Unleashing my Inner Crafter

Our save-the-date's are in da house and I couldn't be more excited! True to wedding-planning form, upon first glance I was slightly concerned that they were going to be more brown-tinged than purple, but luckily they are the perfect shade!

Now that they have arrived I can begin on my very first wedding-related (okay, very first ever) DIY craft project!

Many brides in wedding-planning land have had a longstanding love affair with all things paper, especially those brides of the DIY variety, but not this chick. And boy, I've been missing out! On the hunt for suitable paper for my DIY invitation liners I stumbled upon the beautiful, diverse, and sometimes textured world of paper! Here are a couple of my favorites:

Paper Source, Gold on White Metallic Floral, $4.95/sheet

Amazon, Hot Off The Press, Inc., Color Me Gold Floral Paper, $1.49/sheet

I had a vision of gold, floral-patterned paper to match our color scheme and compliment our deep purple stationary, while also incorporating our garden theme. I paper-hunted a few local craft stores, but given a steep paper sale, the stores were very picked over, and while I don't mind buying a variety of paper designs, there simply was not enough suitable options left to provide for all 100 of my liners.

Again, taking the advice of DIY brides before me, I was looking for paper that was structured and heavy enough to be bent backwards so as to not accidentally adhere to the envelopes once the adhesive was applied, but before I was ready to secure the liners. I was also looking for paper that wasn't so heavy that it would increase the weight of our mailing piece and increase postage.

Given a very heavy budget crunch at the end of this month, along with the tight deadline we set to get these babies out into the world, the designer paper options above were not realistic at this time (but, boy am I motivated to save up for them when our invites are due out!)

Using weddingbee.com as my always-loyal resource, I learned that wrapping paper was a cost-effective and totally viable option for this craft! However, finding affordable wrapping paper that matched my vision was quite a challenge. Seriously, I had no idea that people could spend literally hundreds on a roll of wrapping paper. Having difficulty finding paper that would be $20 or less (including shipping, which would have to be expedited since I'm a bit of a procrastinator,) and boast the design I was hoping for, I opted for just plain, gold wrapping paper from good 'ol CVS. It was $3.99/roll and I think I may have enough left over to line our RSVP envelopes if I so choose.

I plan to keep a steady eye on paper sales and make frequent visits to local craft stores to begin procuring gold, floral-patterned paper for our invites to really jazz them up, but until then, I'm off to get a paper cutter and some adhesive to get the ball rolling on my very first ever DIY craft project!

Where did you find the paper for your DIY envelope liners? How much did you spend?