DIY Beach Wedding Invitations

I love it when my friends and family get engaged because it gives me an excuse to craft all kinds of fun projects for their weddings.  A few months ago my sister got engaged and started planning a beach wedding....YES!!!!!  

Usually when I start a project I try and mimmick a sample of something else I've seen that I like.  This time I had no clue where I was going with her invites.  My sister thinks she's being an easy bride because she doesn't have preferences...not really helpful when there are hundreds of color combinations and invitation layouts. Haha!  Anyways, I strolled around Michael's for a while looking at paper, strolling the stamps and sticker aisles and came home with a bag of goodies that resulted in the above.  

Super hoping that my sis loves it and that her guests can figure out how it works.  But if you love it and want the step by step here's what you need:

Supplies:

• A7 sized envelopes (I usually order these in cases since it's cheaper. You can get them through wholesale paper distributors.)
• Embossing Heat Tool 
• Transparent Vellum Paper for the overlay layer
• Textured Colored Paper for the bottom layer
• 5x7 Ivory Blank Cards
• Embossing Ink Pad (this is like the glue that makes the embossing powder stick then raise up)
• Beachy Stamp of choice (goes on the transparent layer)
• Embossing Powder (I used a powder that turned a pearly gold after heat was applied)
• Rounded edge punch (if you want your paper edges to be rounded. I think this makes it look a little more elegant)
• Double Slotted Paper Punch (this is what you use to punch holes through all your layers and tie the ribbon through them)

Directions:

1. Design your actual invitation for printing.  I use this jenky little program called Printmaster (I couldn't live without it now, it's NOTHING fancy though) but you can TOTALLY do it in Microsoft Word if you tell the page setup tab the size of your paper is 5" x 7" so it prints correctly.  
1. You'll have a total of three pages that need designed: The Ceremony Invitation, The RSVP front and The RSVP back.  (The RSVP is a postcard!) 
2. Print your front page and RSVP page, then you'll flip the RSVP card and run it BACK through your printer to print the response side of the postcard.  
3. For your ceremony invitation page you'll cut 1/2 inch off the bottom.
2. You'll cut your textured paper the size of 5.25" x 7.25" so you have room for its edge to show all the way around your 5x7 cards.  Repeat the same cutting regimen with your transparent paper -- only you'll cut this a 5x7 size.
1. Use your rounded corner punch to round all the edges of all your paper.  
3. On your transparent paper you will now begin the fun part!!  Cover your stamp pad in the embossing pad glue and stamp it onto your transparent paper.  Sprinkle your embossing powder over the stamped area.  Pour off your excess powder, turn on your heat gun (let it heat up for a sec before you start blasting the paper) then wave the heat gun over the stamped area.  It's kinda cool to watch the powder melt into this neat, shiny gold design.  (Sometimes depending on the thickness of your paper, the heat might make it a little wavy -- I like to remedy this snag by putting them in one of my husband's Nursing Textbooks and sitting on it for a while).
4. Stack all 4 layers (Textured Paper Bottom, RSVP card, Invitation & Transparent Paper) on top of one another and then use your double slotted paper punch to punch 2 slits into all 4 sheets.  You're almost done!
5. After this you simply thread your ribbon through the holes and tie! I'm terrible at bows.  My mom rules at it, but she's 2 hours away from me, so I went with the knot.  TA-DAH!

Invitation over the RSVP Postcard underneath the transparent layer.

This is the front of the postcard, but as you can see, it says
RSVP on the left so it sticks out under the layer of the invite.

This is the back of the RSVP card. It's a MADLIB! I filled
in one line on the MADLIB so guests who aren't savvy to
MADLIB awesomeness will know what to do.  Also on the
right hand side of the postcard is a postcard stamp &
return mailing address.

And there it is inserted into the stack. 

Not super complicated.  And now I've got leftovers for future stamping, embossing, ribboning crafts...probably relevant to the beachy wedding :)