Hand Painted Invitations

by Stephanie Thomas
(Jackson, WY)

Materials Needed for hand painted invitations:
Paper Stock (2 colors, one 4" square, one 4.25" square)
Printer
Hemp Rope (7lb rope)
Acrylic Paint
Stencil (or no stencil, free hand would be great)
Nail (to poke holes in the RSVP)
Spray Glue
Envelopes on Etsy

These invitations started with 100 pieces of donated card stock (8.5"x5.5") from a friend who didn't use them in her wedding. I found the amazing envelopes on Etsy and decided to create an invite that looked similar to the envelope and allowed it to be sent in it.

I didn't want to make the traditional large invite with RSVP cards and maps and all that stuff (more economical/better for the environment). We set up an RSVP system on our website (feel free to check it out at www.stephandclay.com). My fiance is a web designer so he designed the text to fit in a 4 inch space. He created the RSVP card to fit on a 1.25" by 3" wide card. We printed out 2 invites and two RSVP cards per piece of card stock. Then we took it to Staples and for $8 they cut them all to size. We ordered the brown card stock from mountaincow.com at 4.25" per card. (They have super cheap custom cut card stock options).

Next step was spray gluing the white card stock onto the brown card stock. A girlfriend and I did that in an afternoon over grapefruit martinis. Once they dried (and we de-glued her counter) I took them to another friends and we spent a morning painting the designs on the invites. That took a bit of patience before figuring out how much paint needed to be on each envelope. I suggest SAMPLES! And of course sending the slightly less then perfect ones to close friends.

Last steps happened in my living room with my fiance. We set up an assembly line of poking holes in the RSVP cards, cutting hemp rope, and assembling the invites. This took longer than the other two projects combined. Once they were all assembled we color coordinated the acrylic paint with the envelope color (we had 4 different colors) they were set to be stuffed. We used plain white address labels to both seal the side of the envelope, and write the addresses on them. Top it of with 62 cent beautiful dragonfly stamps (no custom stamps necessary) and they were ready to go.

We have received fantastic feedback from friends and family and everyone loved the online RSVP idea. The mini invites are fun but still formal enough for our parents approval.