Chewing Paper - Confessions of a Paper Addict

Tips for a Cheaper Wedding!

Someone I've noticed more than once in the media (Grazia magazine, Daily Mail) lately is Nicola Ray - author and owner of www.cheap-wedding-success.co.uk.  Nicola and I exchanged emails a little while ago and now are exchanging articles.  Mine on DIY Stationery Kits is on her website, and here is hers now on our www.weddingdiy.co.uk website on essential tips for a cheap wedding.  At a time when a recession has begun, but the price of weddings in the UK has risen to £19,000 on average, not to mention Wayne and Coleen are spending £5million, you know these kind of tips just make sense!

 

Essential Tips For A Cheap Wedding

By Nicola Ray

 

With weddings costing an arm and leg these days, there’s no surprise that brides are looking for cheap wedding solutions.  From favours to flowers, there are ways to save and with a little creative thinking you can easily knock thousands off your budget.  Here are my best tips for a cheap wedding:

1.  Create a budget and stick to it
The only way to keep track of what you’re spending is to use a budget.  Ideally use a spreadsheet, so you can see where your money is going and how much you’ve got left.  Update it regularly and no cheating – you’ve got be honest with yourself!

2.  Always shop around for better prices
Whether you’re buying pretty little table decorations or considering full-on caterers, search around and get three quotes.  You'll be surprised at the difference in the prices you find for the same, or very similar, products or services. 

3.  Get creative and do it yourself

Consider doing as much yourself as possible.  You can easily make your own favours, invitations, decorations, centrepieces and wedding cake.  Put together, you could easily shave thousands off your costs.  It’ll also be rewarding and make your wedding more personal and unique. 

 

4.  Ask for help from friends and family

If you can’t manage it all yourself, then look around for the hidden talents of friends.  We’ve all got friends who love to DJ, those that are a dab hand in the kitchen, an aunt who likes flower arranging and a friend with a fancy car.  They could donate their services as a wedding gift or they may just do it out of love!  

5.  Think differently about your venue

For cost effective venues, try village halls, local authority buildings, National Trust spaces and even pretty country pubs.   If you’re still dead set on a country house or hotel, then go for a mid-week wedding or choose a date out of season.

 

6.  Avoid 'wedding' products

We all know the word ‘wedding’ invites a premium price, so choose non-‘wedding’ items when shopping for shoes, accessories or cakes.  With suppliers for larger items such as venues, caterers, florists and photographers, get them to cater to your needs and not your occasion.

7.  Go online for all the little things
You’ll usually find the cheapest prices online, so shop around.  Ebay is great for cheap decorations, accessories, invites, favours etc.  It's especially good for cheap wedding veils and made-to-measure wedding dresses (for under £100).

8.  Do your own catering

If you can, try to cater yourselves, you’ll knock thousands off your catering budget.  If DIY catering is too much to consider, then think about serving something different such as afternoon tea, a sit down buffet, BBQ or simply serving up canapés.  

9.  Buy your wedding cake from the supermarkets

You can pick up ‘celebration’ cakes from Asda and Tesco for little more than £30 for three tiers.  If you fancy something a little more posh, then Marks and Spencer and Waitrose also do fully decorated ‘celebration’ cakes too for under £200 – it’s still cheaper than a special ‘wedding cake’ from a cake shop and they look amazing too!

 

10.  Keep your perspective

It's easy to get carried away with your wedding and go over the top with all those ‘little things that make the difference’.  Don’t forget your wedding day is about you, your partner and your union together – nothing is more important that that.

 

Biography:  Nicola Ray is the editor of  Cheap Wedding Success, a website dedicated to planning and creating the perfect cheap wedding.  With lots of advice, tips and ideas to lower the cost of your wedding, Cheap Wedding Success is the perfect place to start.

Stateside Shopping

Well, I'm just back from a short trip to the US of A - to visit old friends, have fun with other friends, and of course, get in a little shopping at our favourite craft stores.  I stopped by Michael's - the crafter's superstore of superstores, and I have to say, this time round I was very much uninspired.  Although I could NOT resist the amazing rolls of 6m of edged satin ribbon for 25c each!!!  Maybe it's that our craft store has expanded to include nearly all product groups now, but the style of the products in the store was all very middle of the road.  Nothing as bold or striking as KI Memories, Autumn Leaves or the new Cherry Arte we have coming in soon.  Hardly any clear stamps (I've a yen for these lately), and the wooden ones left a lot to be desired.  Tons of stickers and LOADS of K&Company.  Having been there I'm going to look into more Scrapbooking Kits and Paper Stacks and pads - what do you think?  Something you'd like to see in our crafts store??

I also paid a visit to Paper Source - and had a similar experience, though I can't say they don't stock bold ranges - they do.  I think our shop has just matured to the point where I rarely see anything new.  Maybe at the Craft, Hobby and Stitch wholesale show this month in Birmingham (I believe they have a non-trade version of the show?)!

Setting up a Handmade Greeting Card Business - Part 3 - Product, Packaging, Presentation

Finally getting a chance to update the blog after an incredibly busy few weeks!  So...moving on with the series on setting up your own handmade greeting card business.

First to answer the comment on using verses on cards.  The answer is yes - you should be obtaining copyright to use them I'm afraid.  Unless the author has been gone from the world for either 50 or 70 years, then copyright law still applies for anyone copying works directly.

Where we're at: You've gotten to the point where you know you want to sell some cards - to friends, colleagues, shops or at markets.  The next steps are choosing your product set, making sure the cards are packaged professionally, and tackling the issue of presenting and displaying them in shops, or even at card parties or markets.

The first thing to put some thought into - is the product.  What ranges of cards are you going to provide?  What materials should you use?  Some points to take into consideration that we learnt from hard graft:

Materials

• Don't use inferior card stock or envelopes.  Make sure the card you're using is at least 240gsm or so, not floppy, and looks and feels expensive to the touch.  We find textured cardstock to often to be stiffer and looks more expensive as well.  There is nothing worse than taking a a lovely card out of its wrapper only for it to feel floppy, bendy and cheap in your hand.
• At the same time, try to keep all material costs down - buy in bulk where you can (here's our bulk buy section with discounts on our crafts site :)).  If you can't source locally or online, try a printers instead. 
• Cutting and scoring your own cardstock can be a false economy.  The highest cost in a handmade card by far is labour - it's the one thing you have to try to reduce as much as possible if you're to make a decent profit from your cards.  While cutting and scoring your card may save you a few pence per card, it will cost you more in time and effort and can also be wearing and take some of the fun out of making cards.
• Avoid designs that involve a lot of labour.  Use pre-cut die-cuts where possible - customers who don't make their own cards (who are all your customers - card makers don't buy cards they make them :)) do not know the difference between a shape you cut yourself and one that you purchased or cut from a die.  Avoid techniques like embossing, decoupage or quilling.  Keep designs as quick and easy to make as possible so you can make many cards in one sitting.

Design Ranges

Look at your designs you have with a business eye.  Pick out the ones that are the most popular with family, friends or existing customers (not your favourites, but those that sell best!), and see how you can make slight variations of these to make design ranges of cards. A design range is a set of 6, 8, 10 or 12 cards all of a similar design and theme.  Ranges of cards are good for several reasons:

• Designs of 6 or 12 cards display much better in shops than a set of 12 different cards
• If people like one card in a range a lot, they will often by 2 or 3 more to stock up and have at home
• Presenting a range of designs immediately creates an impression with shops that you are   a professional and know what you're doing.

With Cara Cards my most popular design based on family and friends feedback together with some feedback from taking a stall at a market, was the Pink Handbag Card (left).  On the basis of this I created a range called "Pink Birthdays" and extended the theme of handbags to dresses and shoes too.  You can see the entire range here.   At the time I didn't know that die-cuts existed, and wasted huge amounts of time hand-cutting various shapes for the cards.  Later I met with a printer and had a die-cut made for the pink handbag and then had a huge number of the shape custom-cut for me.  This card is still one of the most popular from the Cara Cards range (which has now been taken over by another card maker).

If your most popular card is one with flowers on the front, then look at ways to change the colours or layout of the flowers, add different embellishments but keep the whole theme of the design.

It's a good idea to keep each design range to an occasion e.g. Happy Birthday Girls Range, Happy Birthday Boy's Range, then an "other occasions" range such as Sympathy, Get Well Soon, Thank you etc.

You don't need a huge range of cards before approaching your first shop.  Start with 3 ranges of 6 cards each, and go from there.

Packaging

Packaging your cards professionally is extremely important.  All cards should be packaged in a clear polybag (or see here for bulk packs 100 bags).  These come in either non-sealed or with a sticky sealable flap. 

It's a good idea to brand both the card itself and the packaging - that way both the customer and the person receiving the card can see who made it.  We used a site called www.able-labels.co.uk to purchase clear rectangular labels with our name, address, email, phone and website on them to maximise the marketing potential of the card itself.  We used one on the back of the card and also one to seal the polybag.  Some people get stamps made up to use also.  Be sure they have contact details on them though - you never know who might see the card and like it.

Presentation

When we started out, the first question we were asked when approaching shops was "Can you give me a card stand?".  Particularly as we were approaching primarily gift shops, flower shops and non-card shops who didn't have a stand already.  Many shops will take your cards to start off with in a nice looking cardboard box that customers can flick through, but it doesn't maximise the display potential for your creations.  We found the only stands we could get were ones we imported from the UK for between £60 and £80 each!  It was a nightmare.  When we started the craft supplies site, one of the first things I wanted to do was find a card stand supplier who could sell us reasonably priced stands we could pass on to our customers.  The result is below:  a fantastic Cardboard Card Stand that's easy to make up and holds up to 100 cards.  It's a great way to start. 

Many card makers purchase these and then personalise them to further attract attention in the shops and also to help avoid the shop owners using them to display other people's products, which often happens. 

A good idea is to offer a free card stand to shop owners with an initial order value > EUR 100 or so.

That's it for today.  Comments so welcome as usual (it's nice to know someone's out there reading), and next in the series will be Pricing your cards and also touching on tax issues. 

Wedding Fun

For anybody in the London area this weekend, come and visit our stand at the National Wedding Show in Earl's Court!!  It's on from Friday 28th September through to Sunday the 30th, and opening hours are 10am-6pm Friday and Saturday, and 10am to 5pm Sunday. We'll have all ourDIY Wedding Stationery Kits with us, tons of accessories, confetti, favour bags and more, all crammed into our little 3 x 2m booth!!  There's 10% off any orders taken at the show, and 5% vouchers to be given away for use afterwards.  Do drop by - we'd love to see you there.

Full Moon, Half Moon, Total Eclipse

We just launched this new wedding invitation on our sites this week and we're very much in love.

It's not a Jaffa Cake, but it is called a Half Moon Enclosure Invitation with Pull Tab Insert (ok, it's not succinct, but it's descriptive!!), and it's imported from the USA from one of my very favourite paper shops from when I lived there. It's simple, it's classical, and it's divine.  Best of all, it's only £1.15 to buy (€1.65) and that includes what you see in the picture and a matching envelope as well.  Click here to buy in the UK or here to buy in Ireland.  It comes with a huge choice of ribbons so you can co-ordinate with your bridesmaids and colour scheme too.  If it goes well, we'll be adding several more enclosures to the line - we're working on a petal-fold range right now, and some other ones too!

It's super easy to make - it requires only to print out directly on the insert (an MS Word Template is provided as ever), punch a hole in the top of the insert (using the Single Hole Punch (one of our Top Five Tools)), thread the ribbon through, trim and voila!! 

We like it when they're super easy like this!!  When designing our ranges, we only use techniques and methods that we know anyone can do.  That means just printing, cutting, sticking down and threading through or tying bows! Our goal is to make it easy for people to make their own professional looking, handmade wedding invitations.  There's already enough to worry about when planning a wedding!

What to include with your Wedding Invitations

It's no harm to have a checklist for what to include with your wedding invitations - to save a giant "Doh!" after the invitations have gone out!!  Below is a general list of what people may, or may not, wish to include in their invitations to guests.

• Map/Directions to get to the church/wedding venue and reception venue.  Try Google Maps (http://maps.google.co.uk or http://maps.google.ie ) for maps of your area.  They zoom right down to even show a satellite picture of the buildings!  (you may get waylaid and end up looking up your house while you're there like I did). The AA's websites also have great route planners to give guests directions - AA UK Route Planner or AA Ireland Route Planner. 
• A list of local hotels/guesthouses/B&Bs for people needing to stay over.  If the hotel is providing a special rate for guests at your wedding, make sure to mention it.
• An optional gift list for those attending the full wedding and reception
• Transport options to get to the area - train, bus, airports.
• Information about Car Parking if required
• Local Taxi numbers for the evening or those without cars
• Whether smoking is allowed
• Whether confetti may be thrown at the church or not.  Confetti usually has to be bio-degradable.

There may be other things you yourself with to include - it's up to you.

A note re. gift lists - traditionally speaking these are not included with invitations but rather made available should one be requested.  This is to ensure that the guest does not feel obliged to purchase a gift in order to attend the wedding.  In modern times however, most couples do include a gift list with invitations and feel (rightly so) that it makes guests lives easier should they wish to purchase from the gift list rather than choose a gift themselves. Gift lists are not usually included with invitations to evening celebrations only (not to the reception).

P-P-P-Pick up a Punch

Paper punches are a staple in every crafter's tool box.  For making wedding invitations, we always recommend the Long Reach Single Hole Paper punch (right).  You can use it to reach right up along the spines  of wedding invitations to punch two holes and then thread a co-ordinating ribbon through to bind the pages together.

Chatting in the office today however, we were talking about the various "features" of punches that can sometimes make punching difficult.  I felt a blog article coming on, so here's a few facts and tips about using and maintaining your paper punch collection.

1. Paper punches in general are only suitable for punching through normal paper or light/thin card.  Because they punch vertically rather than cutting horizontal like a scissors, they are not usually suitable for using with soft papers, fibrous papers and in some cases, tracing papers.  Something to bear in mind.
2. If the paper is a little fibrous, we often find that when we punch the shape out, the punched piece has a few little fibres along the edge of the paper.  This is pretty normal, and to fix it we usually just run a slight wet fingertip along the edge to smooth it down.
3. If your paper punch gets sticky or stiff, try punching through some wax paper to loosen it up again.  If you have no wax paper at home, run a candle over some paper to make your own!!
4. If your punch has gotten blunt (this can happen if soft papers are used or if the punch has been used a lot), try punching through some tin foil to sharpen it up again, or alternatively some fine grain sand paper.
5. It can be really effective to buy the same punch in several different sizes to use for layering up, shadowing and other effects.  This works particularly well for shapes like flowers, squares/circles/ovals/recatangles.
6. Probably the Queen of all the Punches is the Crop-A-Dile from Memory Keepers which we sell   on our Irish Craft Supplies Site.  It punches 1/8" and 3/16" holes, sets eyelets (small, medium, large, cone shaped) and snaps.  Rumour has it the next version is going to do the washing up as well.
7. Stello added a comment on the blog (thanks Stello!) about a technique I forgot to mention - if punching through thinner tissue papers (not fibrous) it helps to put a layer of stiffer card underneath. 
8. Below is a list of some of the most popular punches we sell on the Crafts site all  year round.  The one at the left of the list is the most popular, going down in popularity along the line!      

Project #1 Gatefold Indian Cotton Booklet with Calla Lillies

Well hello.  I'm back after a short hiatus to move house, go on holiday to Cornwall and now return with the first project for the blog!  Our aim is to make this a "Really Useful" blog, so hopefully this helps us get one step closer to that :)

This project is to show you how to make the wedding invitation below - one of our most popular and original invitations.  It's called the Gatefold Indian Cotton Invitation with Calla Lillies and it uses some beautiful Indian Cotton Rag Papers, made with leftovers from the Indian Rag Trade in a fair-trade mill, raffia and miniature paper calla lillies.Below are step by step instructions to make the invite with lots of pictures to guide you as well.  We sell this invitation in a readymade kit to purchase, or you can buy items individually to make it up.  The links below are all for our UK site . To purchase this kit for Ireland - Click HERE.  This invitation would retail for at least 2 or 3 times the price if made by a professional invitation maker. 

Materials

• 1 Indian Cotton Calla Lilly Kit 
• OR
• 1 Sheet A4 Indian Cotton Paper + 1 C5 Indian Cotton Envelope
• 1 Sheet Ivory/Cream A4 Tracing Paper or Vellum
• 1 sheet A5 textured Ivory Card
• 1 metre-length of natural raffia
• 2 miniature paper Calla Lillies
• Tools:
• Paper Trimmer or Paper Knife and Cutting Mat
• Invisible Glue Tape

Instructions

• Download the template for this invite. The one we have linked is for the template with no border lines on the page - allowing you to choose the width of your own borders.  If you'd like pre-printed cutting lines for cutting out and layering the invitation wording paper on top of the backing card, download the A5 Template with Cutting Lines instead.  Similar free wedding invitation templates are available on our Irish DIYWedding Site also.
• Print out the template (2 per A4 page) onto the ivory tracing paper provided with the kit.  Tracing paper is less porous than normal paper so you may need to set the paper aside to dry for a few minutes (of if having problems, overnight) before getting ready to use it in your invite.  When ready, cut it into two A5 sheets using a Paper Trimmer, scissors (with steady hand) or Paper Knife and Cutting Board.  Below are pictures of the printed out A4 sheet with two A5 inserts on it, and cutting it with a paper trimmer.  
• Next, trim approximately 1cm from each of the four sides of the A5 Insert.   You want to do this so that when you put it on the backing card it has a "frame" of card around it.  You can do this manually by measuring using a trimmer or knife and board, or use the Template with Cutting Lines instead if you need a line to follow when cutting.
• Next you need to trim the Ivory A5 textured card. As the card is A5, when you fold an A4 page around it - which is exactly twice the width of the A5 card, there won't be enough paper left for the booklet cover pages to meet in the middle.If you want to have the A4 Cotton Cover close with the two edges overlapping, you will need to trim the edges of the A5 card down a little.  Just 0.5cm all round will work fine, or even easier - 1 cm from one side and 1 cm from the top before you stick the tracing paper down.   
• Now get out your Glue Roller- we use a great invisible tape roller that doesn't show through tracing paper or vellum and just makes life easier :).  Run the tape about an inch in from the edge of the A5 textured card. You don't necessarily have to have a continuous run of the tape - you can stop and start to save the tape and make it go a little further :)  Just be sure there's enough so that the edges of the paper are secured and you're happy with the finished effect.  If the tape won't run properly, it's probably because the tip doesn't have any glue on it (this happens sometimes).  Just pull the tape out with your fingers and help to further the roller on to the next sticky bit which will give it the friction it needs to run again properly when rolled.
• Now you're ready to place the written insert on the tracing paper onto the ivory A5 backing card.  Do this with care - it can be hard to get it really centred and straight.  If you don't press it down when you first place it tentatively on the backing card, you can sometimes lift if up again to re-centre.  If you're having problems, you can try using a Glue Stick to stick it down instead.  This has the advantage of allowing you to move the paper after it's been placed down to fix it into place, but they can be messy and don't provide as permanent sticking power as the glue tapes. When you're happy with its position, use a ruler or bone folder to run it across the paper with the edge down, to get rid of any bubbles or bumps.  You now have your insert finished and ready to go.  Next is the Indian Cotton Booklet Cover.
• Where you choose to have the two sides of the Indian Cotton sheet meet is totally up to you.  You can have it closing in the middle in a traditional gatefold design, or do what we do and have it over to one of the sides instead. 

• Place the backing card on to the Indian Cotton A4 paper. If you want it over to the side, leave approximately twice as much space on one side of the card as do on the other (pictured).  When you're happy with the position, gently fold the two sides of the Booklet to create a gentle indent (you can check it now to see how it will look too by gently folding the edges over without creasing the edges too much).
• If you're making the invite to send immediately, don't forget to write it at this point before you close over the booklet cover if you haven't already :).  Allow a few extra minutes for pens to dry on the tracing paper - as with printer ink, it takes a little longer to dry on the less porous paper. 

• 
• When happy with the position of the insert on the Indian Cotton Booklet Cover, fold the two sides of the booklets in to meet in the middle and press down to make a clean fold line.  Your booklet is now nearly made - all that's left is to to tie the raffia and insert the flowers!!

• The second last step is to take your length of raffia and wind it around your booklet until you have two lengths left long enough to tie a knot comfortably with (see below). Raffia strips are usually about a metre longh and go around the booklet about three times.  Tie a simple knot in the raffia at the join of the paper.  Tie the knot tight enough so the raffia is secure on the book and won't fall off, but don't pull the knot too tight just yet.   Now trim the raffia, leaving just a few inches of length on both ends.

• Lastly, take the two calla lillies and insert into the raffia knot.  Do this one at a time, pushing the stem through the the gap in the knot of the raffia.  When happy with the position of the lillies (they should be running along the edge of the paper where it overlaps), pull the raffia tightly so that the calla lillies are secure.  If after doing this you're still not happy that they are secure enough, try putting a glue dot in behing the knot of the raffia or the heads of the flowers.

That's it!!  You're done!!  And well done!!  Sit back and admire your creation :)

I hope this was clear - but if you have any questions, drop us a line at info@weddingdiy.co.uk and we'll be happy to help!! 

Popularity Contest

I think each year in the wedding industry different trends take hold, but there's some sure fire favourites as well.  I thought it would be fun to tell you our top 5 colours in wedding stationery and accessories that we've seen this year in order of popularity, and some other bits and bobs as well.  Top in the popularity stakes for colour this year are:

1. IVORY - the perennial favourite, classical choice and the winner by a mile
2. BURGUNDY - not too surprising - rich, velvety and popular all year round
3. CHOCOLATE - this year's fashionable choice!
4. NAVY - still a wedding staple
5. RED/PINK/PURPLE - too hard to call this one - red possibly slightly in the lead, but a close thing

Coming in next would probably be gold and silver, then burnt orange, with yellow and green following behind.

Apparently turquoise was really big last year for bridesmaid dresses but we didn't see it reflected in stationery.  It'll be interesting to see what everyone's wearing next year.  That said, not all brides choose their stationery to match their bridesmaid dresses and colour scheme.  One bride we had chose two completely different colours for her stationery to what her bridesmaids were wearing as she didn't want anyone to guess beforehand!!  Have to say we thought that was a great approach too!!

When it comes to styles of invite, we find Calla Lillies to be a perennial favourite.  In particular this invitation kit - featuring ivory mulberry tissue with silk threads, calla lillies and ivory card and envelope, to be a constant best seller. 

I think the fact it comes with 28 different shades of the mulberry helps things too :)  Most brides customise it to choose their own backing colour and sometimes flowers too. 

Either way, all that matters is that you choose whatever *you* want and don't worry about dissenting opinions.  Brides (well most :)) get one day to make everything truly their own and you have to capitalise on that!!

CP

A Weighty Issue

We've had a few queries recently asking "Up to what thickness of card can my printer print" and it's something that's a constant and ongoing issue where card is concerned.  Too light and the card is too flimsy, but eminently printable; too heavy and it feels great but won't go around the rollers of the printer.  Here's what we consider our (fairly) definitive guide when printing on card!

As a general rule you can print on paper and card up to approx. 160gsm in thickness on a laser or a deskjet/inkjet printer (gsm stands for grams per square metre).  However, we find you can often print on thicker card on a inkjet or deskjet - anything up to 300gsm or even higher.  We have smooth card which is 220gsm which is suitable for printing on most deskjet printers.  If you don't want your card to be floppy, we would recommend staying above at least 200gsm in weight. Our manufacturer only guarantees card up to 160gsm can be printed on, however, which is true for laser printers, though the reality is you can often go higher than that with inkjets.

If you're having problems printing on paper or card, try some of the following tips:

• Check your printer setting - most have a setting for thicker card/paper or envelopes which will help them accomodate thicker card. It may be under Printer>Properties, or sometimes a small envelope symbol will represent the section for changing paper thickness.
• Feed the paper/card in one sheet at a time
• Change the printer speed to draft, or alternatively, try the opposite and check it to best quality.  Often the problem with printing on card is with the feeding mechanism of the printer.  The stiffer the card, the less pliable and bendable it is so the more trouble a printer will have grabbing it and guiding it around the rollers. Changing the speed can help the card to feed better. Be aware it can also make the text lighter or darker too as a result of changing the print speed.
• If your printer is both top and bottom feeding, use the bottom paper tray.  This tends to feed better. 
• If the office laser isn't working, try your cheaper, and simpler inkjet at home.  We have found that the cheaper printers often work better than the extremely fast laser ones at work!

In general a laid or textured card of the same weight as a smooth card will be considerably stiffer and harder to print on.  If in doubt, go for a smooth card which tends to be easier to print on.

Always do a trial on your printer before buying in bulk to do all your invitations/cards.

Good luck!

CP