Do It Yourself Wedding Invitations with Letterpress

Your wedding invitation will be the first thing that your guests see from your wedding. It may be displayed for weeks on their mantelpiece, and will probably be one of the things that they keep as a momento of sharing your special day, perhaps even ending up in a frame. They should reflect your sense of style, personality, and theme of your wedding. There are endless choices in designs for wedding invitations, from traditional and classic to bold and modern. Although professionally printed, personalized wedding stationery can often be expensive, with a bit of creativity it is easy to make your own wedding and bridal shower invitations. As well as saving your wedding budget, creating your own wedding invitations can be a fun process to share with your fiancé or bridesmaids. Your design will be unique to you, and your guests will know that their wedding invitation was handmade by you, making it even more special.

Letterpress stationery has a real air of elegance and luxury, adding depth and texture to wedding invitations. We share some tips on how to create low cost letterpress wedding invitations yourself.

‘Letterpress’ printing is an old technique where the letters and design are created in relief on a block made of metal or wood which is then coated lightly in ink and pressed onto the paper. The resulting effect is a slight impression in the printed areas, which creates a subtle but luxurious look for your wedding invitations.

Although professional letterpress machines will create the most accurate and reliable imprints, you can make your own wedding invitations using letterpress techniques. With some practice and effort, you can do your own wedding invitations and create a similar effect.

‘Ok, so how can we make our own wedding invitations?’ There are three basic elements to making your own letterpress invitations: the plate, the paper and the press. The plate is the flat element that has a reverse view of your design raised on it. The paper needs to be soft enough to take an impression, and should be high quality. The press is needed to push the plate onto the paper with a strong, even pressure to create the printed impression.

The tips below will get your started on how to create your own low cost letterpress wedding invitations:

Buy a Personalized Plate

There are many places online where you can send your design and they will send you a plate to make your own wedding invitations. Unless you are a dab hand at carving wood, casting metal, or developing polymer plastic, this is the best way to get an accurate plate for your letterpress wedding invitations.

Use Rubber Stamps

If you just want to create a small letterpress style motif on your wedding invitations, then there are hundreds of rubber stamps to choose from. Most rubber stamps have a soft foam backing between the rubber and the wooden handle, and you will need to remove this in order to be able to get sufficient pressure to create an indentation in the paper.

Use the Right Paper

Use a paper that will take a good impression. It should be thicker than printer paper and softer than most cardstock. Most letterpresses use 100% cotton paper. Ask in you local artstore for a suitable paper.

Hire or Borrow a Letterpress

Some local colleges or universities may have a letterpress machine that you can use. You may have to pay a fee to hire the use of the machine.

Build Your own Letterpress Machine!

If you are the kind of creative bride to do your own wedding invitations, then maybe you can go all the way and build your own letterpress machine to help you make your own wedding invitations. You can find instructions on how to do this, here.

Practice Makes Perfect.

Letterpressing is a specialist technique, and an art that is perfected through years and sometimes generations of practice and experience, so don’t be too frustrated if your first efforts don’t turn out perfect. Keep practicing and experimenting with different papers and press techniques and you are sure to end up with beautiful handmade wedding invitations that your guests will love.

Websites:

1 - http://www.dauphinepress.com/wedding-styles.html

2 - http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-Letterpress-%26-Use-It-to-Print-Things/

3 - http://www.boxcarpress.com/

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