DIY Envelope Liners

As many brides know, lining your envelopes is a great way to spice up your invitations. It truly is the "icing on the cake" of invitations, and they look so cute!

Generally if you were to buy envelope liners, they range in price from $.50 - $1.00 each depending on whether the artist/distributor you are buying them from is making your invitations as well or if you are buying them separate. Depending on the amount of invitations... some brides could be spending from $50 to $100 dollars on liners alone. As a bride on a budget, I knew that wasn't going to be the case for me! And here I'll show you how to do it yourself! It's easy and cheap!

Materials:

     - All of your envelopes

     - A scrap piece of thin cardboard (think cereal box or thick magazine cover)

     - Pretty paper to line the envelopes

     - Scissors

     - Glue runner (this stuff is amazing!)

For paper I would suggest a complimentary color to your envelopes in either a simple print or solid color. It doesn't need to be too elaborate, just enough to 'pop!' when the envelope is opened. The paper needs to be relatively thin, because it needs to fold easily with the envelope and not obstruct it from staying closed. I would suggest looking for bulk colored printer paper (it's thin enough and inexpensive) or hunt down paper from bulk/discount scrapbook stores!

For the ultimate scavenger, you can try and find your paper for free, using recycled or other sources! For paper, I used recycled AAA maps of northern california. It is the perfect thickness, and it tied in so nicely with our outdoorsy theme and colors. Best of all, they were free!

As soon as you have all your materials ready, it's time to start tracing and cutting your liners. The easiest and most efficient way to trace the liners out of your paper is to create a durable stencil that you can reuse. While they sell envelope liner stencils in most craft stores, it's simple (and free!) to make your own.

Creating the Stencil:

To create your stencil, You must take an envelope, open it with the flap up, and with pencil trace the entire envelope onto the cardboard. Cut this piece out. Now we need to cut the stencil so that it will fit inside the envelope. To do this place the top rounded portion of the stencil, just underneath the glue line of the envelope flap. You will see that the curves of the stencil match the glue lines all the way down to the fold. Note where the rectangular part of the envelope begins, and make a vertical line on your stencil a half an inch in from the edge of the envelope on both sides. Cut these strips off. Lastly, you need to measure and cut the bottom edge. Place the top of the stencil, again, beneath the edge of the glue line on the flap. Bend the bottom of the stencil up so that you can see how deep the liner needs to go. It only needs to go down as far as you can see the inside of the envelope. Mark a half inch below this spot, and draw a horizontal line on the stencil, and cut at this line. Now you have your stencil! It should be able to slide into the envelope now and if you place the top of the stencil underneath the glue line of the flap, it should not be covering any other part of the glue on the envelope. 

Tracing and Cutting the Liners:

Take the liner and place it on your paper. Line it up with the edge of your paper, and alternate the direction of your stencil to get the most tracings onto a page. Then cut them out!

Gluing and Placing the Liners:


Use the glue runner, and line all edges of the liner. Carefully place the liner inside the envelope, making sure that the top rounded portion is underneath the envelopes glue line at all points (so that you can close the envelope later!) I have found that the easiest way to place the liner is to line up the top portion first, and smooth out the entire "flap" portion of the liner. Then carefully pull the rectangular portion of the envelope open a bit and tuck the corners into the envelope. After it has been smoothed out, you can give it a quick fold to crease the liner, and then set it aside to dry!

Find a friend to help you out and let me know how your project goes!
You can definitely comment any questions, tips or tricks below! (you don't even need to have an account to comment!)

Enjoy!

- Tessa
*see the invitations that went with these envelopes here!

The Invitations

When Seth and I started crafting the invitations in our heads, ideas were flying out everwhere. "They should be green! no, brown! with hand written calligraphy! it should be a map! pop-outs! little cards! date stamps! a butterfly should fly out! .... needless to say, we were very excited to create some very unique invitations.

We knew that they were going to be handmade. Mostly because we are on such a small budget, and also because we wanted them to be awesome.

We had so many great ideas to put into our invitations, it didn't quite fit on the traditional half sheet of cardstock. And so it inevitably became a small "guidebook" to the big day. And while Seth and I did much of the imagining and crafting, we had amazing friends and family who helped with spectacular artwork that really made the invitations shine.

And so, here are some pictures of it all put together:

Starting with the envelopes:

My grandma Sara did all the calligraphy by hand (we were so blessed!) And we found these adorable scouting stamps at the post office that went well with our adventurous theme! 

We lined the inside of the envelopes with handmade envelope liners! It was easy (and best of all cheap!) We ordered the maps through AAA (through our membership) and they sent us tons of free maps of California and specific Northern California areas. See how we did it here! Voila - instant "fancy" envelopes! 

For the outside of the guidebook we "tied it with string" because I really just wanted an excuse to spend an extra couple hours with Seth tying bows..... haha, but really, we thought it would be more fun if you got to 'unwrap' it!

 And here as you open it up, is the first page, our traditional invitation:

The tree was borrowed from a drawing by Robert Van Pelt, an artist and researcher who studies the beautiful redwoods, and other skyhigh trees. Seth and I crafted the wording of the invite ourselves :)

The next pages came from our quest to ensure that everyone will be coming prepared for this adventurous day! Our great friend Melody drew the ranger caricatures, didn't they turn out cute? And the list comes from the "Classic Ten Essentials" every backpacker should know when packing for a trip, and of course we modified it to be our cute wedding checklist.

This next page is one of my favorites! Our wonderful friend Diana drew this for us. It's a cute play on "tying the knot."

I came up with this knot idea one day at school, Diana was with me, and I showed her my thought. She miraculously took my awful kindergarten drawings of knots, and turned it into this.... I am still beyond impressed :)

This next page is beautifully illustrated by our awesome friend Josh. The detail he put into the compass rose really is amazing! The quote under the compass reads: "There are two sorts of romantics: those who love, and those who love the adventure of loving." 

That page folds out to show a full page map that was inked by another talented friend of ours, Andrey.

The first map is of the greater Humboldt County area, and the second is a close up of the city of Trinidad and the important wedding locations. 

For not ever having lived in Humboldt, nevertheless California, Andrey did such an impressive job!

We included a couple of insert cards in addition to the booklet. The RSVP card was fashioned into a postcard that guests could easily reply back with!

The artwork was drawn again by my grandma Sara and the back was designed by my step-mom Dena and myself. We gave all guests dinner options for the ceremony - and the RSVP was the perfect place to figure out what everyone wanted to eat!

For the return address on both the large envelope and the RSVP card we used a self-inking stamp --- and boy are we glad we didn't have to write our address hundreds of times! It was worth every penny we spent on it!

Our Reception Card with Address:

And here is a sweet card we included in a couple of the invitations. We are having many of our favorite little ones join us as flowerchildren for the big day! My little sister Sarajane (she will be a flowergirl herself!) drew this invitation for all the other kids that are invited to take part!

After we got all the artwork compiled and I designed the layouts, fonts, and words, Seth and I spent the greater part of a week printing (oh my gosh we need a faster printer!), cutting and binding them together!

This was Invitation Station:

To bind all the pages together I sewed them using a simple stitch on Diana's trusty sewing machine!

Here is what they looked like as we were cutting, folding and binding them together:

Finally we stuffed them into their envelopes, sealed them, stamped them, and away they went! It was basically a crazy month that while many have said we should go into the invitation business, Seth and I learned it most certainly would be detrimental to our future marriage if I did!! Even though it was stressful at times, we were both amazed at what we created, and felt so blessed that we had the friends, family and creativity to make them ourselves. 

Materials:

Paper: Paperbag text paper and Chocolate cover paper from Paper Source
Envelopes: Paperbag A9 Envelopes from Paper Source
Baker's Twine: Forest Green Hobbies from the Heart (Etsy)
Address Stamp: from Glitter Puff (Etsy)

*And that's our wedding invitations!*

Let us know what you think :)

- Tessa & Seth

Save the Dates

The Save the Dates went out a while ago, and in my efforts to eventually post the invitations, I thought I should share the Save the Date cards first!

The front was hand drawn by my grandma Sara! The idea of the art, however, was crafted over time by Diana and myself. I was so pleased with how well it turned out!

The reverse side was designed by my step-mom Dena and myself, we decided to make it a postcard to

a)save on postage

b) save on envelopes

and c) postcards are so darn cute!

We printed them out ourselves onto 4x6 postcard cardstock, stamped them and away they went!

DIY Wine Bottle Water Pitcher

Today, Seth and I started a new project! I thought it would be neat to start working on decor for the reception, and I thought of making custom water pitchers! Not only was it pretty inexpensive but it repurposes an old wine bottle in the process! We decided to etch the glass to make them cute and unique.

First we scored these beautiful cobalt blue glass bottles off craigslist, 12 for only 12 dollars! After a quick soak in hot water, the labels came off easily!

We dried the bottles and created handmade stencils (stickers and vinyl cut-outs) and taped them to the bottle. Then we covered the remaining glass portion with a fun craft item called Armour Etch! After waiting for the cream to set (about 5 minutes) we rinsed the bottles and removed the stencils! They are turning out really well, I'm excited to make some more tomorrow!

Any suggestions of what stencils we should design next??

- Tessa

A Great Day for Mason Jars

A major climax to our hunt for Mason Jars, Seth and I collected 143 jars today using our mad craigslist skills!

A good number of Sonoma County residents feel pretty good about contributing to a couple youths carrying on the canning hobby, but we really it's a rustic folkie party they're supporting ;)

Although with all these supplies it would be a shame not to try canning something post wedding. We're thinking homemade nut butter and jam!

Can't wait for their next appearance in October!

-Tessa

Out for Delivery!!

The invitations are finally binded, tied, stuffed, stamped, sealed and sent away! 

This was a HUGE DIY project that we seriously could not have completed with out the amazing help from our friends and family - Andrey, Diana, Josh, Melody, Grandma Sara, Sarajane and Dena - we owe you a large assortment of baked goods for sure. (And now that we're done getting them together, we actually have time to bake!) 

Everything in our 'invitation suite' was handcrafted and specially designed for the wedding. The best part is we did it on a budget, and while spending 3x less on our ensemble, we created exactly what we wanted. Although it took a lot more time and grueling hours in photoshop than if we had ordered them!

More pictures will be up soon, it's time to put our feet up and relax -- we're hoping that the hardest wedding project is now behind us!

Cheers!

Sarajane creates a "Save the Date"

Seth and I are so fortunate to have so many talented people in our family. We commissioned my Grandma Sara to create a Save the Date (To be Announced and Shared soon!) and Sarajane, my youngest sister, lovingly created one for us too!

It is so beautiful and perfectly adorable, can you believe she is only 7 years old? 

I really like the texture she used (the front and inside drawings popped out of the page!)

Plus it's so 'Sarajane' to include "what to wear" in the invite -- she's such a diva, and really it is the most important part right?

- Tessa