How To Make Beautiful Wedding Stationery

For the convenience of having someone else do it for you, buying wedding stationery is an expensive business. Not only can you give your purse strings a rest, but you can have fun and show your guests how much they mean to you by taking the time to hand make your invitations and thank you notes. You can also make co-ordinating order of service sheets, seating plan and place cards. This is a useful exercise for including friends or family in the event and provides a good excuse for a get together and a chat, if you needed one!

Look out for buy-one-get-one-free deals on paper reams in your local office supplier, where paper or card are available in a broad range of colours, or visit a specialist arts and crafts store and only pay for what you need, buying paper by the sheet. (Who said they have to be white? If you have a colour scheme, run with it)

Use magazine pages or scrap paper to decide how best to fold your invitations. Once you have created the basic structure, think about the area left inside to write in. Keep things simple and print out the wording on a computer, using column settings to create two or three copies per page and making use of a fancy typeface. If you prefer to handwrite, do so on a separate sheet of paper and stick it into the card, as a spelling mistake or blot on your invitation will mean having to bin it and start from scratch. Also when handwriting, if the sheet is thin enough, trace over a perfected template to get the wording correctly spaced and aligned.

Experiment with strips of ribbon, off cuts of lace or silk, bows and tissue paper to create your very own design. A few suggestions include - lying ribbon lengthwise inside the card along the fold and tying in a bow on the front so that it forms a 'margin'; wrapping the ribbon horizontally around the card and tying in a bow so that it holds the card closed and guests then slip it off or untie it to open the card. Build up layers of tissue paper and offcuts of bridal fabric or lace, each smaller than the one below. Use a gold or silver glitter pen to write your names or initials or to pick out a pattern. Use a glue gun to stick on beads or sequins. Make your own stencil template - shape like a horseshoe, bells, doves, hearts or a bow and use with pastel pencils to colour in the design.

Use a potato or cork, cutting out a horseshoe or heart shape and using red or yellow poster paint to print onto your stationery.

Stitch a heart shape, your initials or intertwined rings, onto off cuts of fabric. Fold a sheet of card in half and cut out a window in the front panel. Fix the fabric to the inside of the card with the motif facing out through the window. Stick a second piece of card over the front panel to secure and hide the fabric from the inside. Stick your wording sheet inside on the second panel of the card. Substitute stitching for a weave of ribbon or coloured paper. Line up strips vertically and secure them at one end. Weave a second set of strips horizontally, alternately going under and over the vertical strips until you have formed a square. Secure the woven square, sandwiched between the window and the protective hiding panel, as before. Alternatively you could use the same method to insert a photo of the two of you. The window is most easily cut out (using a craft knife) as a square, but you could try a heart or circle shape with each of these designs.

I hope these suggestions have encouraged your creativity and sparked your own interpretations for producing personalised and gorgeous wedding stationery!

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