I thought that once I decided to type (not hand write) the envelopes and typed all the addresses into an Excel sheet, that printing them would be a piece of cake. Yeah, it's not that easy. All the prep work in the world will still leave you with an annoying and time consuming project.
First of all, our envelopes were just *slightly* an unusual size, so I cut several en-faux-lopes out of regular paper to get the orientation/spacing/centering right with practice runs on our printer. (*Side note, our low toner light was blinking all night... thankfully it lasted through the project!)
Step one: Return addresses. Printed on the back. After figuring out the orientation, it was pretty easy, but we hand fed them one at a time, just to be safe.
Step two: The fronts. Unfortunately, my Excel spreadsheet did me no good and I hand typed in the addresses. I found it easiest to format them by going into MSWord "Mailings" then "Envelopes" then "Add to Document." You get a little text box and can center, space, preview, and print. One at a time. Thank heavens for small guest lists!
Another aside: Oh. Em. Gee. How hard is the etiquette on addressing envelopes! I called both my mom AND dad for advice on honorifics. Then I found this great website. I know there are lots of books, etc. but I thought the website covered most of my bases.
Mr. SB was a trooper until about 50% through step two. Then he got bored and turned on a video game "while I was formatting." Alright fine, it was a boring process. Especially with me freaking out about Ms./Miss/Mrs. every third invite.
Step three: Lining the envelopes (with the liners we pre-cut and folded a few weeks ago). I didn't like how the glue had turned out in my trial run, so I used a two sided tape runner and only put tape on the upper flap. I used about 5 pieces, you can see them in the pic below. We then lined up the inserts and pressed firmly.
Our work station.
I grabbed a pocketfold to make sure you could get the invitation in and out without hurting the liner (in case I needed to add more sticky tape to the bottom half). And low & behold, one of the furry babies had nibbled on the corner!! I have my suspicions, but they're both in trouble! I think they only got this one, but lesson learned... don't leave precious paper projects laying around!
Final product (for this stage).All envelopes are addressed and lined.
I think taking this project in several steps over a few weeks (and months ahead of time) is making it go alot more smoothly. Neither Mr. SB or I get burned out and we're making progress. Both are good things.
Did you prefer to tackle DIY in large clumps? Or were smaller, drawn out projects your style?
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