I recently had to throw a nice big Tiffany box out (it fell victim to our basement being flooded during a recent storm) and it really bothered me, I love to keep them and use them to store trinkets and paper craft supplies, etc. (why I had put it in the basement in the first place, I don’t know, it probably happened during a mad cleaning session!). Anyway, seeing it reminded me what a gorgeous color it is, and I was inspired to create today’s invite.

This is the invitation we’ll be making:

and here’s how:

1. Start by downloading the vector file we are basing the invitation on. It is called “Leaves on curly branches” and was designed by DragonArtz Designs. You can download it here and please make sure to read the license.

2. Open your downloaded file and copy the entire design. Open a new Illustrator document and size it 5.25×5.25. Paste the design into your new document. It will be much larger than your document, so in the Transform palette, put in 5 for the width (and make sure you have it set to constrain the proportions). It will be smaller than the document, but that’s fine, we’ll fix that later.

3. I didn’t like the roses in the design, so to get rid of them, you want to click on one with your white arrow and then go to Select – Same – Fill Color. That will select all of them, and you can just hit delete.

4. Next, select the entire design with your black arrow and move it up so that the upper left hand corner of the black square matches up with the corner of your document. With the design still selected, grab the square in the lower right hand corner and pull until it matches up perfectly with you document. Take a look at the top of the design once you’ve done that, chances are you need to adjust that again too. Zoom in to make sure everything is lined up correctly. You’ll notice that part of the branches are outside your document – that’s fine, don’t worry about it.

5. Now, to make things easier, I like to put the different parts of the design on separate layers. Select the background square (with the white arrow), cut it, create a new layer (which will automatically end up on top of the other layer, so pull it to the bottom), lock the old layer and paste the box in place (Cntrl + F) on the new layer. Lock that layer and go back to the other one.

6. Unlock the layer with the branch design and with your white arrow, draw a box around the branches in the lower left hand corner (make sure you get every little piece of it). Cut, create a new layer, lock the original layer and paste the branches in place (Cntrl + F) on your new layer.

7. We can leave the other branches on the original layer, since that’s all that’s there now. So now you have three layers to work with. Lock the top two, unlock the background layer, select the box, and now we want to change the color to the Tiffany Blue. With your box selected, double click on the fill square in the toolbar. This will bring up the color selection window, and you want to put 9AE4E8 in the hex color box (the last one in the left column). Click ok and your box is now blue. As you can see, the branches are perfect the way they are, so no re-coloring needed there.

8. Next, we need the “framedoodle” from the “Damask Engagement Party Invitation” post, so if you have created that one already, great, just open that design and copy the framedoodle. If you didn’t, hop over to that post and follow the instructions to how to create one.

9. Once you have your framedoodle, copy it and paste it on a separate layer in your Tiffany Blue document. As you can see, this is not quite right, so select the framedoodle, right click, go to Transform – Rotate and put in 90 in the window and click ok. Now it’s on the right end, but looks a bit narrow, so select it and pull one of the side boxes until you like what you see. Place it in the center.

10. This looks nice, but isn’t quite the look I was going for, so next, select the framedoodle, and change the fill color to C5EFEF (the same way we did it in step 7). Now, we want a nice thin white border too, so select it again, and change the border color to white. Make sure you have the Stroke color selected in the toolbar and just go to the color palette and click on the little white box in the lower right hand corner. If the border looks a bit heavy, like mine did, select the framedoodle again and in the Stroke palette, change the weight to 0.25.

11. This is starting to look nice, right? Just a few more tweaks… next, let’s add the text. Create a new layer and lock all the others. Pick the Text tool from the toolbar and type in the first line. Don’t worry about how it looks right now, we just want to get the text in there and then we’ll style it. Click on any other tool and then go back and select the text tool again and type in the name of the bride and groom. Click on any other tool and then go back and select the text tool again and type in the rest of the text. The reason for doing this is that we want 3 separate text boxes.
If you want the “other text” (i.e. not the bride & groom) in caps, type it in in caps, I’m not using an all caps font for this. It will end up looking something like this:

12. Now we want to make it look good. Change the fonts first. I used Autumn, Regular, 9pt for the “other text” and Ribbon 131 Bold BT, Bold, 24pt (with a 26pt leading) for the bride & groom. You also want the text to be centered, so in the Paragraph palette, select Centered. As usual, if you don’t have these fonts, see my “How to add fonts to your computer” post. Or if you want to use other fonts, you can obviously do that too!

13. Move the text around until you like how it looks and make sure the text blocks are lined up by selecting them and click on Horizontal Align Center.

14. I also changed the colors of the text. The “other text” is 494648 and the bride & groom 873C5B.

15. As you can see, part of the branches are hidden behind the framedoodle, so we want to fix that. Just select the layer (in the layers palette) with the framedoodle and pull it down below the branch layers, so that it ends up just above the blue box layer. Voila – the branches are in front of it!

If you like it like this, by all means leave it this way, but I wanted to pull the branches off of the text and to do that you need to:

16. Lock all layers and unlock one of the branch layers. Select it with the black arrow and either make it a bit smaller by pulling on one of the little white boxes, or just move it out to the side. Do the same thing with the other branch layer, and once you like what you see, it’s done!

I would print this on nice, heavy white cardstock, and you can fit two on a landscape letter sized sheet. Part of the branches are still going to hang on the outside of the invites, but it doesn’t matter, since they will be trimmed to size anyway.

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This is the beach themed wedding invitation we’re making:

and here’s how to do it:

1. Download the shell illustration here. Just select PNG full size under the image, and then right click on it and do a Save Image As (you want it to be a PNG file) and put it somewhere on your computer where you can easily find it.

2. Open a new document in word and make sure you save it as a Word Document, not in any previous version. You need the Vista format in order to re-color the shell.

3. Go to Insert – Picture and find the shell. You’ll see that it’s upside down, so the first thing you need to do is select it, right click and go to Text Wrapping. Select In Front of text. Then go to Picture Tools – Format – Rotate and rotate it vertical.

4. To change the color of the shell, right click on it and go to Format Picture. A new window pops up, and you want to go to Picture (next to last in the menu on the left hand side). There, click on Recolor and you’ll get a drop down menu of color choices. I went with the blue in Light Variations, but you can make it any color you want of course.

5. Next, go to Insert – Shapes and select the rectangle tool. Draw a box, any size you want, and then right click on it and go to Format Auto Shape to change the size and look. I wanted to make my invitation a 5×7, so we need to make the border a little bit smaller than that. To do so, go to the Size tab and just type in your dimensions (make sure Absolute is selected for both values. I made mine 4.7 x 6.7.

6. To make the borders look nicer, go to the Colors and Lines tab. Make sure the Fill Color is set to No Color and change the Line Color to a matching blue. You also want to change the Style and Weight. I chose the next to last option in the Style drop down menu, and left the weight at the default, 4.5 pt.

7. Now we need to add the text. Go to Insert – Text Box and in the drop down menu select Draw Text Box. Draw one any size you want, we’re going to adjust it later anyway. Type in your text and change the fonts and colors. I used ACaslon RegularSC 12pt black for the text and ShelleyVolante BT 24pt Bold in a matching blue for the bride and groom. If you want to use these fonts but don’t have them, read my How To Add Fonts To Your Computer post. For more font inspiration, check out my “More Font Ideas For Your Wedding Stationery” post.

8. Next, we need to make this mess look good. Right click on the text box and set the Fill and Line Colors to No Color. Drag the shell over to where you want it on the invitation and drag the handles to size it. Pull the text box to where you want it. If something disappears behind something else and you need it to show up, select it, right click, go to Order and select the appropriate option. Once you like the way it looks, you’re done!

I would print this on nice heavy cardstock and trim it to size. Or if you have bought printable 5×7 sheets, just change the size of your word document to 5×7 and print away.

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As always, if you need to brush up on your Illustrator skills, go through one of my earlier tutorials (the Save The Date Postcards – A Step-By-Step Illustrator Guide post is particularly detailed) and take a look at the Illustrator Tools and problem solvers. For font issues, see the How To Add Fonts To Your Computer post.

OK, let’s get started. This is the invitation we are going to make:

and here’s how to do it.

1. First, download the illustration here.

2. Unzip and open in Illustrator. Select everything and make it the size you want it to be (I made mine 5×7). The easiest way to do that is to, with everything selected, type in the dimensions in the Transform palette (make sure the Constrain Width and Height Proportions is not active).

If you don’t see the Transform palette, go to Windows – Transform and it will open.

3. The next thing I did was to select all the fishes and put them on a separate layer. This is a bit time consuming, but you’ll be happy you did it when you need to move them around to make room for the text.

So select all the fishes with the Direct Selection Tool (white arrow), cut and paste on a new layer (to paste them in the exact same spot on the new layer, press CNTRL+F). Make sure you select their eyes too, otherwise they’ll stay on the “ocean floor” layer. If your new layer is above the ocean floor layer, drag it beneath it.

4. Lock both these layers and create two new layers. In the first one, type in your text. I used Papyrus 12pt (black) for the text and Papyrus 18pt (R 0, G 156, B 197) for the bride and groom (spaced at 30pt). Depending on your wording, you may have to space all the text differently to make it fit and look good.

5. Lock that layer and go to the next to add the ampersand. I used Dahrlin Regular at 48pt (R 0, G 117, B 139). Move it around until you like what you see.

6. Tweak everything until it looks good. Play with fonts, font size and word spacing, move the fishes around, resize items. Once you like it, you’re done!

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2. Beach Weddings – Invitation Tutorial III So far in our beach wedding invitations tutorials, we have...
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And for those of us in the northeastern part of the US (mid-Atlantic too for that matter), a palm-fringed beach with balmy breezes sounds pretty good right about now. So what better place to have a wedding than in such a beautiful setting where people naturally relax and feel happy?

I personally love beach weddings, and today, I’m starting a mini-series of Illustrator tutorials on making your own beach themed printable wedding invitations, each with a very different look.

If you’re pretty new to Illustrator and haven’t done any of my other tutorials, you may want to read the Illustrator Toolbar and Illustrator Problem Solvers posts. Also, my first Illustrator tutorial post, “Save the date postcards – A step by step Illustrator guide” goes through the tools and steps more thoroughly than I do here.

We are starting with a 1970s-inspired sunset invitation, perfect for a more unconventional, informal affair. It’s super-easy and fast to make. If this is so not your style, don’t worry – the next beach wedding invitation will have a totally different feel.

1. Download the illustration here

2. Unzip it and open the ai (illustrator) file in Illustrator.

3. Lock the layer with the palm trees and sun, and change the size of the background layer to the size you want your invitation (I made mine an A2 – 6.25×4.5). Make sure you’ve selected everything on this layer before you do this – there is more than one part to this illustration. Once you’re done, lock the background layer.

4. Unlock the layer with the palm trees, select everything and drag it over to the left hand side of the background. Just somewhere over there is good, we’ll fine-tune it later.

5. Lock that layer and create a new layer for the text.

6. Select the text tool and type in you text. I used Braddon regular at 18pts for the “Join us” and “Mr & Mrs parts” and 14pts for the rest. As always, if you don’t have this font, read my post about adding fonts to your computer. Or use a totally different font – you’re only limited by your own imagnation.

7. Make sure the text is placed exactly where you want it, and lock the text layer. Unlock the palm tree layer, select everything on it, and move them around until they look good to you. As you can see, my trees are hanging over the edge, but that’s fine, because I am going to cut the card to size so that part will just be trimmed off.

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Statistics tells us that 2.3 million couples get engaged every year in the US; 19% of all those engagements take place during the month of December and 10% on Valentine’s Day.

With those facts in mind, I thought this would be a good time to do a tutorial on DIY engagement party invitations.

I call today’s invite “Damask Engagement Invitation” and we are using free vector art (x 2) and Illustrator. As always, if you get stuck or are unsure of where to find a tool, read through a previous tutorial, and look at my posts about the tools and Illustrator notes and problem solvers. For font issues, see “How to add fonts to your computer“.

Now, let’s make the invitation:

1. Download the free vector file “seamless pattern” from seamless megapack 2 at designious.com.

2. Download the free vector file “framedoodle” from Pixels & Ice Cream.

3. Unzip the files and open them in Illustrator.

4. Create a new document, any size you want, I made mine 6.25 wide x 4.5 high (a size A6).

5. Go to the seamless pattern document. Select the background and damask pattern (not the text). Copy and paste into your new document. Size it to fit by typing in your document’s dimensions in the transform palette (with the entire design still selected). You may need to click the “constrain proportions” to make it work properly.

6. Select the background only (by clicking somewhere in between the damask pattern). Cut it and paste in place on a new layer (CNTRL + F will paste it in the exact same location on the new layer). If the new layer is on top of the pattern, pull it below.

7. Lock the layer with the damask pattern; we won’t be touching that again.

8. If you want to change the color of the background like I did, select it and pick any color you want (I used R207 G235 B242).

9. Lock that layer and create a new one on top of both layers. Select the Rectangle tool and click once on the artboard. A window will pop up where you can put in the desired dimensions of your box. I made mine 6.25 x .05″ and filled it with the same color as the background. Pull the colored bar to the middle of the card.

10. Go to the document with the framedoodle. Select the entire design, copy it and paste it in a new layer in your document. We only want the outer part of this frame, so with your white arrow, select and delete the inner part (the dots).

11. Once you have just the outer portion of the frame left, select it and group it. I wanted it to match the color of the damask pattern on the bottom of the card, so I selected it and picked a matching brown. Even though it seems like it is the stroke color that should be changed, it is actually the fill color.

12. As you can see, the frame is transparent, and we want a white background. Select the frame and look at the Fill and Stroke section of the toolbar. You’ll see that it has a brown fill and no stroke (even though it doesn’t look that way). Click the Swap arrow to reverse that. Then, select the paint bucket,  set the fill color to white (either in the colors palette or in the fill and stroke part of the toolbar) and as you hover over the frame, you’ll see a text that says “click to make a live paint group”. Click and the frame will be filled with white.

13. Re-size it if needed (I made mine a bit larger) and place it where you want it on the card.

14. Create a new layer and add the text. I used Carleton 12pt for the top and third row, Carleton 9pt for the fourth and fifth row, and Ribbon 131 Bold at 24pt for the names.

Voila! Your own homemade engagement invites! If you want to be really budget-minded when printing these invitations, you could make them smaller, and put four on a page. I suggest making them 5.25×4 – that way you can fit four of them on a standard letter sized page with a little bit of a margin around the edges (since many printers don’t print all the way to the edge). Print on nice heavy cardstock and cut to size. They will fit in a size A2 envelope.

If you don’t want to or can’t print them yourself, ask at a local print shop or office store – they will most likely be able to help you.

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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.

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Wedding 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 engagement announcements and engagement party invitations using Illustrator.

Also, this announcement could easily be turned into homemade printable wedding invitations. Just remove the photo and put the invitation wording in its place, perhaps using a couple of different fonts.

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! Your own engagement announcement cards!

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.

Related posts:

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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.) If you want a different font alltogether, see my “More Font Ideas For Your Wedding Stationery” post.

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.

Also, check out my word tutorials on Save the Date cards and Wedding Invitations.

Related posts:

1. Engagement Announcements In Purple, White And Gray – An Illustrator Tutorial This is part 3 in my series of tutorials for...
2. Another DIY Engagement Announcement using Microsoft Word This is part 2 in our series of DIY projects...
3. Make Your Own Save The Date Cards Using Microsoft Word In today’s tutorial, we’re using Microsoft Word to create Save...

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Of course, even if you don’t have a wedding theme, you still need fonts, and fortunately, there are tons of free fonts available online. Below are some examples of cool fonts that I really like. Read my “How To Add Fonts To Your Computer” post if you need help finding and downloading them. For layout ideas, check out some of my tutorials:

• Save The Date Cards
• Engagement Announcements
• Engagement Invitations
• Wedding Invitations
• Beach Weddings

Handwriting Fonts
For a more informal look, fonts simulating handwriting are great, and give the whole affair a more laid back, casual feel.

Bernhard Fashion BT
Bettys Hand
Brush Script
Brush Flash
Dali
Daniela
Handscript
Joe Hand 2
LizzieLongstocking
Mistral
Stylograph
Tekton Bold

Classic Sans Serif Fonts
Some classic fonts that always are in style are the sans serif Helvetica, Optima, Gill Sans and Arial. It’s hard to go wrong with either of them. For a similar look with a tad more pizzazz, check out Champagne & Limousines. It’s a bit more rounded with thin, elegant lines.

Arial
Avian
Aubrey
Berlin Sans FB
Champagne & Limousines
Gill Sans
Helvetica
Optima
Tyro Sans

Script Fonts
These fonts give the invitation a nice formal look. If you don’t want to use them for the entire text, they are great for making the bride and groom’s names stand out.

Adine Kirnberg Script
Champignon
English Script
Kunstler Script
Linotype Zapfino
Nuptial Script
Park Avenue
Ribbon 131 Bold BT

Small Caps
Small caps are very popular and add a sophisticated feel. And they are easy to read.

Atlantic Inline-Normal
Bank Gothic Light BT
Biondi
Carleton
Copperplate Gothic Light
Encino
Farfel ICG
Graverplate
Kismet-Normal
LitographLight
Perpetua titling
Socrates

Miscellaneous Favorites
These are a few other of my favorite fonts that don’t really fit into any of the other categories:

Aerofoil
Arcane Wide
Architecture
Colonna MT
Croix Regular
Elisia Openface Regular
Papyrus
Stylus BT
University

What about fonts for the aforementioned 60s, Arabian nights or a Victorian tea party themes? I think any one of these would work nicely:

1960s
Alba
BellBottomLaser
Dreamland
LMS Hippy Chick

Arabian Nights
Arabian
Arabolical
XXII Arabian Onenightstand
Kara Ben Nemsi

Victorian Tea Party
Armenian Circus
Belshaw
Trinigan

Happy font hunting!

Related posts:

1. Which Font Should You Use For Your Printable Wedding Invitations? Well, that depends on what sort of feel you want...
2. Text Layout Ideas For Your Printable Wedding Invitations If you decide to go with homemade save the date...

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For those of you who are interested in continuing to design your own cards and other items, I think Adobe Illustrator is a very worthwhile investment. And if you’re a student (or faculty), you can get it for a really good price ($199 as opposed to $599 for Illustrator CS4). Sometimes you can get a lower price even if you’re just taking an evening course, so definitely check that out.

I’m calling today’s Save The Date card “China Dream” because that’s what the illustration we’re basing it on is called, and here how it all comes together:

1. Download China Dream by Mariannasm here. Read the License & Usage.

2. Unzip the file

3. Open a word document. Go to Insert – Picture – From File and click on the jpg of the unzipped file.

4. Right click on the illustration and go to Format Picture. In the Size tab, uncheck “Lock Aspect Ratio” and put in the dimensions you want (I made mine 4×6). In the Layout tab, select “Behind Text” in the Wrapping Styles. Click OK.

5. Go to Insert – Text Box and drag a text box anywhere on the page (it’s a little bit easier to work with if it’s not right on top of the illustration for right now). Right click on the text box and go to Format Text Box. In the Colors and Lines Tab, select No Fill and No Line.

6. Type in your text. I used Papyrus 14 pt for the text part and Adine Kirnberg Script 32pt for the bridge and groom, all aligned right.

If you don’t like the fonts I used, or the ones you have on your computer, look on the internet – there are tons available for free online (if you need inspiration, check out my “More Font Ideas For Your Wedding Stationery” post). You just need to download the ones you want and add them to your font library. See my “How To Add Fonts To Your Computer” post if you need help with that.

7. Move your textbox over the illustration and position it where you want it. You may have to tweak the size of the type and paragraph spacing a little bit, since we can’t change the illustration in Word. Once you like what you see, you’re done!

You could easily turn these into wedding invitations as well, you just have to change the wording and maybe adjust the font sizes a bit.

Related posts:

1. “Funky Chic” Save The Date Cards – An Illustrator Tutorial Today’s Save the Date card is very easy to make,...
2. Another DIY Engagement Announcement using Microsoft Word This is part 2 in our series of DIY projects...
3. Save The Date Postcards – A Step-By-Step Illustrator Guide Making your own Save the Date cards is fun and...

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