Well, paper is a little bit like that.  Just because it looks good to you doesn’t mean it will work with your project.

I have compiled a little list of capabilities meant to ward off papercrafting disasters before mounds of non-returnable cash have been spent!

Clearly Could be a Problem

1.  In love with translucents?  Like vellum or lace papers?  Make sure you get the kind of adhesive that won’t show through!  Translucents also have a nasty habit of warping where the glue is.  Test first and leave overnight!  The other notorious problem with translucents is trying to print on them.  Laser toners will chip off vellum over time, making a very sad keepsake wedding invitation.  Laser printers also can curl vellums because of the heat of their fusers.  Once they have been curled, they will never lie flat again.

Let’s Stay Together

2.  Making a layered design?  Don’t choose a lower layer or middling layer that has a non-sticking finish, like flocked paper, heavily textured metallics, or glitter.  Sometimes no amount of glue will persuade the whole thing to stay together.

Work With Me

3.  Wrapping something?  Highly rigid papers – even some very thin papers are brittle-rigid – won’t make nice with you when you try to make smooth joins and corners.  The very best papers for making wraps have high fabric content, like cotton, or lokta (an Indian plant).  Moistening these papers, like painting them with decoupage glue or spraying with Craft-Bond, makes them actually stretch or contract a little bit.  Perfect!

Score, don’t Fold

4.  Nothing says “amateur” like a piece of cardstock that’s been folded by hand.  Ugh.  Even placing a straightedge against it first doesn’t help.  The process of making a professional crease in cardstock is called “scoring” and you can buy inexpensive tools to do it, from a little rotary blade on a handle to a nice rail-trimmer with exhangeable blades.  Tip:  the indented side of the crease goes on the OUTSIDE of the fold.

The Battle of the Bulge

5.  Here’s a perpetual vexation: you are fusing two sheets together, then folding them.  Invariably the inside one rumples.  Same thing happens should you try to line an envelope or a folder with a second sheet, right?

A couple of tips:  a) the “inside” sheet should be thinner than the outer one, or at least no thicker.  b) glue only on ONE SIDE of the fold, not both.  When we line envelopes, we only adhere the liner to the flap, not the inside of the body of the envelope.  That way when the envelope closes, the liner slides free.  No rumples!

A caveat:  we have a manufacturer that fuses papers together for us when we really need two different sheets to behave as one.  They use special adhesive, heat and pressure.  Definitely a “don’t try this at home!” kind of thing.  But it is possible – contact us if you need this kind of professional help!

So speaking of professional help, a brief commercial here.  We see lots of brides and their moms who want to save money by making their own wedding invitations.  Unless one of you is a graphic designer and the other one is a Creative Memories rep, and you are a couple of months ahead of schedule, I don’t recommend it!  Just remember that before you even start printing and cutting, you will probably have $300 – $400 worth of materials staring at you trustingly…that may or may not come together the way you envisioned, and it is possible you may ruin the whole batch and have to start over.

A better plan is to go see a professional invitations designer whose work you can touch (and verify), then ask them for ways you can save money on the invitation of your dreams.  We encourage brides who want to do assembly –  and even sell our adhesives and rent our tools to them.  And if they change their mind mid-pile, we’ll take the job back and finish it up!  Let the designer do their magic FIRST and ask to do the repetitive, production tasks if possible.  That way if you get in over your head, you will have a pro who’s got your back.  Welcome to the “No Disaster Zone”!

This is also a good combination to illustrate the concept of “undertones”.  Undertones are the cast or hint of another color that  a color has, not to be confused with lightness or darkness (“shade”).  We say “there are so many different blues!” meaning there are blues that hint of green (“teal”), or black (“midnight”), or red (“purplish”), etc.

In this combination, the yellow color has to tend toward orange to look its best with grey.

The greys and silvers, too, have undertones – in this case they tend toward ice blue and we call them “cool greys”.

Since my patterned silkscreened paper has both reflective (silver leaf) and matte (grey) silkscreen inks on it, it looks great with both Envelopments metallic colors here – Titanium and Tahiatian Pearl – as well as a matte grey, River Rock.  The patterned paper is relatively thin and flexible, being printed on a soft handmade cotton paper, so it adapts well to lining the inside of folders and envelopes.  You could trace the little three-leaved motif and print it as an ornament centered over the text of your card.  The spade shape would work well with a “playing card” theme, too.

For weddings, variations on this theme are real people-pleasers: neither too masculine or too feminine, as sophisticated as you prefer or vintage-traditional.  The golden-orange is the key to this colorway, though; without it you are monotone and risk drabness!

The first thing I want to point out is that the “lapel” on the card really is two additional layers of paper, and not just printed on the green card. If it had been simply printed, the green color would have reached through and tinted all the other colors, making the silver flowers impossible. Even the black would not look as rich as it does, being a little flattened by the color underneath, and it certainly wouldn’t match the gorgeous rich black linen envelope. As it is, we’ve used the same matching black linen for the first layer, and the envelope lining paper (Artiface “Zinnia” silkscreen) is diecut and layered over that. As if that weren’t classy enough, the tab is identical on the back, which can be used to print on too. For a save the date, suggested hotels and their contact info/room blocks, and closest airports.

Touches like these definitely make invitations more expensive, but they – just as definitely – look even more expensive than they are.

If you did use this as a save the date, would the wedding invitation have to be electric green and black? No. You can carry over the black/white or black/silver to the wedding invitation, or just use the little zinnia motif on your cards in black and green ink for a more sedate and formal look. Or go for it! and use the silkscreen Zinnia paper as the lining to a black or silver pocketfolder and make the green an accent – this is a Wow color combination. Sophisticated Cymbidium orchids come in that same electric green and are very bridal!

Our invitation was black leatherette with real antique brass hinges and swinging hook-style clasp, styled to look like a jewelry box in an envelope (you can see it in the picture, by Kristy’s elbow).  Christopher Garren’s crew created chocolate jewelry (including a molded Rolex covered in edible 24K gold!!!) which were laid on a black velvet jeweller’s pad inside a satin-lined black leatherette box.  Artiface created the slide-on sleeves for the boxes with black Italian ultramatte cardstock stamped with the client’s decorative monogram in gold foil.

While hanging out in the back room at the cake salon, Kristy would like to report that she ate nothing!  Can’t say I would have done the same…

by Kieran the Office Collie

Hello, my name is Kieran the office collie. I have been selected for the particular honor of moderating the Artiface blog.

I would like to think it’s because I have a way with paper.  But I suspect it’s because I didn’t happen to look very busy on the day of the planning meeting.

They – the humans here – were talking about naming the blog something clever like “Out of Your Mind”.  I like that, but would prefer something more organic, like maybe “Scratchings”.  Let’s get some comments here, maybe some suggestions.  I do know there are liver treats involved in my new job, so if you want to come up with some clever meat-related titles I’m down with that.

Speaking of tasty, we will definitely be showcasing our latest and greatest designs here, as well as answering questions about etiquette (“My laborador retriever is the ringbearer – should he be seated at the head table?”), DIY, addressing and mailing (I am a connisseur of postal employees), etc etc.  Because of my nap schedule, I’ll be throwing the ball to some additional contributors such as wedding coordinators, florists, cake-bakers and musicians.  I’m even looking into some advertisers, but they will have to fit my strictest criteria: no fillers, must contain a squeaker and smell like peanut butter.