Monday, August 22, 2011

Let's start at the very beginning, it's a very good place to start- Teapot Invitations

Let's go back to how all this creating began. Back in the spring, I was helping my sister-in-law Deidra give her older sister and my other sister-in-law Alisha a lingerie shower in honor of her upcoming wedding. Now Alisha is a classy southern young woman so instead of your usual lingerie shower with risque decorations and suggestive themes, we decided to make it a tea party theme.

Of course any good party needs guests which means you need......invitations! I went to the local craft stores in search of invitation sets. They were super expensive! And none of them matched my theme. I thought I can do something better and cheaper! Soooo, I grabbed some cream card stock, patterned scrapbook paper, cream satin ribbon, stamps and a gold ink pad. I later came back for matching cream envelopes.

And here's what I came up with. (Please excuse my photography skills, I'm a work in progress)
This is red and pink patterned scrapbook paper. I found a teapot template online and printed it out on card stock. I cut it out and traced it onto my scrapbook paper. I then carefully cut out the teapots. Below the beautiful red and pink pattern is the invitation which you can see in this picture.
The background was created with gold ink and stamps. After printing out the teapot template on cream card stock, I stamped the pattern on and let it dry overnight. Then I ran the card stock back through the printer to get the wording on. If you run the paper through too soon after stamping them you will get smudged and streaked invitations which is so not cute. After printing the wording on, I cut out the invitations.

I added a few more personal touches. A monogrammed "C" attached to the ribbon added a nod to Alisha's upcoming nuptials and shaping it like a teabag made the extra touch very appropriate. I also added a simple stamp flourish to the flap of the envelope making the plain envelope look more interesting. Here is a picture of all of the components.
So there you have it. The beginning of my creating! There's more where this came from and the shower itself had some great touches that I can't wait to share with you, but that's for another day.

This project was very affordable and cost much less than the boxed sets. You can save a bit more at craft stores if you read the weekly sales ads and print out the coupons they offer online. I check them weekly and take advantage of them when buying supplies for my projects.

I hope you enjoy making your own teapot invitations!


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