My DIY Passport Save-the-Dates

kris9685 · July 30, 2011

Hey Everyone! I cannot believe I completed my first DIY project for our wedding. We finished our passport save the dates & mailed them out last month. We have been so crazy I am just posting the info now. I used so many suggestions & sample ideas from this website I wanted to give back and share my experience for others to learn from.

For starters I used the Ayleebits free template in Pages (on a Mac) to create the documents I also used Photoshop Elements to create the "stamp" images in the background of each page & the magnet. For the covers I ordered 3 custom stamps from www.simonstamp.com and used s silver ink pad I bought at Michael's. The Green covers are metallic card stock & the inner pages are sand colored heavyweight paper. I order all of our paper from www.paperandmore.com. We sewed the pages together using crochet thread I found at Walmart and it matched the color of the inside pages perfectly.

Tools we used included paper cutters, corner rounders, a circle cutter, no-wrinkle glue, a laminater, business card sized magnets, removeable glue dots and a thick needle.

In addition to the passports we made little magnets with a monogram and included the date & location on them. We used the removable glue dots to adhere the magnets temporarily to the back of the passports.

Here are a few photos of the final product:

Front covers

Back sides with the magnets attached.

We made 45 passports. I was so grateful that my 2 bridesmaids, aunt, mother, & fiance were all there to help me get these put together. My dad even helped with the magnets!

We pretty much set up an assembly line to get these done. First cutting out the pages & rounding the corners. Then sewing the inner pages together, then glueing them to the outer page/cover. Finally we stamped the fronts & let them sit over night. The ink took a while to dry so we needed to lay them out on a table.

Here are the magnet's laid out. We attached them to the passports & stuffed the envelopes on another day.

I made the envelope liners by taking the compas image I created & shrinking it down & multiplying it. I got this idea from someone on here & it came out perfect.

Front upclose

close up of the envelop liners

Here is a close up of the 1st page inside. I used the same idea with the smal replicated compases inside & the large one on top. The compass is the same as the one used for the stamp. I found an image I liked on Google & edited it to the way I liked it to look & added a J in the middle. We will probably carry this image through to our invitations & other pieces at the wedding.

So because I used Pages to create these I didn't think many people would find the template useful. If you really want my template PM me and I'll send it to you. Instead I have converted the document to images so you can see the rest of the pages. Because of the way the template is set up the page numbers may seem strange, but when you put them together they are in the correct order. For printing- the 1st page (twice on one sheet of paper) I only printed them single sided as the would get glued down to the green covers. The other two pages were printed on the reverse of each other & I printed twice as many sheet as the 1st page.

I hope this post can help someone else get ideas or answer some questions about creating these passports as I did when I started out.

Feel free to ask me any questions you may have & let me know what you think!!

Essential0929 · July 30, 2011

Great job! The passports look amazing, you should be proud.

JPenny · July 30, 2011

Great job!! They look great. Its so exciting to have them done and your guests will love them.

Sharon99 · July 31, 2011

Very impressive! You did a great job, I don't know how you DIY ladies do it!

bride2b2013 · July 31, 2011

great job! thats very creative and time consuming for a save the date Im super impressed!

dominiqueamber · December 2, 2011

Really pretty..I love to see the gold on the dark paper. I love your envelope liner - your inspiring me!

leungbobe · January 10, 2012

Great job and very pretty

jenaya · January 22, 2012

These are beautiful! How did you sew these together? How did you tie the end of the string so that it didn't come apart and did not show? Did you use a regular needle?

divadavis330 · January 24, 2012

I love it!!! You did an amazing job and has truly inspired me

kris9685 · January 26, 2012

Thanks everyone for the compliments! These were a labor of love for sure.

For the sewing- we made a template for the spacing of the holes and used a pointed tool to mark little holes through the pages. We did this to each whole passport minus the covers (3 pages at a time). Then we used a thick needle (which made the holes a little bigger- enough for the thread) when sewing them. I think they were crocheting needles & thread, but not positive. My grandmother had them on hand. To sew them we stared from the back/bottom & ended out the back/bottom. We left the strings about a half inch longer than the passport. Then we glued the inner page to the cover. Once the glue dried we cut the excess string off & voila!.

Originally Posted by jenaya

These are beautiful! How did you sew these together? How did you tie the end of the string so that it didn't come apart and did not show? Did you use a regular needle?