Rainbow of shower invitations

Later this month one of my cousins is having a bridal shower. I had volunteered to make the shower invitations, so coming up with a design, writing and formatting the inside text, and then mass producing the cards was my big project for the end of July and beginning of August. I didn't want to post the cards right away to keep them a surprise (I'm not exactly sure why, though, since most of the people receiving an invitation don't know anything about my blog). But now that they've all been mailed out and the shower is only a couple of weeks away, I'm excited to share them.

Supplies (all Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted):
Stamps: Million-Dollar Moments
Paper: Thick Whisper White, Whisper White, Pink Pirouette, Blushing Bride, Calypso Coral, So Saffron, Pear Pizzazz, Wild Wasabi, Pool Party, Wisteria Wonder card stock; Subtles Designer Series Paper (DSP) Stack; gold and silver foil paper
Ink: Soft Suede, Early Espresso, Pink Pirouette, Blushing Bride, Calypso Coral, So Saffron, Pear Pizzazz, Wild Wasabi, Pool Party, Wisteria Wonder
Accessories: Delicate white doilies, gold and silver metallic thread, gold and silver 1/8" ribbon, gold 1/4" ribbon (Celebrate It), corner rounder, banner punch, small heart punch, Wink of Stella clear glitter brush pen, Dimensionals

I knew starting out that I would be making a lot of invitations, and the grand total ended up being sixty-four. (Instead of having multiple showers (e.g., separate parties for friends and family or one hosted by the bride's family and one by the groom's), my cousin is just having one big shindig.) I can't make the exact same card sixty-four times, so I had to come up with a design that had little variations, and the Subtles DSP Stack was a great way to accomplish that. For each card I used a 3" x 5-1/4" piece of DSP, so that means I was able to make eight cards from one 12" x 12" piece of DSP. I used eight different colors from the stack for the sixty-four cards, flipping some of the pieces so they used the stripe pattern instead of the flowers.

I also varied the neutral and metallic colors on the cards. I had planned to use gold and Soft Suede for all of the cards, but those colors didn't work well with Pool Party and Wisteria Wonder. For those cards I switched to Early Espresso for the neutral and silver for the metallic accents, which also helped me use up more supplies in my stash. Unfortunately, I still ran out of 1/8" gold ribbon, so I had to make a craft-store run to find a substitute. Since the new gold ribbon was wider, I decided to use a punched heart in the upper left corner instead of the banner.

There are a couple of details that are really hard to see in the photos. One is the loops of metallic thread between the focal layer and the doily. I wrapped the thread around my fingers three or four times, attached the loops to the doily, and then adhered the focal layer over that with Dimensionals. The second detail is that I painted over all the stamped hearts with a clear Wink of Stella glitter brush pen. It's a subtle sparkle since the hearts are so little, but it's a fun detail when they catch the light.

With so many cards to mail, I didn't do anything special with the envelopes. If it had been a smaller group of cards, I might have made coordinating envelope liners and/or stamped an image on the corner of the envelope to make them a little more special.

Here are the invitations all collected, sorted by color, and ready to be addressed. (These bins are the perfect size for cards. I use them when I make Christmas cards to keep all my cards together.) My sister helped with the envelope stuffing and addressing, so it only took us an evening while we watched TV. The next day I walked to the mailbox and dropped them all in. Whew!

Even with the long guest list I did end up with a few extra invitations. I kept one for myself, I saved one for the bride-to-be, and then I gave one to each of the other shower hosts.

That was one project that I'm glad to have done. Thanks for stopping by!