As always, if you get stuck, see if you can find help in my Illustrator tips or by doing a quick review of the Illustrator toolbar.

Turning your Hummingbird Save the Date card into printable wedding invitations is super easy! This is how I did it:

1. Open the Save the Date card you created earlier.

2. Go to File – Save As and save it as Hummingbird Invite (or whatever you want to call it).

3. In your Hummingbird Invite document, go to File – Document Setup and in the dimension windows, put 5 for width and 7 for height (if you want to go the traditional route).

4. Unlock the bottom layer, click on your 5×5 background color square and in your Transform palette, put in 5 for the width and 7 for the height. If you don’t see the Transform palette, just go to Window – Transform and it will pop right up. Align your box with your document. Lock this layer.

5. I happened to like both where the illustration ended up by chance and the size of it on the invite, but you can obviously resize it and move it any way you want. If you want to do it my way, just leave it where it is and make sure that layer is locked too.

6. Go to your text layer and change your text.

That’s it!

If you want to keep the invite square, that’s obviously even easier. All I would do then is just make the illustration a little bit smaller and change the text. You may have to space it a little bit differently than I did on the 5×7 invite to make it fit, or change the wording slightly. Be creative and play around with the layout until it looks good to you.

Related posts:

1. Hummingbird Save The Date Card – A 12-Step Illustrator Tutorial This time, I thought we’d expand on our growing Illustrator...
2. Christmas-Inspired DIY Wedding Invitations Today, I thought we’d do a Christmas/Holiday season-inspired invitation using...
3. Text Layout Ideas For Your Printable Wedding Invitations If you decide to go with homemade save the date...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

1. Look (online, unless you happen to be traveling) at what they are doing in other countries. “Wedding invitation” is called “huwelijks uitnodiging” in Dutch, “invitation de marriage” in French, “hochzeitseinladung” in German, “invito di cerimonia nuziale” in Italian, “convite do casamento” in Portugese, “invitación de la boda” in Spanish and “brollopsinbjudan” in Swedish. And don’t forget to look in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa and other countries where English is the main language, or widely spoken (it does make it easier!).

2. Look at the websites of creative artists. They don’t necessarily have to be wedding-related – just looking at the art by a photographer, graphic designer, painter, interior decorator, or DIY blogger may trigger ideas.

3. Look in magazines. Any magazine, not just wedding ones. I especially like Creating Keepsakes and Martha Stewart Crafts online, and Real Simple and Domino in print. Look at the layouts and even the ads. See what you like and what might translate nicely to an invitation. Remember, there is no rule saying your invite has to look like everyone else’s.

4. Brainstorm with a bunch of friends. This one is sort of a no-brainer, but it’s easy to forget that great ideas sometimes come from a fun evening with friends. Open a few bottles of wine, order pizza or put out some cheese and crackers and let the ideas flow. I always get my best ides when I’m not trying too hard.

5. Take a creative class at a local shop or adult education facility. Anything that sounds interesting to you – rubber stamping, embossing, jewelry making, die-cutting, decoupage, scrapbooking, using various craft tools – all will jumpstart your creativity.

Related posts:

1. Hummingbird Wedding Invitations This tutorial is based on a Save the Date card...
2. Text Layout Ideas For Your Printable Wedding Invitations If you decide to go with homemade save the date...
3. 6 Ideas For Giving Your Printable Wedding Invitations A Unique Look With so many great looking invitation choices, how do you...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

1. Wordle

For a very different look, use Wordle to turn your invitation into a “word cloud”. Just type in your text and watch the magic happen. To make the cloud to the right, I typed in some classic wedding invite lingo, hit go, and voila! Once your text appears as a cloud, you can play around with colors, fonts and layout. For some of the words to appear in larger font, type them in several times (I typed wedding, Justin and Susan four times each, and June and 14 three times). Once I was happy with the cloud, I did a “print screen” (Ctrl+Print Screen on a PC; Apple+Shift+4 on a Mac) and saved it as a jpg. Personally, I would probably use this only as a fun design element, and have the text in an easier-to-understand format somewhere else on the invitation as well. While your 15-year old nephew will most certainly get the message from the cloud, your great aunt may not.

2. Silhouettes

Before the invention of cameras, silhouettes were extremely popular, both in the US and Europe, and talented silhouette artists created portraits of their customers by cutting their profile out of paper with scissors. Once cameras appeared, silhouettes sadly went out of fashion. But they are regaining their popularity and luckily, there are still a few silhouette artists out there who can create custom silhouettes of you, your pets and anything else you’d want. How about wedding invitations with the silhouettes of the two of you? Super cute! Some artists also offer to come to your wedding (or other event) and cut silhouettes of your family and guests.

3. Print your invitation on something other than paper. Printable wedding invitations could be anything, not just the standard old paper variety. How about sending out custom printed T-shirts, Frisbees, post-it notes or baseball caps? They can be very affordable, and people are sure to remember them.

4. For very informal invites, take a bunch of Polaroid photos (of the two of you, the location of the wedding, or anything you want) and write the details (by hand) on the white bar on the bottom.

5. Send out bags of printable M&Ms with your names and wedding date printed on them. This works best as a Save-the-Date, since you can’t fit the entire invitation on the tiny candies.

6. DVD Invitations. Sending out your invitations as mini-movies on DVDs allows you to get really creative – acting, singing, or if the thought of that makes you cringe, maybe just the two of you telling your guests about how you met, and/or about the wedding. Include footage of the church, reception hall, and perhaps recommended hotels, etc.

This is just a short list to get your imagination going – there are so many fun possibilities when it comes to making your invitation something very unique, one that people will remember and talk about for years to come. Don’t limit yourself by going with the traditional kind: have fun exploring the alternatives!

Related posts:

1. Printable Wedding Invitations Adds Style To Your Wedding Printing your own wedding invitations is a great, fun, way...
2. Text Layout Ideas For Your Printable Wedding Invitations If you decide to go with homemade save the date...
3. 5 Ways To Get Inspiration For Your Printable Wedding Invitations Printing your own invites is a great way to add...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.