Beach Weddings – Invitation Tutorial III

So far in our beach wedding invitation tutorials, we have made a funky 70s sunset invitation and a fun ocean floor invite, both in Illustrator. Today, we’re making a very simple and traditional invitation using Microsoft Word (you need Vista to be able to do one of the steps).

This is the 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.)

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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Hummingbird Wedding Invitations

This tutorial is based on a Save the Date card we created earlier, so if you missed it and want to give these invitations a try, just hop on over to that post and put that card together first.

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 a wedding invitation is so 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.

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Printable Wedding Invitations Adds Style To Your Wedding

Printing your own wedding invitations is a great, fun, way to add personality to your invites AND save money (and who doesn’t need that with all the other expenses of a wedding). There are so many options available, and all you need is a computer with a program like word and a printer.

If you decide to print your own invites, it’s a good idea to start way ahead of time (like the week after you set a date) since these sort of things always end up taking longer than one thinks, and invitations should go out six to eight weeks before the wedding, maybe even earlier if your guests will have to travel far.

I think Save-the-date cards are a fabulous idea too, people get so booked up and this way they can block off your wedding in their calendar before anything else shows up (especially important if you are planning a destination wedding or are getting married during the summer). Save-the-date cards should go out about six months before the wedding, and I love the ones that come with a detachable sticker so that people can put it in their calendar. Another fun option is to print them on magnetic paper (available at Paper Source) and cut it into smaller shapes, allowing your guests to just stick them on the refrigerator.

Once you’ve settled on the look and paper you want, go ahead and order it and quite a few extras. There will always be mishaps (paper gets stuck, ink smears, ink runs out and prints come out faded), and you don’t want to run out of supplies in the middle of everything. Also make sure to order extra ink for your printer. AND keep a close eye on it once you start printing all your invitations. It’s so easy to start a print job of 100 invites, then get distracted by something else and not check them until they’re done, only to find that half of them are printed crooked because the paper wasn’t pulled into the printer straight. What a nightmare. So stay close to the printer, and try printing in smaller batches, 10-15 at a time, that way you can stop it before it turns into a huge disaster.

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