March 15, 2013

DIY wedding invitations: Envelope liners

My wedding invitations were partially DIY;  I didn't want to do a entire DIY project from scratch but I definitely wanted to add a lot of customizations to make it as unique as I could with the amount of free time I had available to me.  The complete invitation suite did involve a lot of mini projects and the first of them was the envelope liners.

I ordered my invitations online and they did have the option of ordering envelopes that were already lined with colored paper.   I could have just bought envelopes that were already lined but the styles I liked were way too expensive and the styles that were within my budget were a bit too generic for my liking. Envelope liners are not really a big deal and most guests might not really notice them, but I think they totally change the look of the invitations. For one thing they make the envelope look thicker and feel better quality than clear white envelopes and they just add a little something to the overall inviation suite.  Since my invitations included free white envelopes I decided to attempt to make my own envelope liners. This would save me money and also allow me to choose a liner that fit in better with my vision.


I had seen a roll of wedding gift wrap at my local walgreens in ivory and gold that was just perfect for me. It had cursive font and a repeat print of love sayings.  Exactly what I was looking for.

I bought a couple of rolls of it and brought it home.  Then I measure the inside of the plain envelope to get an idea of what size paper I needed to line the envelope. After much trial and error, I figured it out. Once I had the perfect size of paper, I cut out a template in heavy cardstock and used that as a stencil on the gift wrap.


It was a bit slow and tedious because I have a tiny Fiskars paper trimmer that only cuts about 10 sheets of paper at a time,  but over the course of many days I traced out and cut about 100 liners in printed and plain paper.


Then once I was done cutting, I had to glue the liners into the envelopes. I used the scotch mini glue dot roller which is just awesome. It is probably the best mess-free method of gluing light weight paper.


And this is what the finished product looked like!