Save the Dates, the Supplies

So last I left you I had agreed to show you the design for our save the date magnet. Now I am not saying that this will work for you or your budget but it worked for us and I am pretty excited about what we came up with. We have a large guest list and we wanted to be cost effective.

We tried to keep it fairly simple so that it wouldn't look too busy. I think it turned out well and I have received a lot of compliments on it so far. I was able to design this directly in the Build A Sign web application. It worked for us. Please note that if you do go this route the magnets are fairly thin. Something Mr. Farmer and I were totally fine with as they will most likely be thrown away but just to give you a fair warning.

Before I get into the assembly process with our save the date magnets and insert, I wanted to let you know the materials I used to create the end product. About 2 months ago I ordered some cardstock for various projects and to test it out for our invitations. (More on that later)

Again I was shocked at how expensive paper could be and honestly how difficult it was to find navy blue cardstock! I would find grey(gray?!?!? still help) and fuchsia no problems but navy was a whole other story. Thankfully MOH B sent me to Paper and More and I was able to find a nice shade of navy.

 They called it Nightshift

I wasn't too sure about it based on this picture but once it came in I was SUPER impressed. It was also very affordable. 100 sheets for $18.99. Clearly I wasn't going to use a full 8 1/2 x 11 so I knew that I could reasonably get quite a few out of this. I also wanted to incorporate the fuchsia color to add some dimension.

I ordered this paper off a different website because I used my Google ninja skills and found another awesome deal. I got this cardstock at Create for Less

 

I was able to get these in packs of 25 for $3.99 each. So for 4 it came to $15.96. I was able to get a free shipping discount on this product. YIPPEE!! Saving money folks, it's a great feeling! Although now looking back it seems a bit TOO pink. I am still undecided. Seems to be a running theme in my world. Anywho moving along......

So now I had these 2 colors. Both of these were a cardstock so I didn't want my save the date to get any heavier with the magnet and the insert so I used just plain old white copy paper to print the information out on. I typed up a pretty simple insert that I will share in my next post when we assemble them.

I knew that once I had purchased the card stock I would need something to cut it with. I got something very similar to this. I cannot find for the life of me the exact one I have, but this is pretty close:

 

Photo via Target - Fiskars

 

A paper trimmer! Seriously if you are doing any sort of DIY paper products you need to invest in one of these bad boys. I use this thing ALL the time. BEST CREATION EVER! Seriously genius, and it isn't super expensive. This runs about $10-$12. Get one. No joke.

 

The final product that was used is my life saver.

Elmer's Glue Adhesive Runner via Stuff 4 Crafts

This thing is seriously amazing. And of course you will use a lot so you have to get:

The replacement refill via Stuff 4 Crafts

This was a super easy way to make sure all of my layers were assembled perfectly. Just make sure that whatever brand you get you remember so you can get the refills. It has a nice adhesive so it stuck well, so well that I had to make sure I didn't get too carried away and get it on my table.

So that's what I used in assembling our Save the Dates. So far my total expense came to about $100 including the magnets. Not bad I thought.

Did anyone else have any special tools that helped during a DIY project?