Everyone loves a good party, right?!?! To build the
anticipation of great party, whether it is a small get together or a huge
soiree, it starts with the invitation. Invitations these days tend to be a
text, email, or Facebook® invite. All too often in today’s world of technology
we lose the personal touch of traditions from the past, this is why a mailed
invitation can be an attention grabber for your next par-tay, as no one expects
such a gesture!
For the purposes of this How-To post, I’ll share with you
all an invite I recently did for a dinner party in honor Habitat for Humanity Walton
County in conjunction with Destin
Charity Wine Auction Foundation— Both great local charities serving our
local communities!
First set the tone for your party and let it inspire your
invitation. This is a Patron Winner dinner party set in Ruskin Place in Seaside, Florida hosted by the
owners of Art of Simple
. So I went and saw first hand the setting for the party.
Looking at the surroundings and the purpose of the party I pulled:
- Supplies that feature natural textures and neutral colors for my base.
- Wine being highlighted I choose to pull a wonderful red that was inspired by both the wine and the Tolix chairs in park.
I designed the invitations using a typeface called “Love Potion”.
I took all of the information that
needed to appear on the invite and organized it in an easy to follow manner
with emphasis on hierarchy. With such a large amount of information a picture
or illustration of sorts did not make sense to me for this particular design,
so I took inspiration from the theme of the wine auction and organized it all
to follow the shape of a wine bottle.
While the design of the information on the page is
important, a simple combination of fonts can make for a really simple and
elegant invite. Stick to a maximum of two typefaces, such as a script font for
your main headings and a san serif for the bulk of the information.
Supplies I used:
·
Inkjet Linen Fabric Paper *
·
Chip Board {Paper
Source}
·
Cream Labels {Paper
Source}
·
Chocolate #10 Envelopes {Paper
Source}
·
Spray Mount {Michaels}
·
Paper Trimmer
·
Ruler
After I designed the invitation on screen I printed them out
and cut them down to size with a paper trimmer. I cut them down slightly
smaller than I cut down my chipboard to allow the chipboard to “frame” the
invitation. While you do not have to do this step, it really adds dimension and
weight to your invitations. So if you are using a thinner paper for your
invitations I highly recommend adding it to another sheet of another paper— the
backing paper can be another color or texture.
Once everything is cut down to size you’ll want to use spray
adhesive to put them sheets together. I recommend doing this outside and laying
down a towel to place your invites on, not only to protect them but also to
protect the surface below from getting gunky from the spray mount.
After your spray mount has dried you are ready to insert
them in your envelopes and address!
I forgot to mention before you go through all of the effort
to assemble your invites, make sure you proof read them, your spouse proof
reads them, and even some random stranger proof reads them. After all was said
and done these invites had 4 typos in them and I had to recreate them all over
again. So lesson learned, even though those whom charged you with the task of
creating an invite might say they look great have someone besides yourself take
a hard look at them for errors!
*This Linen Paper used to be carried by Paper Source and YES
you could run it through your printer at home. Sadly I cannot find this great
product any longer. I used what was the last of my stock from a personal
project for these invites.
