Engagement Announcement In Purple, White And Gray – An Illustrator Tutorial
This is part 3 in my series of tutorials for those who just got engaged (Congrat-ulations!).
In the two previous tutorials, we created Engagement Announcements using Microsoft Word, and today, we’re making one in Illustrator. You can obviously adapt this to be a Save the Date card, or even Wedding Invitations by making just a few changes (and perhaps doing a vertical instead of horizontal layout). To zoom in on the screen shots, just click on them and they will open larger in a new window.
If you’re new to Illustrator, you may want to take a look at my posts about the tools, notes and problem solvers and maybe read through another one of my Illustrator tutorials.
Today we’re making this card in two different versions:
and we’re using another vector file by one of my favorite designers, jlwDesign
This is how to do it:
1. Open a new document in Illustrator.
2. Draw a 6.25×4.5 box (which will fit in all standard size A2 envelopes).
3. Fill the box with R195, G160, B178 and make the border black.
4. Lock the layer with the box.
5. Download the Swirly Curls illustration here. (Read the License Agreement).
6. Unzip it and open the ai file. The easiest way to isolate 
the design element we want is to go through and click on everything we don’t want and delete it (don’t save the file after you’ve done that, just leave it open for now). Once you have only the swirly curls left, select all of them, copy and paste them into a new layer in your announcement document. While they’re still all selected, group them and then turn them 180 degrees (by right clicking and going to Transform – Rotate.) Go back and close swirly curls file without saving it.
7. On your card, pull the entire curly design as close to the upper left hand corner of your purple card as you can without too much of it going over the edge of your card.
8. Now, we need to tweak the illustration a bit, and what I did was this:
With your black arrow, click on the design and go to Object – Ungroup.
With your black arrow, click on the part of the illustration that is on the lower right hand side and drag it down into the corner.
We also need to delete a few pieces, so with your white arrow, click on the parts that you don’t want and hit Delete. I deleted these:
Now we want to make sure the design goes all the way out to the edge on the left and also that no parts are “hanging out” over the edges.
First, click with your white arrow on the leaf that’s too long on the bottom, and while it’s selected, switch to the black arrow. That puts a box around just that part of the design, and you want to pull on the handles until the leaf is inside the border.
Next, click on the white part of the design in the upper left hand corner and do the same thing, except this time, you pull the handles outward towards the border until it looks nice. You probably want to zoom in when you’re doing this, it’s pretty hard to get it perfect otherwise.
Next, click on the white part about halfway down and do the same thing.
Now, with your black arrow, drag around the entire design (except for the part in the lower right hand corner) and group it (by going to Object – Group). Make sure the layer with your purple box is locked when you do this, otherwise that’ll be part of the group. The curlies are a little bit too wide, so just grab the middle handle of the box around the design and push it to the left a little bit.
9. Lock this layer and add a new one for the text.
10. Select your text tool and type in your text. I put it in three separate boxes so that I could easily move them around. I used Bernhard Fashion BT 24pt with a 1pt border for the top box, and colored it R137, G53, B88. The middle box is Bernhard Fashion BT 28pt with a 1pt border in white, and the bottom box is Bernhard Fashion BT 21pt with a 1pt border, same color as the top box. Need help with fonts? Read my earlier posts about font ideas and how to add fonts to your computer.
11. Lastly, select your purple box and get rid of the black border (I like to have it there as a guide while I’m designing a card, but not when printing it.)
That’s it, you’re done. I would put two of these on each sheet, print them on heavy, white cardstock and trim them to size. I think rounded corners give them a nice, finished look, and it’s easy to achieve with a rounded corner punch, available at any craft store.
If you want to add a photo to the card, just create a new layer and to go File – Place and select one from your computer. What I did was place the photo on its own layer, created a new layer and drew a transparent circle. I then placed the circle over the part of the photo I wanted to show (but still on a separate layer), selected both and went to Object – Clipping Mask – Make. That turns the shape you drew into a clipping mask and you are left with just that part of the photo visible. I then added a drop shadow to make it stand out from the background a little bit. To do that, select your photo and go to Effect – Stylize – Drop Shadow. Play with the settings a little bit (with Preview checked) until you like it.
Another DIY Engagement Announcement using Microsoft Word
This is part 2 in our series of DIY projects for those of you who recently got engaged. Just as in the last tutorial, we will be making engagement announcements using Microsoft Word (Windows Vista). Our previous one was pink, this one is brown and blue, and we will be using some different techniques and tools. To see larger versions of the screen shots, just click on them. They’ll open in a new window.
Engagement announcements are sent to friends and family to let them know your big news, just like baby announcements. In the coming weeks, I will also post tutorials on how to make announcements using Illustrator, as well as step by step instructions for making engagement party invitations in both Word and Illustrator.
A Note About Vista Word
When using Vista, in order to make some of the adjustments to the photo, make sure that the document you’re working in is saved in the current Vista format (you’ll see a .docx extension). I have set the defaults in my Word application to save everything as Word 97-2003 documents (.doc) since .docx isn’t compatible with earlier versions of Word, or Macs. Working in the 97-2003 format also has other advantages such as the option to select all the pictures and textboxes at the same time, great for aligning them, or moving the entire design around on the sheet. However, there are limited special effects available when working in 97-2003 mode, so in order to play with the photo (see step 5), you need to save your file as a .docx document.
Today’s announcement looks like this:
I have sized it to 4.5×6.25, which will fit perfectly in a standard A6 envelope (but you can obviously make it any size you want).
1. In Word, go to “file” (i.e. the Windows symbol that replaces the old “File” menu) – New and under Templates, click on Invitations. This brings up a new menu on the right hand side. Click on Other Invitations. You’ll see the same layout in 4 different colors. You can choose any one you want of course, but I went with the blue and brown one.
Click on the color you want, and click on Download. That will bring up a document that looks like this:
Click on the blue box on the right hand side and copy it (either by right clicking or pressing CNTRL+C). Open a new document (letter size is good) and paste the box here (by right clicking or pressing CNTRL+V). Right click on it, go to Text Wrapping and select In Front Of Text. Right click again and go to Size. Uncheck the Lock Aspect Ratio box, and in the height window, put in 6.25 and in the width 4.5. Click Close.
2. Now, let’s add the text. Go to Insert – Text Box – Draw Text Box and draw a box anywhere in 
your document. It will most likely be filled with white, but that’s fine, we’ll fix it later. Select the font you want under the Home menu (you can change it later) and type in your text. I used GeoSlab703 Lt BT, 22p Bold for the top box and 14p bold for the bottom one. (If you want to use that font but don’t have it on your computer, read this post about adding fonts.) Click outside the textbox and go back to Insert and draw another text box for the text below the picture. Type in your text and click outside the box to deselect it.
3. To format the text boxes, right click on one of them, and go to Format Text Box. Under Colors and Lines, you want to make sure to select No Color and No Line. Repeat for the second one.
I also made the text color brown, and to do that, you want to select the text (i.e. highlight it with your cursor), right click, click on the A with a color bar underneath, go to More Colors and select the one in the bottom left hand corner for a nice, deep brown.
4. Now, let’s add your photo (I used a clip art picture). Go to Insert – Picture and locate your photo on your computer. It will most likely end up behind the blue box, so right click on it (the photo), go to Text Wrapping and select In Front Of Text. Right click again and go to Size. This time, you want o make sure that the Lock Aspect Ratio box is checked, and put in the size you want in either the height or width (the other side will change proportionately), I set my photo to a height of 2.89″ (but this is obviously totally up to you, whatever looks good is good). Click Close.
5. Drag the photo to where you want it to be on the blue box and, if you want to, add some extra layout features to it. I added a frame with a reflection on the bottom. To to this, select the photo and go to Picture Tools Format (it’s in the menu on top of your page). There you’ll see a line of frames and if you click on the down arrow next to them, you’ll get a whole menu of different looks. Hover over each with your mouse, and you’ll see the effect on your photo. Select the one you like, and if you want to play with it even more, try all the different options on either side of the frames. There is an endless variety of shapes and special effects to choose from.
6. Make sure everything is aligned by selecting the photo and blue box and go to Picture Tools – Align and click on Align Center. Next, select the two text boxes and go to Text Box Tools – Align – Align Center. Now you just have to eyeball it and use the arrow keys to move the text so that it is lined up with the photo. (Why, oh why, did they set Vista up this way?). That’s it, you’re done!
You can fit two of these cards on one sheet of 8.5×11, and then all you need to do is trim them to size and mail them out. If you prefer to send them as postcards, you could get a rubber stamp with a postcard back and just stamp the back of each card.
Filed under Design, Engagement, Inspiration, Microsoft Word, Tutorial | Comment (0)Make Your Own Engagement Announcements using Windows Vista
This starts a series of tutorials for those of you who recently got engaged (Congrat-ulations!). Now you have to let the world know your big news! First out is a step by step instruction to making your own engagement announcements using Microsoft Word (Windows Vista).
These instructions are to make a card that looks just like mine. If you want it to be a different size and color, just play with it until you like it.
1. Open a new document (letter size) and save it as a Word Document (important: don’t save it as an earlier or different version of word – some of the tricks we are going to use are only available in the Vista version).
2. Go to Insert – clip art. In the search window, type hearts and click on go. You will see a bunch of images with hearts, and this particular one is the 9th one down on the right (on my computer). If you don’t see it, you can download it at Microsoft Office’s clipart site. The name of the image is j0440320.jpg.
3. The first thing you want to do when you have the picture in your document, is to right click on it, go to Text Wrapping and select “Behind text”.
4. Now, click on the picture again, and go to Picture Tools – Format (In your menu on the top of the page) and select crop. The picture handles will change to thick lines. Grab the bottom one and crop it until you like the way it looks. Then click outside of the picture to de-select the cropping tool.
5. To change the size, right click on the picture and go to Size. Enter the size you want. It will stay relative, and what I did was put in 5.88 in the height and clicked ok. I then clicked on the picture again and pulled the right hand side in until it was 3.99″ across.
6. The picture is a tad bright, so the next thing is to right click again and go to Format Picture. You’ll see a list of options on the left hand side and you want to click on Picture. You’ll see a drop down menu up top called Recolor. Click on the arrow and select the color you want (I used the pink option under Light Variations). I also upped the brightness 6%.
7. Now we’re ready to add text and the photo. Go to Insert (in the menu up top on your screen) and select Text Box. A menu of options will drop down, select Draw text box at the bottom of it. This will give you a crossbar tool, and you will draw your text box over the background picture by holding down the left mouse key and dragging. It defaults to whatever settings you used last, but don’t worry if it looks bad or is in the wrong spot – we’ll fix that soon. Right click on it, go to Format Text Box and under Layout select “In front of text”. Type in your text (I wrote We’re Engaged using LT Oksana, 24pt, bold). Click outside the textbox and go back to Insert and draw another text box. In this one, you will put the other text (in my case, the names and date, again using LT Oksana, 12pts, bold). Click outside the box. (If you want to use LT Oksana but don’t have it on your computer, check out my earlier post about adding fonts.)
9. We need to format the text boxes. Right click on one of them, and go to Format Text Box. Under Colors and Lines, you want to make sure to select No Color and No Line.
10. Now the photo! Go to Insert, Picture and select the photo you want to add. Right click on it, go to Text Wrapping, and select “In front of text”. Then, click on it again and by dragging one of the handles, reduce it to the size you want. (tip: to keep it proportionate, hold down the shift key while dragging). Time to have some fun with the photo. There are so many options for pictures in Vista and you can get some very creative results by playing around a bit. I wanted my photo to be black and white, so I right clicked on it, went to Format Picture, Recolor and clicked on the grayscale option under Color Modes. It can sometimes make the photo a bit washed out, so play with the brightness and contrast until you like what you see.
11. Next, I wanted rounded corners and a frame, so I
clicked on it again and went to Picture Tools – Format (up top in your word menu). Under Picture Styles, I selected an option I liked, and that was it. So once you’re happy with the picture, it’s time to line everything up. Click on the background, and while holding the shift key down, click on the photo. This should select both of them, and now you want to go to Picture Tools – Format – Align and select Align Center. Then click on the text boxes and do the same. With the text boxes still selected, press the arrow keys until they’re centered above and below the photo.
That’s it! I put two of them together on one sheet, but if you want to make them smaller, you could get 4 of them on one sheet and save some paper. Once they’re printed, you just need to cut them to size using a paper trimmer. I think rounded corners look nice too, and you can easily add that by using a corner rounding tool (available at any craft or office store).
My next post will be another Microsoft word tutorial. We’ll make another engagement announcement with a different look using other tools and presets.
Filed under Design, Engagement, Microsoft Word | Comments (2)