My inspiration for the Hummingbird card (which I think would be great for coastal or beach weddings) came from a really cute vector file called Cyber Plant, made by vectorjungle. You can download the file (an eps document) here. Read the License.

To create the Hummingbird Save the Date card:

1. Unzip the file you downloaded. Open cyber_plant_life_2.eps in Illustrator. Eps stands for Encapsulated PostScript and they are usually vector files that you can work with in Illustrator.

2. With your selection tool, select the plant/flower and the hummingbird in the left hand corner (you’ll grab more than you need, but that’s fine). To select both, first click on one, then hold down the Shift key and click on the other.

3. Create a new, 5×5″ Illustrator document.

4. Paste the flower and bird in your new document. The illustration will be much larger than your document, but don’t worry about that yet.

5. With your Direct Selection Tool, select and delete the parts you don’t want. The reason we’re using the Direct Selection Tool (white arrow) instead of the Selection Tool (black arrow) is that it allows you to select only parts of a design, even if it’s grouped. It can be a bit time consuming, but worth every minute. If you have a larger area of stuff you don’t need, you can always click and drag around it (while using your Direct Selection Tool) and delete a few parts with one keystroke. When you have deleted all the parts (if you do exactly what I did), this is what you end up with.

6. Click on any part of the illustration with your Selection Tool and then ungroup (by either going to Object – Ungroup or right click on your mouse and hit ungroup). Now click on either part of the two large stems and ungroup them as well.

7. Now, with the Selection Tool (black arrow) select the bottom part of the flower stem, the one that’s floating on it’s own on the bottom and drag it up to match up with the top one. Zoom in really close (either by using the Zoom Tool, just select it and drag around the area you want to zoom in on, or by hitting Apple and + or Cntrl and + on PC. Use – in the same way to zoom out) and just match the two parts up (it doesn’t have to be perfect, one can overlap the other a bit, that’s fine). Then immediately select both and group them (by going to Object – Group, or right clicking on your mouse and select group, or hit Apple+G or Cntrl+G for PC).

8. The next step is to move the bird and flowers on the side over to the “main flower”. So select all of that by just dragging around it with your Direct Selection Tool and then immediately switch to the Selection Tool and just drag them over. Zoom in where the smaller stem meets the larger one. As you can see, they don’t really match up so we need to fix that. With your Direct Selection tool, select the little stem, and click on it until you get two white squares on the bottom of the stem. Now, with your Direct Selection Tool, grab the little white square to the right and just drag it down until it meets up with the larger stem. This will change the shape of the little stem, but that’s exactly what we want.

9. I didn’t like the look of the bird’s eye – it looked a bit dinosaur-ish to me – so I changed it a bit by selecting it with the Direct Selection Tool (white arrow) and just pulling up on that little “handle” on the bottom. I also got rid of the little black “blob” in the corner of his eye by adjusting the handles there as well. The result:

8. Now comes the fun part – the coloring! Select and color the different parts of your resulting design as you wish. I made all the flowers the same color, but obviously, you don’t have to. If you want to do it the way I did, select all the different flowers, either by holding down the shift key and clicking on them with your Selection Tool, or by just selecting one and go to Select – Same – Fill Color (this only works if what you want to select has the same fill or stroke color, but it’s a good trick to know). If you want to make them all the same color, it’s a good idea to group them here. With the flowers selected, either click on a patch or fill in your color values in the color palette. I used R 239, G 183, B 192 for the flowers.

Note: if you want to save the color you just created, just click on the fill box in the color window and drag it down to the swatch window

To change the color of the stems and bird, select them and proceed as above. I used R 155, G 157, B 160 for mine.

10. Now select the entire design and resize it so it fits on your card (however large or small you want it to be).

11. Add a new layer and drag it so it’s on the bottom. Lock the layer with the illustration. Select the Rectangle tool, click anywhere in the window and create a 5×5″ box. Drag it so that it fits right in your document. Make sure there is no stroke weight or color, and fill your box with the color you want. Mine is R 255, G 252, B 213 with 42% opacity.

12. Add a new layer and lock the others. In the new layer, add your text, using any font you want. I used Century Gothic at 12pt, all lower caps for the general text, and Century Gothic, 18pt, all caps for the bride & groom. If you need font inspiration and help, check out my “More Font Ideas For Your Wedding Stationery” and “How To Add Fonts To Your Computer” posts.

Done!

As you can see, this is really easy to make, and you can personalize it in so many ways by changing the colors, keeping more or less of the original design, changing the font and wording, add more illustrations… Or make a totally different card all together!

Also, don’t miss the next post where we turn this card into a wedding invitation.

Related posts:

1. Save The Date Postcards – A Step-By-Step Illustrator Guide Making your own Save the Date cards is fun and...
2. “Funky Chic” Save The Date Cards – An Illustrator Tutorial Today’s Save the Date card is very easy to make,...
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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This guide assumes that you have a (very) basic knowledge of Illustrator, or have at least played around with it a little bit. Please make sure you read these Illustrator notes/problem solvers first, and you might also want to take a look at the Illustrator Toolbar.

Illustrator uses and creates vector files (which can be resized and warped without losing any sharpness at all). There is tons of free vector art available online, but before downloading anything, read through the licensing rights. It’s usually clearly stated, and while many will let you use their designs for free for your own personal use, not everyone does. And if you plan to do something else with them, make sure you know what the deal is, and play by the rules. You wouldn’t want someone stealing your work that you put all that work and time into.

OK, let’s get started on our first card, which I call Elegant Pink

For this first card, I got my background pattern from createsk8.com. It is by jlwdesign and it’s called the “Elegant Vines Pattern” (you can get it here). Read the License and Usage Info.

1. After you download your design (make sure you select the Adobe Illustrator CS download option), open the ai (Illustrator) document in Illustrator. You might encounter a few error messages: just hit OK and/or CONTINUE and/or OPEN, it doesn’t matter.

2. Select the color block you want with either the selection or the direct selection tool (for this particular design, you want to click on the tiny square you want with the direct selection tool, and while it’s selected, immediately click on the selection tool in the toolbar. This assures that you get the entire square copied, and not just part of it). Copy it by either going to Edit – Copy or by pressing Apple+C (Cntrl+C for PCs).

3. Open a new illustrator document (can be any size, we’ll worry about that later)

4. Paste your selection in your new document (by either going to Edit-Paste or by pressing Apple+V (Cntrl+V on PC)

5. select the rectangle tool (your arrow will turn into a small cross), click anywhere on the page

6. a window will pop up where you fill in the dimensions of your new box (I made mine 6″ wide by 4″ high). Your chosen pattern will automatically fill your new box. After your 4×6 box shows up, make sure you delete the tiny square you copied on the page (by selecting it and hitting Delete).

7. Make sure your new box is selected (you’ll know it is if you see tiny white squares in the corners and on the sides of the box) and set the opacity to 40

8. Add a new layer and lock the bottom layer (with your vine design box in it).

9. With the rectangle tool selected, click anywhere on your second layer to make the photo box (I made mine 2.5×2.5″)

10. To make the frame pink, make sure your new box is selected (it will probably be filled with the vine pattern, don’t worry about that), go to the color palette and make sure you’re coloring the stroke, not the fill Type in the values for the color you want (I used R 216, G 178, B 173 If your color palette is displaying something different than RGB (CMYK for example), go to the fly out menu and select RGB I used a 1 pt stroke for the width of the frame. If you want it thinner or thicker than that, go to the Stroke menu and type in the value you want To fill it with white (I find it helpful while working on the design), make sure the “fill” box is in front on the color palette and click on the little white box in the lower right hand corner

11. Create another layer and lock the others

12. Select the rectangle box again to make the pink “ribbon”. Like before, click anywhere on the page and type in the dimensions (I used 2×4″)

13. Fill with same pink as frame ((R 216, G 177, B 173)

14. Set opacity to 65

15. If you want to move it on top of the background box at this point, double check so that the layer with the background box is locked, select the ribbon (with the Selection tool) and pull it on top of the box (by pressing down your right mouse button and dragging).

16. Make a new layer and lock the others.

17. Select the Type tool and click anywhere on the page (if you want to type on top of the ribbon to see what it looks like, make sure that layer is locked)

18. Type your text (I used Myriad Pro, 14pt, bold)

19. Unlock all layers

20. Select background box and ribbon box and align them on top (“vertical align top”)

21. To add your photo, create a new layer, right underneath the frame layer and lock all others

22. In your new layer, go to File – Place and select your photo

23. Resize it by pulling the handles (hold down the shift key while dragging in one of the corners – this will keep it proportional) or by left clicking on your mouse and selecting Transform – Scale and type in a smaller value. If you know the exact size you want it to be (which we do here, since it needs to fit right underneath the frame, make sure you’re photo is selected, and up top, just beneath the File, Edit etc. headings, you will see two windows with an W and H in front. Just type in your dimensions here (2.5×2.5″).

24. Unlock the layer with the photo box

25. Select both the box and the photo and align them

26. Make the box transparent There’s your photo in the frame! Tip: to keep the photo and frame together so you don’t accidentally move one without the other, select them both (the easiest way to do this is to make sure all other layers except these 2 are locked and with the Selection Tool, pull and drag around the boxes until both are selected) and go to Object – Group (or you can left click and select Group).

This may seem like a lot of steps, but once you know it, you can put a card together in a few minutes. If, after going through the step-by-step instructions you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

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. “Funky Chic” Save The Date Cards – An Illustrator Tutorial Today’s Save the Date card is very easy to make,...
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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1. For a square card, a cute, contemporary idea is to make the text aligned in a square in the middle. Type your names and the word “Wedding” (or anything else you want to highlight) in larger letters, and maybe with a different color (your theme color for the wedding?). I like using all caps for this layout and here, I used Times at 12 and 18 pts.

2. Another option that works nicely on “regular” 5×7 cards is to type your names in a script font, larger (and perhaps in a different color, matching the design on the card) and the rest of the text in small caps. For this card, I used Zapfino at 13pts for the names, and Myriad Pro at 12pts for the text.

3. For something very informal, like beach weddings, use a whimsical font (I used Papyrus at 12 and 20 pts for the invitation below). You can of course vary the font for the names, pick a different layout, anything you want. Just have fun with it, and let your invitation set the tone for the whole event.

For more info, check out my posts “Which Font Should You use For Your Printable Wedding Invitations“, “More Font Ideas For Your Wedding Stationery” and “How To Add Fonts To Your Computer“.

Related posts:

1. Which Font Should You Use For Your Printable Wedding Invitations? Well, that depends on what sort of feel you want...
2. 6 Ideas For Giving Your Printable Wedding Invitations A Unique Look With so many great looking invitation choices, how do you...
3. Hummingbird Wedding Invitations This tutorial is based on a Save the Date card...

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