. The bendy direction must aline itself or be parallel to the direction of the printer roller. The veneer needs to conform itself to the roller as it prints. Otherwise, the veneer could split during printing. Worse still, you could damage your printer!! Just speaking from experience, LOL
5. Print the invitations, feeding each veneer one at a time, by hand.
6. Plug in your wood burning tool according to manufactors instructions and begin the handmade design portion of this invitation. Many wood burning tools come with a variety of tips, don’t be afraid to interchange them and come up with unique designs.
Professionally printed veneer invitations can cost upwards of $1200 (depending on how many you order of course). Your own DIY version listed above should cost you about $3 per invitation.
Love this IDEA? Now that you’re a pro, why not extend the theme into your ceremony programs, menu’s and seating cards? Tying together a rustic and unique wedding all your own!
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