A blank canvas is what we always start with, whether it is a painting or a wedding, or even the wedding invites. That is why many couples to be wed opt for DIY wedding invitation kits so that they can make their own masterpiece to represent and introduce the happiest day of their lives.

A DIY wedding invitation kit lets you figure out what your end result would be from the get-go. You can do up some samples and compare them at first before you set your mind to it, and even ask your closest friends and family for their opinion before confirming your choice of design and creation as your wedding invite.

The first step is to decide on the base colour that you want your DIY wedding invites in. You could take the easy route and choose either white or a neutral hue because you can never go wrong. If you are not sure of what you want, order a few samples in advance and try then out with the other accompanying materials you have acquired to add colour and ‘oomph’ to the wedding invite ensemble. You can add that special touch with the likes of the following.

Ribbons & Lace: Ribbons and lace would be easiest way to add pops of colours onto your DIY wedding creation. Not just using it, but the way you use it makes a difference. You can pair a few different colours together, or even weave them into a design.

Watercolour Paint: Watercolour paint creations are beautiful, because not only are you adding your own personal touch, but also the colour from watercolours leaves a beautiful texture when completed.

Dyeing and Paper Texturing: A great way to add a twist to your DIY wedding invite paper would be to add colouring, in terms of dyeing, which can be done using watercolour itself, or even applying a coat of watercolour paint using a sponge or cloth.

Stamps: Stamps are great ways to add a professional looking finish with flowing and intricate designs to your wedding invite. Choose designs that go well together, or overlap in different colours to bring life into the wedding card.

Stencils: Stencils are also great ways in which you can acquire great and intricate designs, where all you need to do is colour over a stencil, and presto, you have yourself beautiful look.

Stitching: Some brides opt to add a bit of stitching for a homely feel. If your wedding is a casual one, or you have a notebook or cross-stitch theme going on, this would be ideal.

Embellishments & Accessories: Adding buckles, little diamante brooches in varying colours depending on your theme would be ideal for bursts of colour in the right amounts.

Envelope Liners: Another way of adding colour to your DIY wedding invites is to add a great envelope liner that surprises your guests as they open it. It can be anything from a design, pattern to even photographs.

Table accessories are important when you want a finished look for your tables at your wedding reception. Now, if you have delightful wedding invitations sorted out, which you made yourself, then why not go the extra mile and also do up DIY placemats and DIY napkin bands, to carry on the same theme of your DIY wedding invites. You can draw the same inspiration from the wedding invites theme, and then start from there. These themes can be anything from floral designs, garden inspired elements, hearts, or even a beach theme. Some truly unique wedding invites have origami creations attached to the front facing, so why not continue that throughout your wedding stationery as well, including your placemats and napkin bands.

Here are some ways n where you can purchase yourself some DIY stationery kits for the likes of placemats and napkin bands, and add trims and accessories to make unique creations for your special day. Having categories them by floral elements, paper art and origami, and beads, buckles and diamante, here at DIY Invitations, we will present to your options which you can use, be inspired and enhance upon to make your big day truly special.

Floral Elements DIY Inspirations

Flowers are great inspirations for weddings, be it a specific flower in mind, the flowers of the season or even a garden. When it comes to DIY and floral elements for your wedding invites down to table accessories such as placemats and napkin bands, there are some options which you can put to use, such as the following;

1. Flowers added to DIY Napkin Bands. You can both use a real flower, or artificial flower, and then pin it to your napkin band, to add glamour to the ensemble. You can do the same to the placemat, by adding it to a corner. The same can be done with paper as well.
2. Burlap flowers for Napkin Bands and Placemats. You can add burlap onto the base of a DIY paper placemat to create a texture and contrast as well as make a burlap flower and pin it to the napkin band.
3. Ribbons and Lace materials for Table Accessories. You can put ribbons and lace into great use. Not only can you make various flowers out of these materials, but also they are also great to use as placemat, be it as a lace material in whole, or intertwine ribbons and lace streamer, in a weave pattern. There are many ways to put them to use.

Paper Art and Origami DIY Inspirations

1. Paper flowers added to DIY table accessories. You can use paper art or be creative to make floral origami and add it to the napkin band and placemat, which would be similar to the first options given in floral elements.
2. Tissue Flowers added to DIY table accessories. Similar to paper flower, you can use tissue materials to make tissue flowers or pompoms, which can be added to your table centres, napkin bands, and placemats.
3. Paper Doilies for Table Accessories. You can use paper doilies in varying colours, as the base of your placemat, or use then to highlight your napkin band, or even turn it into a flower.
4. Laser cut or cutouts of designs according to your theme. If you do not want to use doilies, and want your own designs, you can use the laser cut technique on your DIY stationery, and make yourself an ornate and intricate design for your placemats and napkin bands.

Beads, Buckles and Diamante DIY Inspirations

1. Beads for your DIY Stationery. Using a design of beads, make it as a flower, a shape, or something from your theme, can spruce up for your napkin bands and the placemats in a great way.
2. Adding buckles to your DIY table accessories. Buckles either made out of beads or diamante, are great additions to your ensemble. Add a splash of glamour with these options.
3. Mix and Match your Materials for your DIY table stationery and decor. Using all the options given here, you can make a beautiful array of creations that will be ideal for your big day. Choose wisely, and make samples to see for yourself and pick the best one out of the lot.

If you are hyped about being a DIY bride, want to do something personal yet elaborate, you still can. With the option of doing up DIY pocket wedding invites, you will have yourself a personal and custom wedding invite, with your creative input in a neat and concise little package in the form of an enclosed invite, known as the pocket invitations.

Pocket Invitations Types

Either there are two types of pocket wedding invitations, namely, which are square, or rectangular those are either horizontal or vertical. Essentially, they are square pocket invites, horizontal pocket invites, and vertical pocket invites. These bi-folded and tri-folded pocket invites allows you the option of choosing which type of layout, fold and direction you would want for your wedding invite and announcement. If you are going for a tri-folded pocket invite, then you are making a statement, because you will have more space for your invitation wording and personal notes, which make the invites, stand out. However, that does not mean that you should not opt for the bi-fold, because it does allow you to exude a sense of elegance.

Styles for Your DIY Pocket Invites

When it comes to styling your DIY pocket invites, you can keep it simple and opt for the likes of traditional, modern, & contemporary, to classic and elegant. Each of these styles has their dominant elements, which will show through, essentially through the colours and font usage. For traditional and classic styles you find yourself with san serif and cursive fonts with muted yet statement colours, whilst modern and contemporary you have the option of going with contrasts for your colour choices, and opt for either san serif and rigid fonts, or even serif fonts depending n your feeling towards the end result. Whether you choose traditional or modern for your style, you can make an elegant DIY pocket invite creation bloom from just an idea. Be wise when you opt select your designs, and make sure you do not mix and match these styles, so that your design shows through. Colours that are great on invites include the likes of black and white, being the base colours, whilst silver, gold, purple, pink, red, blue, brown, green, yellow, orange and neutral colours such as nude or taupe are great options.

Uses for DIY Pocket Invitations

You can use DIY pocket invites for the likes of DIY wedding pocket invites or even engagement party invitations, or even use it for save the date card. The choice is all yours.

DIY weddings are more popular than ever, and with the New Year dawning, trends for decor as well as wedding invitations has had a jumpstart to make it more and more appealing. With so much inspiration available at your fingertips, you can take your DIY wedding to another level, be it with the decor you have, the stationery and the theme you have chosen for your special day.

Brighter and Bolder

More and more people are opening up to more colour in their lives, and with the colour being forecasted for 2012 being a bold choice of Tangerine Tango, you can mix and match your favourite colours to suit your theme or vision for the wedding.

Detailing & Personalise it Your Whim

When you want to make something personal all the little details matter, especially if you go about making sure that these little details go into your wedding in the first place. Provided you do this, you can go about adding personal bits and bobs to your wedding decor and even wedding invitations. For the wedding stationery, you could add the likes of a motif or a monogram, or even a picture, and so much more. The little things matter, do not forget.

Pocket Wedding Invitations

Pocket wedding invitations are always so convenient, when it comes down to organising all the wedding invitation accessories and ensuring all the necessary information and stationery are sent across to the invitees. This great option will continue on to the new year as well.

Be Eco-Friendly

As most of the populace of the globe is going green or becoming eco-friendly and it is about time lots of other folk got on board too. Opt for recycled paper, and other recyclables for use in your DIY wedding decor or even DIY wedding invitations.

Watercolours

There is something truly beautiful about using watercolours, where it entwines various colours together. In addition, this is a great way to also personalise your wedding day, in terms of your wedding invitations and stationery. You can feature a key design element, be it from the venue, a flower from the bouquet or even just something the bride and groom hold dear to their hearts.

Heritage, Vintage & Classics

History means a lot to many people, whether it is your roots, your past or just the past in general, there are so many things that you look back on which you can be inspirited to decorate your special day with elements that are sentimental to you.

Every wedding has to have a bouquet as an accessory for the bride, and over the years, bouquets have become such unique features that it has become an inspiration for many a thing. Therefore, in this instalment of DIY Wedding Invitations, we bring you Bouquet Inspired DIY Wedding Invitations.

If you already have a colour scheme selected, then all you will need to do is figure out the texture of the DIY invitation paper and the inspiration to decorate it in a way that blends well with your wedding theme. Now, if you are using DreamDay Invitations and their DIY wedding invitations kits, you have the ease of having your entire guest list printed as well as the invitation wording and such.  When selecting your DIY invites, make sure you have some idea of the layout because it will be delivered to you so that they will be ready to have other wedding invitations and accessories attached to it. Now, onto the matter of what you can use to decorate these DIY wedding invitations, we have a few ideas in mind. Let us find out more about them, shall we?

Material Inspirations for Your DIY Wedding Invitations

Beaded bouquets are cute and dainty, and definitely different from any wedding bouquet you have seen. They can be considered a little sparse, but you can accessorise with more beads or accompanying materials. Like so, you can add beads or beaded strings, to blend well with your bouquet, ensuring that the colour scheme is the same.  There is also the option of handmade wedding invitations from scratch, which involves adding beaded buckles with lace or ribbons. That is just one option you can take.

Another unique bouquet you can use is twigs as the main attraction. Add a rustic touch to your DIY wedding invitation with this accessory.

Brooches are lovely additions to weddings, but you can break the mould by opting for a bouquet of brooches and make it truly beautiful. Your DIY wedding invitation would be a brooch too, giving your invitees a wedding keepsake with your invite as well.

Fan Shaped Bouquet is something that is unheard of but entirely possible. So, shape your wedding bouquet in that manner and decorate your wedding invite to resemble a handheld antique fan as well.

Feathers are lovely to behold and the colours are truly spectacular. You can add a single feather or numerous ones to accessorise your DIY wedding invitation.

Buttons, similar to brooches can be ornate and beautiful. So find yourself admiring the beauty of your bouquet and your wedding invite when you opt for this accessory.

Wires are similar to twigs but can be shaped to your liking. Deck your bouquet with some lovely designs and use that as inspiration for your design on the DIY wedding invites.

Fruits and Vegetables are great additions to your decor and using them for your bouquet is quite creative. Use inspiration from the fruits and vegetables, from the colours or shapes and use it in the decor and design of truly unique wedding invites.

Fabric Bouquets as also great options, and are cost efficient. When making your fabric flowers, have a few more made for your DIY wedding invites, and use it as the highlights of the floral invitation and blend your wedding elements together.

When we go out in to the world, and wherever we look, we find inspiration. When we look at a blank canvas, inspiration comes to us from the things we have seen and experienced. Therefore, when it comes to the most special day of your life, and you are about to embark on creating your DIY wedding invitations, inspiration will come to you.

A great way of coming up with beautiful DIY wedding invitations, is to personalise it, in a way that is more than doing up a wedding invitation yourself. Using inspiration from whatever wedding element you put to use, or even inspiration from the venue itself, you can make your DIY wedding invite beautiful, sentimental and trendy. What is this trend? As the title says, hand drawing or hand painting is the focal wedding element on your DIY wedding invitations.

Focal Theme Elements

Most couples enjoy using a focal element to make their wedding stand out. This is usually in line with the theme they are planning on using. What is meant by focal themes is that it takes a specific item or element from the overall inspiration and design and is used thorough varying areas of the wedding, from the wedding invitations to the stationery and decor as well. You can opt to use the likes of any of the below mentioned.

Floral

Floral weddings and inspirations drawn from the floral accents and elements of the big day is quite common, but do not let that bit of information let you down because how you go about doing is where the uniqueness lies. Whether you are choosing roses or cherry blossoms, how you draw or paint it on your DIY wedding invite is true to yours and yours alone. An example of a floral illustrated floral wedding invitation would be Rose Watercolour.

Fruits

Along the same lines of how you paint a picture of a flower, you can do so with fruits. Weddings nowadays, you tend to find fruits used in the decor itself, from apples, pears, to grapes and pomegranate. Put a twist into your wedding with a fruity theme.

Foliage

Foliage can be considered floral, but when it has come to decor and taking inspiration from it, you tend to lean towards these beautiful scenes of creeping ivy or beautiful leaves you would find in various times of the year.

Fauna

Fauna can be anything from a cute bunny rabbit to lovebirds. A popular trend would be using lovebirds and cages in the wedding decor, where if you are using a birdcage for the centrepieces you can tie it in with lovebirds on your DIY wedding invitations.

Portrait or Silhouettes

Portraits are quite lovely if done by a talented artist, in a beautiful and romantic setting and set in your wedding invitations at the very bottom, setting of a lovely balance between art and etiquette. If you want to a little chic, then opt for silhouettes of you and your fiancé that will be featured on the very top.

Motif or Monogram

Similar to the silhouette setting, you can include a motif such as the family crest, a theme element or a monogram of your initials entwined together.

Venue and Location

A beautiful way of featuring your venue would be to have it drawn or painted on your wedding invitation. This way you will not only be infusing the place you are getting married at forever in your minds but also making it a unique way of giving away the location of your venue to your guests. Even if they have a map and directions card in hand, instantly recognising the venue from your wedding invitation would be a lovely gesture.

Design or Pattern

Many do designs or patterns, whether it is as a border or as a specific area of the wedding invite. Some couples opt to choose a dark colour for the design or pattern on a white base, but nowadays an inverted effect is quite popular. Any of the above mentioned focal elements can be used to create a design, and if not there are way ways in which a pattern can be used, from various inspirations from damask to chevron and much more.

Borders

Borders are lovely ways to add a distinctive appeal to your wedding invite and you can draw inspiration from your dress itself. If there is a pattern or a lace design on your beautiful wedding dress that you have chosen, you can put it to use by mimicking the design and drawing it out on your DIY wedding invitations.

Theme Illustrations

Theme illustration is considered a great trend that is customisable to couples, you could even tell your love story in the form of an illustration. From a simple drawing of the couple to the setting of the wedding, there are so many ways in portraying things with the use of illustrations if you let your imagination soar.