Create homemade wedding invitations that are special and uniquely YOU!

Spend less on your wedding by making your own homemade wedding invitations. 

I was shocked when I was browsing wedding magazines and saw invitations that sold for as much as $30. EACH!! Of course you can get them for much less, too, but I decided to make mine myself and I'm glad I did. It was a lot of fun, and they were uniquely ours!

Many large craft stores have a very good selection of scrapbooking supplies for a lot less than you would spend at a specialty scrapbooking store. If you need ideas, it is a good idea to browse a scrapbooking store, though - they have a lot of displays with ideas.

At a craft store I bought:

• some paper with a pretty print (in the scrapbooking section)
  
• some vellum in a color that coordinated with my printed paper
  
• a couple of rolls of pretty ribbon
  
• a decorative border hole punch
  
• pretty envelopes
  

I spent less than $40. on all of this.

How much do you need to buy? Do some planning before you start. Decide what you want the invitations to say (for ideas, see wedding invitation wording ) and type it up on your computer in a font that you like. Once you have done this, you can decide how big your invitations need to be. (Unless you plan to make your own envelopes, keep available envelope sizes in mind when making this decision!)

You should have your guest list ready before you start on your invitations. Make one invitation for each household and make two or three extra ones in case you forgot someone. Buy enough supplies for two or three extra, too, in case you mess a few up. (hey, it happens!)

Once you know how many invitations you need to make and how big they will be, you can plan how much paper and ribbon you need. You will need about 9 inches of ribbon for each invitation (if you make them like I did).

Cut your paper and vellum the same size and print your wording on the vellum. Print them one at a time and take care when removing them from the printer - let the ink dry before stacking them so it doesn't smear.

Put the paper and the vellum back together and punch two holes in the top or on the left side (to put the ribbon through). Punch the bottom or the right side with the decorative border punch if you are using this.

Put the ribbon through the holes from the back and tie it in the front. Try not to make the bows too full or you will have trouble getting them into the envelopes!

Other ideas for homemade wedding invitations:

• For a really personal touch, your homemade wedding invitations might feature a picture of you and your fiancé on the front. You can manipulate the photo in a program like Adobe Photoshop or Picnik to incorporate special effects, such as making the photo sepia-toned, embedding a lacy looking texture, or creating a cameo-style oval bordered by flowers. Touches like these make homemade wedding invitations really one of a kind.
  
  
• For a more traditional look use two solid colors of card stock instead of printed paper and vellum. Print your invitation on the lighter of the two and cut it smaller than the other one. Center it on the darker card and put the two together with ribbon or glue.
  

Don't wait too long to get started. Making and addressing invitations can be time-consuming and you want to have them ready to mail 2 - 4 weeks before the wedding.



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