DIY SILK BOX WEDDING INVITATION

To start this, my idea of a wedding invitation is something out of the movies… literally. My inspiration for this invitation came from the movie The Count of Monte Cristo. 

I loved the idea of a beautiful invitation like the movie along with a silk box to hold it. So this is the invitation with a twist! 

These invitations took patience. I would say to do 40 invites from start to finish took about 2-3 months. All in all, I didn’t work on them every single day which is not bad. A standard invite like this usually costs about $10.00-$20.00 for just the box alone. I saved every receipt that I got from buying supplies which i will post at the end. For the box, on paper source.com cost $1.75 /each . SO if you didn’t want to add all the decorations, you can take the easy road. The “silk” covering was purchased at Santee St. in Los Angles for $20.00 for 9 yards! Thats a lot for cheap! I used maybe 2 yards for 40 boxes. Each box used 7”x10” piece. 

(from the Movie Count of Monte Cristo)

Now for all the good step by step info! For the Silk box, The supplies you will need:

1. Scissors 

2. Hot Glue gun (your best friend) & GLUE sticks

3. Straight Edge cutting board (bought a mini one from Michales for $12.00) 

4. A4 Box (paper source $1.75/each) 

5. Black Felt (or your choice of color) either 8×11 (makes one box top & bottom) or The large 12×12 : Michaels/Joanns either $1.99 / .99

You can also purchase from the material section VELVET if you find remmentts on sale! it works too (bit messy to cut though and not east to work with)

Step 1: Measure out the material for the outside of the box by laying the lid or bottom piece over the cloth. You want at least 2” of extra so that when you fold over the cloth on the inside it covers the inner wall down to the base of the box. You don’t need to be neat with this part on the edges since the walls with over lap with other material later.

STEP 2:  Center the lid / bottom on the material. Using the hot glue gun, add glue on the inside of the box its self and fold over the material so that it meets the bottom of the box. Test it first before you start adding the glue. At first I started folding the edges so it would be neat (but it didn’t make a difference) and if you fold it too many times the inside will be to thick to close! So easier and efficient way is to just measure just the right amount of material so it won’t be puffy. This an example of what I started doing:

After this first one, I realized that i folded the material too many times it became thick and hard to seal the box to the other end.

The inside of the box should look like this & the outside should now look like this! :

STEP 3: THE INNER LINING:  Take the velvet paper or material and measure out how far up the wall of the box you want it to go. Half my invites are just the base the others have it on all the walls. Preference really. I found that just by cutting the 8×11 in half it would just about fit the inner box. Its pretty much scrap booking paper.

STEP 3: Now after you have tested the size add glue along the bottom crevasse of the box not the middle (since when it dries, it will harden then show) . Add glue to the side walls (to how ever far up the material went to) You need to do this part kind of fast. The glue dries pretty fast, and won’t stick as good as it begins to dry. Place the material over and smooth out the material over the glue. 

You have now just finished the box! yay! Next will be the supplies for the invitation! 

Supplies: 

1. Canvas Paper tight weave (scrapping booking paper) found at Michales or Joanns 12X12 $1.99 EACH. 

2. Melting Wax (red works best) Michales $3.99 each

3. Seals (Michaels $1.75/ each) 

4. Lighter / Candle (best to do this outside!) 

5. Water in a cup & Paper plate 

6. Cutting board or Scissors 

7. 8×11 blank paper 

Step 1: Take the Canvas material and the blank paper, lay the paper over the material to trace the size of the printer paper. You want this to run through your printer. Make sure the edges are even with as little strands as possible. This can cause it to jam the printer. Running this canvas through the printer was a PAIN! Sometimes it would run fine, then other times it would just not take the paper! A few times it took 20 min to do one freaking invite! So just be patient it will work. I used a Word Document and made the layout HORIZONTAL so that the printed page would be double. 

You want to test your page first on regular paper before printing on the canvas. I messed up about 5 canvas’ so if you total that, its about $10.00 right there! . 

I tested a few pages to make sure the spelling was correct and the font was the right size. Be careful when using cursive font. It may not show as clear on the canvas as well as smaller fonts. 

After you run it through, it should look something like this. 

The first picture is the test paper. Even after I tried it, the font came out smaller than I thought on the canvas. About 20 of my invites have one font, and the rest are a little clearer. You can see the color I chose for the Names were more of a purple ish color. The color that stood out the best was red or a dark Burgundy. Which, even 20 more invites have a red font on the names 🙂 . 

Step 2: You want to cut the invitations in half to separate them. I found that using the cutting board made it easer so the invite was not so lop sided. 

Step 3: Set the invite in the box. It should sit nicely inside with out rubbing on the edges of the box or too tall. Once you have trimmed off what you need you want to roll the canvas horizontally. SO, from the bottom up or vice versa so that you can burn the sides of the paper.

Step 4: You don’t want too much of this excess strands when it comes to burning. It will make a mess. Try to clean it up a bit before burning. At first I used a lighter, but lighting and holding it to the paper over 100 times is just too much. After 5 times of lighting the lighter it got to hot to hold. The candle worked a lot better. be careful not to get the melted wax on the invite. It leaves a wired dark stain. You want to let the edges burn about 2cm through. 

This is the tricky part. To but the flame out and to keep the canvas from continuing to burn you have to smudge it on a paper plate (like a cigar) then dip your fingers in the water and lighter run them onto the parts that are still smoking or dimly lit. If you don’t it will keep burning through. This was a bit tricky, and messy! 

After , fold the invite like a taco to burn the other edges and repeat the process to put the fire out. You don’t want the burned edges to touch the other parts of the canvas, since like charcoal, will stain the canvas like a marker. 

Step 5: Lay the finished product flat to settle. Try to either perfectly stack the invites after they are done on top of each other or separate. The edges will continue to fall apart and get all over the writing on the invitation. 

Now to do the wax seal! :

Step 6: Before doing a real invitation , I tested the seal on a mess up invite to get a feel for it. You want to light the wax wick and drip it over the part you want to press. I laid a piece of material over the bottom lettering so i wouldn’t get anything on it. After you get enough wax just firmly press down the seal. Make sure the seal emblem is turned the right way.

 

Now to attached this to the invitation box, I used a hot glue gun and small dots on each corner & fitted into the box.

The itenary cards and & response cards were mad from scrap booking paper and supplies from Papersource.com

At Michels or Joanns I used a 12×12 ‘wax’ paper with a faint design and traced the size of a 8×11 paper so it would fit in the printer . Using Horizontal orientation, I printed 3 pamphlets per sheet.

The response cards were a pack of 8×11 papers I bought from paper source. Using the ‘address label ‘ maker on Word (but spacing larger portions) I typed out the response card for the wedding and glued it to a 5×6 card (or invitation card) .

And viola ! The invitations are done!

(i had to tag the invites so I knew who’s was which when i passed them out)

Now mailing these invites may be a different story. 😉

(front view)