DIY Invites Question

[Kimmers127]

For those of you who made your own invites... what kind of printer do you have? Will I need to invest in something specific, or with certain features/quality? I'm ok with buying a new printer if we have to... mine was nice when I bought it but that was quite a few years ago at this point so I'm guessing I may need an upgrade. Any suggestions of a good one to look at if I'm planning to do my own invites?

Are you actually printing right onto cardstock? I would think that would only work with certain printers, especially depending on how the paper feeds in. When you're printing small things, do you somehow change the settings on the printer so the printer realizes the size of the paper you're loading and can center things accordingly? I really want to (at least try to) make my own invites but I'm having trouble envisioning the printing aspects of it! Thanks in advance for any tips/suggestions.

 

[missy0107]

I made my Save the Dates this past weekend and struggled with my printer, maybe you can learn from my struggles!

I have an HP photo printer, maybe model 7660? I bought 5.5 X 8.5 pre-cut invitation paper from Target that came with envelopes. It did not come with instructions for printing. I looked on HP's site and it gave instructions on setting up the document and printer to print on specific paper. I followed them to a T and it still didn't work, I got an error that said my paper was too small. I thought it may have something to do with the margins, I adjusted them and I still got the same error. My paper was a custom size, once I chose a smaller, not custom size (5x8) it worked just fine.

Most printers will accept any size paper, as long as you adjust the settings accordingly. If it doesn't work at first you may need to play with things a bit but don't give up. I am printing my invites with all black ink, though my printer does print color, I'm not using that feature.

Yes you print right on cardstock, but you could do vellum if you wanted.

After struggling with Save the Dates, I went to Micheals and found a nice invitation set in the clearance section for $20 that I picked up. Inside this invitation kit was fairly detailed instructions for setting up your printer. This kit came with RSVP cards as well. I'm thinking I will have a heck of a time getting these to work in my printer! (In hindisight, the printable area of the invite is 5x7 while the size of the card is 5.25X7.75, so I think that I should take the size less literally when I set up the printer to do the invites.)

So far, my invitation creation has been a bit of a hassel for me but I have the time and the $$ savings is worth it for me to figure out on my own. Plus I am learning a lot about my printer!!

 

[auntpunkin]

I just finished my diy pocketfold invites a couple weeks ago. I did have some printing issues...

We have a Dell photo 964 all in one printer that is just a couple years old. It did a really nice job on the bigger paper but when I was printing the smaller pieces of paper, it kept sucking them in crooked! Nothing I did would stop it. Lucky for me I have a second, older printer.

The older printer is a HP Photosmart 7960. I think I bought it in like 2004. That printer did a spectacular job! The only other issue I had was getting the margins right. I would set them and they looked good on my document, but when they printed, they were off. Come to find out the printer has it's own 'internal' margin settings. I would suggest cutting regular paper to the size of your cardstock and test printing on that until you get it right. You just have to use the page setup and fool with the margins.

I did print right onto the cardstock I bought from Cards and Pockets. I don't think you need anything other than an inkjet printer to print on the cardstock.

Here are my final invites:

Hope that helps!

 

[Kimmers127]

I made my Save the Dates this past weekend and struggled with my printer, maybe you can learn from my struggles!

I have an HP photo printer, maybe model 7660? I bought 5.5 X 8.5 pre-cut invitation paper from Target that came with envelopes. It did not come with instructions for printing. I looked on HP's site and it gave instructions on setting up the document and printer to print on specific paper. I followed them to a T and it still didn't work, I got an error that said my paper was too small. I thought it may have something to do with the margins, I adjusted them and I still got the same error. My paper was a custom size, once I chose a smaller, not custom size (5x8) it worked just fine.

Most printers will accept any size paper, as long as you adjust the settings accordingly. If it doesn't work at first you may need to play with things a bit but don't give up. I am printing my invites with all black ink, though my printer does print color, I'm not using that feature.

Yes you print right on cardstock, but you could do vellum if you wanted.

After struggling with Save the Dates, I went to Micheals and found a nice invitation set in the clearance section for $20 that I picked up. Inside this invitation kit was fairly detailed instructions for setting up your printer. This kit came with RSVP cards as well. I'm thinking I will have a heck of a time getting these to work in my printer! (In hindisight, the printable area of the invite is 5x7 while the size of the card is 5.25X7.75, so I think that I should take the size less literally when I set up the printer to do the invites.)

So far, my invitation creation has been a bit of a hassel for me but I have the time and the $$ savings is worth it for me to figure out on my own. Plus I am learning a lot about my printer!!

Thanks for the tips!! I am really determined to make my own invites... invitations are just too expensive! That's not an area of the wedding that I want to spend very much of my hard-earned money on, that's for sure. Plus I like the personal touch of making some things on your own. I think I'll look back on it later and be glad I did. I've got an HP photo printer as well, so crossing my fingers that it will work out after all!!

I just finished my diy pocketfold invites a couple weeks ago. I did have some printing issues...

We have a Dell photo 964 all in one printer that is just a couple years old. It did a really nice job on the bigger paper but when I was printing the smaller pieces of paper, it kept sucking them in crooked! Nothing I did would stop it. Lucky for me I have a second, older printer.

The older printer is a HP Photosmart 7960. I think I bought it in like 2004. That printer did a spectacular job! The only other issue I had was getting the margins right. I would set them and they looked good on my document, but when they printed, they were off. Come to find out the printer has it's own 'internal' margin settings. I would suggest cutting regular paper to the size of your cardstock and test printing on that until you get it right. You just have to use the page setup and fool with the margins.

I did print right onto the cardstock I bought from Cards and Pockets. I don't think you need anything other than an inkjet printer to print on the cardstock.

Here are my final invites:

Hope that helps!

Your invitations are beautiful!! I love how they came out and I'm very encouraged that you've got an HP as well! Thanks a lot for the advice... I'll be sure to play around with paper before I start feeding in the cardstock!

 

[CharacterFan]

I haven't printed mine yet, but I'm planning on printing the invitation wording on velum so I'm planning on using a laster printer, because it drys instantly. For all the other printing I'll use my regular Epson printer.

 

[mermaidbride1108]

I was planning to print my own invites and thank God I started very early working on them because I ended up giving up and having them done by the new printing services of Cardandpockets.com.

I ordered the paper from cardsandpockets and tried it on my printer HP Photo (I'll fill in the complete name when I get home from work today) and it wouldn't go through. I tried on my regular laser printer and it wouldn't go through.

During this time I ended up getting a promotional email from Cardsandpockets about their new printing services and I said 'What the heck' and submitted a quote. In the end, I ended up having 35 invites done, including all metallic pearl paper, all cutting, and all printing for one invitation & 5 inserts for a total of 210 printed pieces (35x6) for $109.60. I thought this was a deal expecially because they came up beautiful!!! And it caused me no aggrevation or stress because I didn't have to print them myself. I thought it was well worth it!

Just wanted to give you another option if you were interested!

 

[lurkyloo]

I only made parts of my invitations, but I had them printed on a professional color copier by a local print and copy shop and they looked waaaay better than anything my inkjet could have done. It wasn't that expensive, either. I used cardstock that they already had on hand, so they didn't charge me for it, and I printed all the pieces I needed for one invite on a single large sheet and then paid them something like $24 to cut out each piece. (If you need scoring, buy a bone folder and do it yourself - it's way more expensive than cutting).


Here's a picture of the invite (which was professionally letterpressed) and the folder (which was printed on a color copier):

 

[CoP Luv]

I used my HP for everything that I did and they turned out really nice! I found it MUCH easier to print everything on normal sized paper and then have it cut to size at Staples (or someplace similar). I found Staples to be the best for cutting since they could measure by the 0.01 inch. For only $2/cut up to 250 sheets, it was a bargain!

Good Luck!

 

[Malefi_Stitch]

For our invites, I bought another printer because I knew our older HP wouldn't be able to handle the cardstock. From researching for printing on cardstocks, I find that a lot of people recommend a printer with the option of printing from a rear feed tray as opposed to having only a front feed tray. The rear feed tray won't make the paper bend back on itself when feeding causing it to possibly get stuck.

We ended up buying the Canon PIXMA MP620, which is also a photo printer (i.e. borderless capability in certain page sizes). It can print on paper through the rear feed tray as small as slightly larger than a business card...I hope that made sense...

I think I used Word or Publisher to set up the invitation and insert pages (ours were from cardsandpockets.com too).

Here are some examples (more in my PJ) =)

I'm also using our inkjet printer for our favor tags, "bear" necessities for our welcome bags a several other things (pics in PJ soon I hope...).

HTH!

 

[Wish on a Star]

I was having the same issue with my printer. The colors just werent turning out the way I wanted them to, and I thought it made the prototypes for my invitations look cheap. since I dont have the money to shell out for a new printer I had to make a compromise. I designed my own invites on Vistaprint.com (I even added a Disney Castle) and they turned out great and they were so inexpensive! $17 for 20 invites. (Obviously I'm an escape bride)

 

[flowerbelle]

I just finished my diy pocketfold invites a couple weeks ago. I did have some printing issues...

We have a Dell photo 964 all in one printer that is just a couple years old. It did a really nice job on the bigger paper but when I was printing the smaller pieces of paper, it kept sucking them in crooked! Nothing I did would stop it. Lucky for me I have a second, older printer.

The older printer is a HP Photosmart 7960. I think I bought it in like 2004. That printer did a spectacular job! The only other issue I had was getting the margins right. I would set them and they looked good on my document, but when they printed, they were off. Come to find out the printer has it's own 'internal' margin settings. I would suggest cutting regular paper to the size of your cardstock and test printing on that until you get it right. You just have to use the page setup and fool with the margins.

I did print right onto the cardstock I bought from Cards and Pockets. I don't think you need anything other than an inkjet printer to print on the cardstock.

Here are my final invites:

Hope that helps!

Auntpunkin! Those are beautiful!! I can't believe you printed them and did it all yourself! Just curious, how did you get the background monogram done on the invite and on the envelope?? Is there a program that allows you to do this or did it come with the Cards and Pocket program?? I just bought my DIY invites from Michaels and haven't had the time to work on it yet...I would love to have a background monogram like that, but wouldn't have a clue to do it! THANKS for sharing!!

 

[auntpunkin]

Flowerbelle, it really wasn't hard at all, I used Photoshop to do it. I just put the monogram letter as the 1st layer and layered everything else on top of it. I had to do this for each invite, which was time consuming but I think it was worth it. I'm not sure but I think you could do it with it with other programs as well, just make good use of the 'arrange' tab and send the monogram letter to the back with the address in front. Try putting 2 textboxes on top of each other and play with it. I didn't know how to use Photoshop or MS Publisher at all before the wedding; I had to teach myself so I could do my newsletter and invites. You can do it!!