engagement party invites

So both Sean's and my parents wanted to have an engagement party for our families this summer. One of my duties this past week when I was home was to help make the invites for the party. Last Tuesday my mom, Abby, and I made an assembly line; my mom was in charge of inking, I was in charge of "powdering", and Abby was the embosser or heat tool-user. I really enjoyed making these invites and thank you mom and Abby for helping!! They turned out awesome! The invites were designed by my mom around a stamp that I made.

The stamp was from earlier in the summer when I felt like being crafty. I had seen it done in magazines and online a few times so I thought I would give it a try (at that point I had no idea what it would be used for...I just wanted to make one). I had to go to the art supply store and buy all the supplies...a rubber mat and a carving tool. Then I looked up online different tutorials for how to make it turn out the best. First, I made a design on the computer that I wanted. Next, I printed the image out and traced over it with a pencil. I then rubbed the image onto the rubber mat to have the image show up. After that, it was just a matter of carving around the letters! I LOVE the way it turned out!!

Like I said before, my mom did all the inking of the stamp. So she used the ink pads and made a tie-dyed type of look and then stamped onto white cardstock. Next, while the ink was still dry, I sprinkled the embossing powder onto the image. After all the excess is removed, Abby used the embossing tool to "crystallize" the image...pretty much the powder is like a wax or plastic material with a low melting temperature. Once it cools down and dries it leaves the image looking shiny and awesome! Here are some pics of the process:

When we were ready to put it all together it was easy. My mom had already cut the cardstock for the cards and made the inserts with the information of the party. All we had to do after we were done stamping the front was trimming the image and then gluing it all together.

We put them into the envelopes and the next day I went to the post office to find out the postage cost and got these sweet stamps :)