British Shower: The Invitations

Woo hoo, invitations for BM Pumpkin's shower! I was so excited to get started on these and, not gonna lie, was using them as a bit of a trial run to see how challenging it would be to do the invites for my wedding all by myself.

Disclaimer: These are, like, semi-DIY. Kinda like that show Semi-Homemade Cooking.

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This show cracks me up. I swear, one time she bought a bundt cake from the store, put large marshmallows in the middle, and frosted the whole thing with green icing. I think it was for St. Patrick's Day.

Anyway, these invites were also semi homemade. I decided to combine the shower invites and bachelorette invites since both events were on the same day. I also decided not to make the invitations British themed, since the theme for the shower was a surprise and I do not trust 30 women to keep a secret. Instead, I used Pumpkin's wedding colors which are Carolina blue, black, and white.

I got the shower invite and matching recipe card from www.downloadandprint.com. I printed them out on my computer on white cardstock I got from Michaels. I printed them in two batches, which made some color variation and I have no idea why.

Crappy pics by me. I did prop them on a Brides magazine though.

Then I decided, since sometimes guests get confused, that they might need some explanation on the recipe card. Being a Type A freak (about only some things - I was def not concerned with ten zillion shades of blue on the invites), I really wanted the recipe cards to be a surprise. Plus, I wanted to encourage people to send the card back even if they couldn't come. This was important since a lot of the guests, including the groom's family, live far away. So I made this...get ready to be impressed....

I know. It's amazing. Look, I was doing this on a Mac which is still new to me, so it really was more challenging than it appears....

Finally (or so I thought), I needed to make the bachelorette invitation. I toyed with making it hot pink but my inner matchy-matchy bride won out. I came up with this gem:

Note the dotted border. Fancy huh?

Whew. I breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was printed, right? Not quite yet, I realized. What about some of those snazzy wrap around address labels?

I used the famous Martha Stweart template but then made it my own! See the dotted lines?

OK, now we're finish...oh, wait. I need something to contain this four piece invitation suite. Hmmmmmmm. How about...

-a heart paper clip to attach the recipe instructions to the recipe card

and

-some black dotted ribbon to tie it altogether!

But wait, do you see something in the top left corner? What's that black and white daisy print?

Behold, there is no truer statement than "Necessity is the mother of invention." I stuffed these beautiful envelopes, turned the envelope over, and noticed that the lovely black dotted ribbon was clearly evident through the envelope, ruining all the hard effort I had put into both the inside invitation and the outside of the envelope. I had done a lot of work, designing, printing, cutting, and cursing my Mac and printer for their uncooperative ways. I had made wraparound address labels, for goodness sake! Was I going to let this flimsy, see through, tramp of an envelope foil my invitation suite at last???

HELL no. I was not.

I knew probably I was the only one who would notice. I knew I was the only one who cared. Mr. Magic said "Just leave it, it's fine." But no. Tramp envelope had to go.

I went to Michael's for the umpteenth time that day and bought a book of 8x8 black, white, and grey card stock. In retrospect, I should have gone with something thinner, but oh well, live and learn. I followed this tutorial.

Mini Magic couldn't wait to rip into hers!

OK, now that the envelope is properly clad, we're done. Except...now the envelopes were so full that simply licking and sticking was not enough. Since I already had sticker paper from the labels, I just busted out a bunch of round stickers outlined in dots with the bride and groom's initials in them, used a circle punch to cut them out, and stuck those bad boys on!

Note: I have no idea why this envelope looks so banged up. This was after traveling and being devoured by that sister of mine!

After making these invitations for 30 women, I'm telling you, I felt exhausted. It took way longer than I had anticipated. But, it was a LOT of fun! And now I am a bit more familiar with the process. I'm still toying with how much work I want to put in for my own invites.

I'll leave you with some last pics and a question - did you outsource your invites or DIY? Why?

The invitations suite in all it's glory!

Mini Magic so excited for her first shower and bachelorette party!