Make It Your Own!

I am and have always been a firm believer in being your own person and making things your own. So when Grandbee, Aunt Red, and I decided to throw my very good friend Mrs. T (or soon to be Mrs. T... hehe) a wedding shower, it was only appropriate that I make invitations that not only suited the shower but also reflected the wedding and the bride as well. So I went to Hobby Lobby on a search for what to do. Having made my own invitations for many events, including my own wedding, I felt confident I would have no problems with the task ahead of me. I had a hard time making my choices simply because I wanted them to be as close to perfect as possible and with the many colors being used in Mrs. T’s wedding my options were truly endless. I decided on a plain white note card and envelope. I also bought a multi color stamp pad and heart shaped stamps since I had acquired printed heart napkins and plates for the shower.

I love to use stamps to personalize things! Not only do they make your stationary unique from other stationary but each individual invite is unique. Anyone who has used a stamp pad knows, you never get the same outcome twice. Sometimes the color is darker sometimes it is lighter. However, I am a bit of a perfectionist so I like to get them as close to uniform as possible. This is why I had Mr. Wilks laughing when I drew a line down the side of my stamp so I could line it up the same each time with the multi color stamp pad.

When creating homemade invites I think it is important to personalize the message as well. This was especially important in the case of Mrs. T’s shower because Mr. Wilks and I introduced Mr. & Mrs. T (to be) on a blind date. I wanted to include something about the way they met on the invitation. After racking my brain this is how the invite read:
She dreamed of the day when her prince would arrive,
The way he would look and the car he would drive.
She found him in, a peculiar way,
With friends on a date, not hardly knowing his name.
Now the date has been set to tie the knot,
But everything they need for their house has not been got…
So Join with their Friends, as we celebrate the upcoming big day,
To give to Mrs. T and Mr. T in a big way.

It took me about two hours to print, stamp, seal, and address the invites. Thanks to my sweet hubby helping out! He is great at the sealing, putting address labels, and postage stamps on. Anyway, I say that to encourage those of you who say it takes too much time, to reconsider doing invites on your own. The other great advantage to doing them on your own is the money you save. I spent about $15.00 on supplies and now I only have to buy more note cards the next time I choose to use this design.

And now for the best part, here are some pictures of the invite!


This is the stamp pad and stamps I used for the invites.


This is a picture of the envelope. (You can see, I also stamped it to make for a more personal look)


This is a picture of the outside of the note card invite.



This is a picture of the inside of the note card invite.

If you have any questions about making your own stationary or have some you have made you would like to show off leave a comment!

Mrs. Wilks

PS Sorry for the quality of the pictures... they were taken with my camera in the living room floor. Haha And of course the black boxes were not on the real invites I just didn't want anyone's info to get posted on the web. :-)

Sorry...

Just wanted to stop in and say I am so sorry for taking so long to put an original post. Things have been so busy with school, Mr. Wilks softball and all the other fun things we have been up too… (i.e. Showers, showers, and more showers) I just have not had time to get the ball rolling. I am working on some posts about the cruise but I think instead of waiting until they are finished, I will just bring you all up to speed and then leave those posts to be mixed in here and there. I am going to promise a new post by tomorrow night. Hope everyone is having a wonderful blessed day!
Mrs. Wilks