Christening Invitations, christening easel cards and gift bag.

When my Nephew asked me to make the Christening invitations for his baby, I was a bit nervous. It's a big day and I wanted them to look professional. I knew they'd love whatever I made, but I wanted to make them special, whatsmore, this would be my first attempt.

My crafty pal Sue and me had been playing with hot foiling, so I thought that would be a place to start. I already had a nice selection, one of them being a lovely baby blue, a bit different from silver, perfect.

Once I got going they were quite easy, I didn't want them to be too prissie, Logan being a boy, so I thought a nice image of him in the background would look good. This photie is his Mum's favourite, so it was ideal. I faded it into the background using Craft Artist Professional. The good thing about CA is that you can turn layers on and off. So I printed the background image first on my inkjet printer.

 Next came the text. I had to print this on my laser printer to be able to hot foil it. Laser printers use toner instead of ink, and the toner melts during the foiling process, allowing the foil to stick. There are specialist hot foiling machines, but I use my laminator, it does a perfectly good job. This is where the layers function comes in. I needed the background image on the screen, to enable me to put the text in the right place, but before printing I turned the background layer off so only the text would print. Simples. Ha, you'd think! The paper goes face down in the inkjet printer and face up in the laser. Got that muddled a couple of times.

 I used spellbinders grand labels 1 for the matting and layering. The inserts were more straightforward, no background, so just the laser printing. Oh, and a bit of blue satin ribbon to finish, you have to have ribbon, even for a boy, don't you?

When it came to designing Logan's Christening card, I thought I'd stay with the same theme and use my toner foil, but silver this time. I did an easel card ( do you see a pattern developing ) shaped like a book. I wanted it to be something nice to keep and I thought a book shaped card would make it feel like the occasion had been recorded for posterity.

Finally, you can't have a posh card without a matching present, so I made a matching gift bag in MCS, their Encyclopaedia of card and papercraft templates had an ideal bag. I have an A3+ printer, so I just printed it bigger, using the same backing paper as the card and box.

A couple of weeks later I had an order placed for a combined Christening /1st birthday card,  with the emphasis being on the Christening. I decided to use the same format as for Logan's card, just adjusting and adding to the verse. Oh, and changing the colour, because this one was for a little girl.

What a difference it makes, just changing the colour to pink. My customer loved it, and so did Lois's Mum. That's always nice to know, isn't it?



That's it for now, lunch beckons, thanks for dropping by. TTFN.



Jools.  xxx