Wedding Invitations

They started out with watercolor paper that I taped to ceramic tiles. 

Then I gathered reinkers in water colors.  A drop of each on a plastic lid, a bowl of water, and a nice angled paint brush.

I gave the paper a wash of water and then quickly dabbed the brush in the colors I wanted.

The wet paper helped them to blend. I learned fast to start off the paper so as not to get too strong of color in the starting place.  Water and ink mixed until I got the effect that I wanted.  Then I put them aside to dry. 

HWNSNBP brought me twelve 12" tiles so I was able to do about 24 at a clip.  Took me two sessions to get 70 done. 

Then they were trimmed down and mounted onto Bermuda Bay cs.

Jump to the finished product outside.   The "folders were created using Sahara Sand paper.  The short fold was stamped with a wheel resembling sand and layered with another strip of Bermuda Bay - the sand and the sea with their torn edges. 

The belly band of Bermuda Bay is dry embossed with a seashell motif and tied with some Pool Party twine.  The little starfish you see here and will see on the inside are punched using a MS punch and the edges colored with Bermuda Bay.  (Thanks to HWNSNBP for punching out 360 of these little gems for me.)  We ordered some Oatmeal envelopes from Enveloper right here in NJ.  They come in a 5 x 7 outer size, so the invites fit perfectly and weren't scrunched a bit.

When the folder is opened you can see the invitation and the pocket on the side that holds the directions and accommodation information as well as the response card.

It took some trial and error (and a new ink cartridge), but I finally got the ink color to match the Bermuda Bay almost to perfection.  The wording was printed onto Whisper White CS and then mounted on another piece of Bermuda Bay.  The sand dollars were stamped using an old SU shell set onto watercolor paper and embossed with Pewter EP.  I cut these out while sitting on the balcony at the condo one Saturday night listening to a concert across the street.  Always multi-tasking!

Doing the edges of the starfish was made a lot easier after I stacked them in piles of about 8 and stuck a pin through the centers so I could use a little make-up sponge stick (thank you Rachel for letting me pocket a couple of those testers when we went to the make-up store!)  The pin hole was covered with a pearl on most of them so I just had to make sure that I had two for each without holes - one for the pocket and one for the belly band. 

The pocket was embossed using the seashells like the belly band.  A strip of Bermuda Bay,  some more Pool Party twine,  and another starfish finished them off.

The response postcards were printed on Pool Party cs.  My future daughter-in-law was responsible for all the wording on these invitations.  She researched and of course got my son's input and I love everything about them.  She also did all the VersaMark stamping of shells on the response cards and tied all the belly bands, in addition to printing and cutting to size the accommodations and directions cards.  (I am loving the fact that she's crafty too!)

They had postage stamps printed from Zazzle which actually was recommended by the USPS office that she took the prototype to to find out the postage.  The stamps the USPS had were not, should we say, fitting with the theme.

Here's a close up of the belly band - hope you can see the embossing.  (It's appearing to look turquoise in this picture, but it's definitely the darker Bermuda Bay.)

Here's the outside postage stamp up close.

And they added these cute stickers on the backs of the envelopes.  I did all the addresses on the envelopes in my modified/relaxed calligraphy. 

So that's what I've been up to for the past month or so.  HWNSNBP was under strict orders that should our place catch fire, the box with the paper/invitations and supplies should be grabbed first.  And when I transported them back and forth from the condo (it was so much more pleasant being able to work there in the air-conditioning!) everything was sorted into plastic bags first. 

It was a thrill to be asked and trusted with such an important part of this wedding process.  It was truly a collaborative effort.  And it was so exciting to get ours in the mail!