Paper Crafting: Save the Dates!

Paper. Who knew you could do so much with it!??! I certainly didn't but my friend, Alyson, at Rust Belt Love knows A LOT about paper and graphic design.

Alyson took a class in letterpress printing and used that opportunity to make Mike and I the most gorgeous Save the Dates! I was incredibly touched that she would do something so thoughtful for our wedding. The letterpress printing style is exquisite. It is crisper than offset litho because of its impression into the paper, giving greater visual definition to the type and artwork. The outcome was, quite frankly, impressive. Alyson chose beautiful fonts for the antique colored paper and I love the design of the ampersand behind our names.

 I had every intention of making our own Save the Dates, invitations, and other wedding-related stationary as a way to minimize our expenses. I will definitely be seeking Alyson's graphic design expertise for the remainder of the paper tasks! There is also just something so special about handmade items that it's hard for me to pass up any opportunity to incorporate items that people have made individually. I had asked for a paper cutter for Christmas to help complete the upcoming paper-related wedding tasks. Mike's mom got me the BEST paper cutter! It's heavy duty with interchangeable blades and a solid work surface, yet compact in that it easily folds in half for storage.

My brother and Mike's sister and her boyfriend also gave us gift cards to several crafting stores and I used some of these to buy the paper (which was on sale!) for the Save The Dates :) I found light textured green, dark brown, and damask metallic cardstock to coordinate with the lovely letterpress foundation Alyson made.

I set up all of my supplies and tools and began to measure the dimensions for each layer of the Save the Date.

Once I determined the appropriate measurements, I cut each style of paper in an assembly line fashion. That helped me to avoid mistakes in measurements as each layer was completed independently.

I ended up with four stacks of paper:

1. The letterpress design Alyson made
2. The textured light green cardstock
3. The metallic damask cardstock
4. The dark brown cardstock

I used a glueglider adhesive that I purchased in a local craft store. It was so easy to use!

Additionally, I only had to place the adhesive near the corners of each sheet of paper. This definitely limited the amount of product necessary to secure the paper together.

I found it made the most sense to secure the back two layers first (i.e., 3 and 4), then the front two layers (i.e., 1 and 2), and finally glue the two remaining stacks of papers together (i.e., 3,4 to 1,2).

two back pieces

two back pieces adhered

two front pieces

two front pieces adhered

two double-layered front and back pieces

completed 4 -layered Save the Date card

It was imperative to be meticulous when layering the cardstock to ensure even distances between each corner so that the paper was centered properly. I think the different textures of each paper gives a really nice look.

I love the way these Save the Dates turned out! Alyson did an amazing job and I could not have imagined a more perfect design!