How to Design Handcrafted Embroidered Wedding Invitations

Making handcrafted wedding invitations affords you the ability to personalize your wedding invitations more than simply buying retail kits or having a printer do them from stock designs. One way to accomplish this is to design and make handcrafted embroidered wedding invitations, creating special personalized invitations that you just can't find anywhere else.

You don't need a lot of expensive tools to create your invitations either, but if you're inviting a lot of people and therefore have a lot of invitations to design and create, or you're simply new to embroidery, you'll want to keep the designs simple and obviously you'll also want to start early enough so that you don't feel rushed.

You can visit craft stores like Jo-Ann Fabric, A.C. Moore or Michael's or even the craft departments of department stores for the items you'll need. For hole-punching and embroidery needles, purchase items that will work well with paper crafts, not fabric. You don't want to tear your paper as you're working with it because the tools are too large or bulky, or meant for working with fabric or plastic.

The first thing you'll need are some blank greeting card stock or an easier way is to create simple flat invitations by cutting an 8.5" x 11" piece of card stock either in half or into four sections for smaller sized invitations. And the rest of the supplies you'll need are:

• Small hole punch-you can pick up special hole punches at most craft stores.

• Embroidery needles & threads

• Double stick tape, glue stick or glue dots

• Decorative paper for the backing of the invitations

Finding Designs for your invitations is as easy as cutting out or tracing designs from other sources of printed material. Choose simple designs if you're new to embroidery or have a lot of invitations, or more intricate designs if you're an embroidery pro or have a lot of invitations to make.

You can look through bridal magazines for wedding design ideas or look through home and garden magazines for seasonal ideas to use as designs. You can even download or print out designs from the Internet.

Once you have your designs printed and your tools together, follow these step-by-step instructions for creating your embroidered wedding invitations:

1. Double-stick tape or glue the design cut-out or print-out onto the blank greeting card.

2. Punch holes on the card following the design layout for where you'll be stitching.

3. Just like connecting the dots or painting by number, simply stitch from one hole to the next. You can use different stitches or a variety of colored threads depending on your design.

4. Knot the end of the threads on reverse side of the card and tape them to the back.

5. After you've finished embroidering your design, glue or double-stick a decorative paper or even solid color paper to the back of the embroidered card to cover the knotted threads.

You've now created your own special embroidered wedding invitations that your guests will love and appreciate. And they'll make beautiful keepsakes for your wedding scrapbook too!