Here's my quick and easy
What I needed to make them and the lined envelopes:
- White linen card stock from
I added the travel agent's and our wedding website's information to the back. It took about 10 minutes to mock up -- I should have spent more time on it, but I was satisfied with the result.
Making my own envelope liners:
The envelope liners were really easy to make. There are a ton of how-to tutorials out there, but this one is helpful and includes free templates and patterns, as is this one which has over 100 envelope liners and templates.
The pattern I used is "tiny pieced chevron" in light grey from Melstampz's Flickr. She has hundreds of free digital paper patterns to choose from. I printed them on plain computer paper. I was able to cut two liners per page (they were slightly smaller than the envelope, but you can't see to the bottom of the envelope when you open them).
Some tutorials recommend you cut an envelope to trace a pattern. I simply measured from below the envelope's glue line and cut a square template from a piece of thin cardboard. I trimmed the excess paper around the angled sides of the envelope flap afterwards.
Once cut, slid the paper into the envelope below the envelope's glue line. Secure with double-sided tape on the envelope flap.
The breakdown:
Time: 3 hours to make and assemble 64 save-the-dates and lined envelopes -- minus the printing time, during which I watched TV and drank wine.
This was spread out over four evenings, but easily could have all been done in a day. We left the paper to dry overnight before running it through the printer again.
Cost:
- .20 per white linen envelope = $12.80
- .28 per white linen card stock = $4.48
- $40.32 in domestic (Canada) postage
GRAND TOTAL: .90 per save the date, postage included
*Note: I'm not including the price of the computer paper and some supplies because we already had them and will be using them in future projects.
Future paper DIY projects:
As I mentioned, we're going to be doing the invitation suite, so we ordered all the card stock and envelopes at once to make those plus programs, welcome letters and luggage tags for the invites. This saved us shipping costs.
Some of the future costs will be slightly higher because we are using Tiffany blue metallic card stock for the envelopes and luggage tags, which will hold together the invitation suite along with teal and white Divine Twine we already purchased from GreenMunch.ca.
