Vintage Invitations – Doily and Washi goodness with a side of tech savvy

Project: Vintage invitations

DIY Doer: Emily (and friends!)

So here’s a lovely simple little tutorial, that can be applied to a number of different projects. A good friend of mine is due with a little girl in a few months and we are throwing her a baby shower; so we got together and formed an old fashioned assembly line and pumped out these darling little invites in no time. They are very simple (which is key when you have quite a few to make!), and quite cute, and there are some good tricks and hints for me to share with you that will aid you with all of your invitation and card making projects.

What you need:

We used:

  • Kraft Paper
  • Paper Doilies (cut into four sections)
  • Washi Tape
  • Twine
  • Glue
  • Scissors
  • A computer/printer (with Microsoft Word, and access to the web)

Step 1. Text Design and Printing

So two things you should know about me; #1 I am not a graphic designer (in case you haven’t already guessed as much), and #2 I have HORRIBLE handwriting. So luckily, to achieve this style you don’t need to write anything by hand (except for the name of the invitee), and you don’t need to be a graphic whiz. There are plenty of free printables out there, but often it is hard to find exactly what you want – so here are some tips on how you can do it yourself!

Microsoft Word and knowing how to insert word art into a document and format it are basically all that you need. Now Word will not have all of these lovely fonts – where do you find them and how do you use them you ask? Simple. Google free fonts (or free vintage fonts, or free calligraphy fonts – whatever your little heart desires). Find a font you want and download it (usually the site you find them on will have a simple download link or button). Find the font file (probably in your downloads folder), it will have the file extension ‘.ttf’ (the bit at the end of the file name). Double click on the file and once it opens look for a button or option to install the font on your machine. If Word is already open when you do this, you may have to shut it down and restart it before the font appears in your list. Done and Done.

The fonts used on this invitation are: “a song for jennifer”, “american typewriter”, “cedarville pnkfun1 cursive”, “some weatz swatches” and “gloucester MT extra condensed”.

As for the bunting, I simply Googled bunting clipart in Google Images, and once I found one I copy-and-pasted (and also recoloured it so it was plain black – Word has a recolour picture formatting function).

One last tip, if things aren’t staying put where you like them, set text wrapping to “in front of text”. Work with text boxes or word art rather than typing directly onto the page, that way it’s simple to click and drag around your text to position it.

DO print a test run of your invitation first (on scrap paper) to check for positioning, and typos.

Step 2. Cut, fold and Paste

The next step is to cut out your invitations, fold them into a card shape and begin decorating.

DON’T try to put glue on the whole doily. Focus on the centre (or the corner in this case – but the solid section) and the very edge – otherwise glue gets everywhere and stuck in all of the little cut-outs. If there is a glossy side of the doily flip it over and apply the glue to the matt side, it will stick better.

Step 3. Washi Time

Oh man I love washi tape. So simple to use, and sooooo pretty! Just cut and stick my friends. We did a simple stripe here, but you can cut into triangles for bunting, cross line over line for a wrapped present look; the possibilities are endless (search for washi on pinterest and enjoy). Everyone needs some washi in their craft kit.

Step 4. Personalise

Before we tie it up with the twine, you need to fill in the name section. Because of the contrasting fonts, even my horrible handwriting doesn’t come off too badly, it just fits right in as another font style.

Step 5. Tie it up

We agreed that the invitation needed a little something more for texture and a raised element, so we parcel tied the invite with a little natural twine.

Result: Success!

Difficulty: Simple crafting, some computing skills required.

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