Hello folks!

Well I posted some lovely invitations that I made for my Doctor Who Series 6 Finale Party on Reddit and people seem to really like them! One person asked me to make a tutorial so I am doing it now.

SUPPLIES LIST:

4 Sheets “pearl white” or “glittering white” thick cardstock.

4 Sheets parchment colored, lightweight card stock

1 Gluestick

1 pair scizzors

1 12-pack letter seal stickers

12 royal blue invitation envelopes (Mine were 5.5 x 3.5–make sure that the size you purchase is mailable!)

1 gold calligraphy paint pen (I used “Writer” brand. I bought it at Target. I couldn’t find a white one or white letter seal stickers anyway).

Recommended additional supplies:

Adobe Indesign (I only have CS2)

A paper cutter

Cost of materials (card stock, envelopes, stickers, pen): ~$15 for enough supplies for 12 invitations.

GETTING STARTED:

1) If you want to create your own format go right ahead. If not, here is a link to a .pdf you can print and use, and here is a link to the inDesign file so you can edit it yourself if you’d like. Unfortunately since I’m a durp, I forgot to change the date on the invites I mailed to the redditors who requested them (so they say Sunday, which is when I’m having my party) but the template has the actual date the episode is airing–Saturday.

I chose the planet of Barcelona as the location since we all know that Barcelona is brilliant and I could find coordinates. The coordinates were in the form of a date so I just abbreviated it down so that it looked more official and coordinate-y. Also I figured if you’re printing these yourself, you don’t want some random Texas address.

These templates have a black border to show you where to slice if you’re using a paper cutter. I had to bring the printed invites down to the office that I work in and cut them during my lunch break. The paper cutter really helps a lot.

If you decide to create your own template, I have the following pieces of advice for you:

Edwardian Script ITP and Garamond are great fonts in my experience. However my knowledge of typography is at the level where I don’t like to use Times New Roman for fun and I don’t use Comic Sans. Basically, I don’t know a lot about that sort of thing so these are just some decent starting points.

Keeping the “cut here” lines really helps a lot.

The picture of the TARDIS that I used is a tiny, cropped version of this creation by deviantART’s sarcasticval.

2) After you’ve got a working template designed, print it onto the parchment colored cardstock. I printed four to a page to save paper and fit into the tiny TARDIS-blue envelopes.

3) Trim the parchment colored cardstock along the black/blue guidelines. You want to err just a bit inside of those lines and get as close to the blue invitation borders as you can. I used a pair of scizzors to trim the additional white space.

4) Trim the sparkly white cardstock at this point. These will also be 4 to a sheet. Trim them just enough to fit inside the envelopes.

5) Use the gluestick on the back of the parchment colored cardstock. Make sure you glue around the edges to keep things from peeling off. Mount the parchment colored cardstock on top of the glittery white cardstock as evenly as possible.

6) OPTIONAL: I used leftover glittery-white cardstock to create borders on the top and bottom of the invites. This made me feel like I got more use out of the money I spent and also it added a bit of texture to the invitations.

7) OPTIONAL: I drew gold stars on the inside of the envelope. I am not great at drawing stars so no pictures of this exist.

8 ) Stick the finished invitations in the envelope, seal them with the seal sticker, and write the number on the back with the calligraphy pen.

9) Address the envelopes. I did not put my return address on most of them but when I did I included a little note on the back, usually something like “The Doctor wanted me to send this to you. He said you’d understand why.” I have atrocious handwriting so I tried to mimic superneat calligraphy. I think this just barely made my writing legible. This part takes a long freaking time to do.

10) Stamp ’em and send!

I hope this has been useful and helpful to you! Let me know how your invites turn out if you make any!