Envelopes

The envelopes for the invitations were a project by themselves. I made envelope liners that had my woodcut seashell printed on them, and hand addressed the guests names on them.

I was inspired by Martha Stewart to line my invitation envelopes. To make a pattern for envelope liners, take one envelope and cut away the gummed area. Measure and mark 1/8th of an inch off on the sides and bottom of the envelope, and cut on those lines. Transfer the pattern to mat board. Use this to cut around with an xacto knife to cut out each liner. I printed a woodcut on the liners, but any rubber stamp would be a nice touch, or use pretty patterned paper as a graphic liner. To glue them in, slide the liner into the envelope, fold down the flap and the liner together to make the crease. Slide a scrap piece of paper under the liner that is still folded over, and run a glue stick around the edge. Remove the scrap paper, and fold the envelope flap back over the liner and rub it down to stick with a bone folder.

Envelope pattern made of mat board

On the blog Design Sponge that I love to follow, I saw a project for addressing envelopes that inspired me to create my own project. That project was to use a calligraphy font on your computer, and print your envelopes through your home printer in a color slightly darker than your envelopes. This would be used to go over with a paint pen to create the look of calligraphy.

I adapted this project by printing out my guests name and addresses from Word in Bickham Script Pro on to white paper. If you don't have this font, there are several sites that offer free fonts like searchfreefonts.com I placed the print out on a light box, and centered the envelopes over each name, and traced them with a calligraphy pen and ink. Using the dip pen in a bottle of ink gave the envelopes a lovely hand written touch. My hand writing was a little shaky, but I think the results looked almost as good as the real thing. I also used this light box and tracing technique for the seating cards, and menu cards, which I will show in the next post.