You may have seen a previous post of how I came up with the idea for our wedding invitations. I thought I'd give a little tutorial of how they were put together for a total cost of £15.
So, here goes........
You will need:
1. Good quality paper
2. Black biro and watercolour paints
3. Photoshop or a similar editing program
4. A printer
5. Bindis
6. Leather cord
7. Feathers (jay feathers)
8. Scissors
9. Distress ink (vintage photo) by Tim Holtz
10. Treasure gold gilding wax
11. A metal poking tool or needle
1. On a piece of paper I sketched out (copying and adapting) a zentangle design of a dreamcatcher. I just used black biro and then I painted some feathers on with my daughters' watercolour paints. I used my phone to take a photo of the finished design I then emailed it to myself and opened the image in Photoshop. This is what I ended up with.
2. Once I had the image in Photoshop - I adjusted the brightness to fade the picture enough that the text could be read properly. Photoshop has some great fonts but I downloaded some cool free ones from 1001 Free Fonts there are plenty to choose from on there, I went for the Western font called Quentin Caps. Once all the lettering was in place I saved the image and sent it to my brother who printed them out for me. I chose a good quality paper A4 size but fitted more than one invite per sheet to make the invites postcard size. We ended up with these.
3. I needed a fresh pair of eyes. I'd already stuck indian bindis to the centre of each dreamcatcher (eBay) and I somehow wanted to add the blue jay feathers which I had also won on an eBay auction. So, I went to visit my friend Kassandra Wiskin, she makes awesome cards and mixed media art and has a great room full of supplies. Kass came up with the idea of using distress inks, she chose Tim Holtz in Vintage Paper, it comes as a little ink pad with a sponge tool and we had a play with a few to get the perfect effect. This looked much better - more aged. Next we roughed the edges by rubbing them with a scissor blade and then used Treasure Gold metallic gilding wax, and just rubbed in a little to the edges with our fingers.
4. I have to say the cards now had a much more rustic look. Next we used a little metal poking tool (a needle would do) and poked a tiny hole in the top right corner of the paper. I used leather cord which came from the discount shop The Works and cost 99p and tied a jay feather to each piece and then threaded it through the paper with a small knot to fasten at the back. I then stuck another bindi over the hole (they are self adhesive). Here is the finished result - a unique handmade Save the Date card.
