An Old-fashioned Kind Of Love Hand Drawn Invitations

by Alexandra Hunt
(Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)

These vintage inspired 50's wedding invitations were submitted to us by Alexandra from The Shortcake Wedding Blog.

Her Invitation Illustrations were drawn by hand with old-fashioned India ink and a nib.

She was looking for a very Cinderella-esque romantic vibe (hence the birds reminiscent of the famous scene where all of the critters are creating Cinderella's dress). So she chose some adorable birds mixed with old fashioned vintagy banners.

Although the illustrations were hand drawn in design, they were digitally rendered using a digital artist's tablet
. If you're even remotely artistic and you are really into a very personal one of a kind sort of invitation suite, you may want to try it out!

To read more about Alexandra's creative process check out her blog at A Shortcake Wedding

Tips & Hints To Help You Make These Invitations
by Do-it-yourself-invitations.com

These invitations have gotten a really great response, and heaps of DIY brides looking for instructions on how to create these wedding invitations.

First of all, the graphics on the "Old Fashioned Kind Of Love" invitations were hand drawn! I think for most of us this is an impossible feat. But you can get results much like the invitation shown by simply using a rubber stamp!

If you must have the hand drawn, or your the artisitic type, you can actually create hand drawn art right on your computer using a computer stylus and tablet. It's like a pen that you can use to draw right into your computer software. I've used both a Bamboo and a Intuos stylus (both by Wacom) and I love them both. However, there is a definite learning curve to starting out with a stylus and tablet, so get ready to do a lot of practicing and following tutorials to get used to using it!

But if you want to take the easy road...

There are a TON of really cool rubber stamps out there, many with vintage and antique images and themes. My absolute fave to use are CLEAR STAMPS. These are completely different than the old blocky stamps mounted on wood. Wood stamps can be a little more difficult to use efficiently as you cannot see where you are stamping. Still good, but...

Clear stamps are thin floppy little pieces of plastic which you mount yourself, onto a clear block. The stamps are able to peel off of the block when you are done, and remount any other stamp. Since they are clear errors are greatly reduced since you can see what you are stamping!

One little trick I like to use to reduce mess ups? I always have a piece of scrap paper handy right next to my project. I always apply the ink liberally to the stamp and then do a light test stamp before stamping the image onto my intended project. It comes out perfect about 95% of the time.

Still messing up? Keep a good thin marker in a coordinating color to your inks handy. Then just touch them up by hand.

You can buy pocket folds from some online stationery stores. LCI Paper Co. has a great selection in several colors, as well as a great selection of card stock and envelopes.

To get those neat rounded corners? Simple! Invest in a round corner paper punch and meticulously punch them out by hand.
I recommend having all of you paper professionally cut ahead of time and then go back over the corners yourself. You can get paper cut on a hydraulic machine at most any copy or print shop for relatively cheap, and super fast to boot. Hydraulic cutting machines cut large stacks of paper all at once, so your entire stack can be cut in minutes.


6 1/4 Sq Pocket Fold Stardream Antique Gold (25 Pack)
From: LCI Paper Co.