Lioness Invitations: The Breakdown

Now that you've seen the final reveal of our DIY invitation suite, I wanted to break them down for you!

Here's what we bought:

Materials for the Invitations and the Response Cards

• 78# Luxe cover weight bulk cardstock in fino cream - $39.00 for 100 sheets at Paper Source
• Squeeze punch - 1/2" rounded corner - $11.99 at Paper Source
• Fiskars 12-inch personal paper trimmer - $14.99 at Michael's

Materials for the Information Tags

•  80# PS Collection text weight paper in pool - $3.99 for 10 sheets at Paper Source
• 2" tag punch - $18.00 at Save on Crafts
• Fiskars Hand Punch - 1/4" heart - $5.69 at Michael's
• Custom Stamp - $8.00 from Etsy seller drumchick99
• Embossing Powder in clear - $7.95 at Paper Source
• Watermark Inkpad for Embossing - $8.95 at Paper Source
• Embossing Heat Tool - $23.75 at Paper Source

Additional Materials

• Green Bakers Twine - $12.00 at Divine Twine
• Avery White Mailing/Shipping Labels for Inkjet - 8 1/2 x 11" - $13.95 for 25 at OfficeMax
• A7 envelopes in gravel - $4.25 for 10 at Paper Source (x10, so $42.50)
• 100 postcard stamps - $28.00
• 100 standard stamps - $44.00

I had already bought many of these materials for our Save the Dates.  After subtracting those previous purchases, the grand total we spent on our invitations was $210.12, or $2.10 per invitation.  Please note that this total includes postage, but does not include ink.

Here's how we put them together:

The Invitations and the Response Cards

After Sister Lioness worked her Photoshop magic, we scaled the design so that several would fit on one page of cardstock.  The invitations were 5 x 7", so we could fit two on one page.  The response cards were 3 1/2 x 5", so we could fit four on one page.  We then printed for several hours and had a cocktail.

Then, we used the paper trimmer to separate the invitations and response cards.  This part required several cocktails!  My advice (and I can NOT stress this enough!) is that if you are going to design and print your own invitations, do not choose a design that bleeds.

As you can see from our design, the grass goes all the way to the bottom and the tree goes all the way to the top.  This required some pretty precise trimming, and resulted in one massive headache!

Finally, we rounded off the corners of each card with the corner punch.

The Information Tags

We were able to fit ten tags on one sheet of paper.  We printed out several sheets, and started punching with the tag punch.  We then used the little heart punch to create the hole in each tag.  Then, we embossed the balloon on the edge of each tag.

Then, we used about a foot and a half of baker's twine to tie the package together.  We only had one spool of baker's twine, and we still had some leftover after 100 invitations!

The Labels

We were able to fit five wraparound labels on each full sheet of labels.  We printed, then used the paper trimmer to split them up.  We placed them on each invitation, stuffed the envelopes, and sent them on their merry way!


We probably spent about two full days putting these bad boys together.  They were our most involved DIY project yet, but they were totally worth it!  I'm really happy with how they turned out, and they definitely came out under budget.  What is/was your biggest DIY project?