The Knitting Invites: The Real Deal

So now that we had those gorgeous Christmas postcards we had to decide how to turn them into our invitations. We decided to keep it simple and to redesign the back of a postcard complete with all of our invitation information.

Here's a look at what we designed (this is not the finished invite):



We found the postcard template on Martha, the flourish is from Project Wedding (it's the same one we used in our guestposter), and the silhouettes are from The Wedding Chicks. We didn't have the silhouettes of ourselves at the time when we printed these, but even if we had I would have still gone with these more old fashioned ones as I feel they suit the look of our invites a lot better.

What I really love about the template we found on Martha is that some of the vintage postcards we bought actually have this exact same design.

For example, here's a close up of the template:


Source

and here's a few of our postcards:


If you read the message in the above postcard you'll notice that it makes reference to a future visit in the spring of 1922. This makes me really happy.



We then took what we designed and glued these onto the backs of the postcards. Here's a picture of Mr. Knitting hard at work gluing. We watched a lot of Lost and made a huge mess of our living room while we put these together. A few weeks later that mess may or may not still be there...



We made use of some essential tools:



I was worried about the glue not holding well enough so we brought out the biggest art history and science textbooks we could find and stored the invites in those while they were drying. Every so often we come across one we missed still hidden in a book...Oops!

We then decided to add a couple extra touches to make them even more postcard like. I began by Googling "Christmas stamps" and found these beauties:


Source

I love them because the Santa is adorable and also because they're vintage British stamps featuring a silhouette of Queen Elizabeth. The stamps tie together our Christmas theme and my love of silhouettes. We printed out those and glued them to the invites (and yes, that stamp is purposely glued slightly not straight!).



I then went and bought a postage cancelling stamp from Bizzy B in Toronto. This is a fantastic store packed to the brim with stamps. I highly recommend it to any GTA ladies looking for a great stamp selection.

Here's a look at the stamp:



And here it is in action:



Here's a little secret: I realized that if I used the stamp straight it would extend too far down our invite and block the date of our wedding, so instead I rotated it and used it sideways. I don't think anyone has noticed!

So here's the completed product. Everyone has just received one postcard, I've just placed a front and back side by side so it's easier to see.




So those are the Knitting invites. While there are a few duplicates, almost every single one of our guests has received a completely unique invite which makes me really happy. You'll also notice that they consist of exactly one piece. We've asked people to RSVP by phone or email because that suits us and any additional info they need is on a blog we put together. I got this idea from Martha. Instead of putting together a wedding website that costs money we sent up a Blogger account and put together our "blog", which has something like 5 entries about things like parking, directions, hotels...etc.

True Story: one of Mr. K's friends was very confused as to why we sent invites in stamped envelopes since we had already included a stamp on the postcard. I chose to take that as a compliment to the realism of the postcard. I'm not sure where he thought the address would go as we've clearly taken up that part of the postcard with wedding info...

Oh, and in case you're considering postcards for your for your invites, STDs, thank you cards, or any other wedding project, here's a few more templates for you from Martha, Ruffled, The Graphics Fairy, and the Wedding Chicks.