DIY: Easy Classy Wedding Invites

Wedding invitations. These small packets of paper are a great way to send a good impression to your guests regarding your most awaited wedding. However, it can also be a very expensive one. As a practical bride preparing for the more important expenses that come with being married, you would probably want to cut the cost on these. You can cut cost through the number of invitations and you can also cut the cost for each set of invites.

Cutting Cost on the Number of Copies

Usually, you only give one (1) invite per family. You can also do the same for every group of your friends. You can allocate one for your whole college barkada, and one for your high school friends. Same goes with your office mates and other groups of friends you may have. Still, it is your prerogative to send one specially for your boss or school adviser. But I think it is fine if they are also included in the groups.

Cutting Cost of Each Copy

I always say, a little imagination and a little effort can go a long way. So, I designed our invites through Microsoft PowerPoint. If you have more technical background (yes, you who does graphic arts for a living), you might find better means to create the template and design of your invites.

Designing your Invitation:

There are a few things needs to be in your wedding invitation. Here is a quick guide:

1. Basic details.This is a given. You need to include the name of the two of you, the venues, and the date and time. In our case, we also have the name of our parents
2. The Entourage. Not sure if this is what's normal in other countries but in the Philippines, people receiving the invites would like to know who are included in your entourage. We placed them on the back of page 1.
3. RSVP, Attire, Gift request/Registry. All of these are on the third page. We placed how many seats we reserved for them. I'm still hoping they would follow the numbers. Haha!
4. The Map. The last page is the map to guide your guest as to where the venues are. I also included a few numbers they can call in case they get lost or confused with the directions.

Make all these as creative as you want. There is really a lot of possibilities. Put them the way we did, interchange the position of some info or put everything simple in one big enough page. It's really up to you. Make if playful or formal, the important thing is to make them reflect your theme and your personality as a couple. 

The photos below is our wedding invitation. It costs about 46 pesos each. I had the pages printed for forty pesos but if you have a good enough printer at home, you might be able to save more. :)

The two page back to back print out

I wanted to add a little bit of my baking background so we decided to use doilies as the envelope. We also used a midnight blue ribbon to "tie" it to the color theme.

Choosing the size of the doily is quire tricky. The 10" is a little bit too small while the 12" is overlapping for our 5" print outs. We went with the 12" as the overlap is quite a beautiful touch.

 

Center the invite in the doily and fold both sides.

 

I cut out the excess.

 

As I go, I noticed it was easier to cut the excess once the ribbon is tied. So, that's what  I did on the next ones.

 

Be careful when tying the ribbon. The doily is only made of paper and could easily break.

 

And here is the finished ones. :)

 

Some more photos. teehee :)

 

   I really loved how they turned out. They fit perfectly with our vintage/classic theme. :)

Hope you liked this tutorial

Keep Your Sleeves Up

Have you ever struggled keeping your sleeves up? Well, with the weather we are in, it is time to bring out all the nice and cozy long sleeved shirts and sweaters. But we all know that work will still be the same no matter the weather, so we tend to roll up those sleeves for us to be able to work faster and more efficiently. 

The challenge is keeping those sleeves up. As we wear it through the day, fabric gets loose and stretched and would sometime roll back down. The solution - just a handy dandy rubber band! Here's how to wear it.

In the morning, your sleeves are still quite tight. Not a lot of pulling and tugging yet.

By noon, it starts to fall back down...

It is time to bring out your rubber bands. :) Just one for each arm. This could be a thin hair scrunchy or any other thin elastic that you have. It shouldn't be too small because it may cut the blood flow in your arm and be quite uncomfortable. For average girl arm, you can use regular rubber band from your office supplies.

Just put it over your sleeves and place is in one of the folds rolling them up creates.

And, your sleeves are safe for work! :)

Loom Band Hack No. 2

How To Make a Willis Bracelet Faster

Those who are familiar with the Willis Bracelet would know how tedious it can be to do one bracelet. It is a process of putting the bands in the pegs, adding more bands, taking it off every time you add some more bands, and putting it back. (For those who are not familiar, there are several tutorials in Youtube.com). So, I thought there should be an easier way.

I am hoping you get the idea based on the pictures alone. :)

Instead of working on the same four pegs over and again, use all of them! Set up the bands on over four pegs as you would on each run. This way, it would be faster and you can also double check if you have all the right colors at the same time.

Instead of attaching the long base ones (individual connected bands) on each peg every time you will do 8 bands, just pull it through the gaps in between. It is easier to slide all the bands through the length of the long base bands connected bands. Do the same for all the 4 base bands.

Continue to do so until you reached the end of the long base bands. Use c-clips to connect them together.