Transcript:
Hello, Youtube. Welcome or welcome back to my channel. My name is Tina and I make videos every single week on this channel, all about fashion art DIYs and really, my channel is all about just how to live creatively through different channels and right now we are kind of in a wedding mode, Just because I feel like so many of you have subscribed to my channel recently. Thank you guys so much. I just hit 1500 subs, which is amazing, and I just can’t believe like how fast it’s grown in the last week. So I really really appreciate you being here and subscribed to my channel. So, of course, knowing that there’s a lot of brides out there on my channel right now. I obviously want to make more videos about wedding. Things, so today’s video is all about wedding envelopes and wedding invitations so specifically about calligraphy and how you can. DIY it yourself. Obviously that’s what. DIY stands for, But I wanted to put together a video. That’s going to be kind of an overview for brides on how they can get started on calligraphy because I have a background in art and doing calligraphy, but I had to do a lot of research to kind of figure out exactly what I needed to do and purchase in order to make it happen for my wedding. So that’s what this video is going to be about. This video is going to be really helpful for those of you. Who want to start addressing your envelopes yourself instead of going through a vendor or having it typed out and I’m really gonna go into the basics as well as what you need to buy and kind of tips and tricks that I learned along the way, so I mentioned previously in other videos. I had close to 500 guests for my wedding, but that does not mean that I addressed 500 envelopes because that would be in saying, in actuality, I probably trust 150 to 200 envelopes, and that is because even though you have a lot of guests a lot of the time you’re going to have less envelopes because they’re going to the same family or the same couple. So that is what I did with that. I also want to add that a lot of my guests. We’re actually my parents. Yes, so they had wedding invites specifically in Vietnamese And honestly, I let them do whatever they wanted to do with those. I wasn’t too particular about addressing those, so that really helped me as well so that is some context for how many envelopes I was doing and kind of my mindset into planning this, especially when it comes to sending out save-the-dates and what he invites why so how to get started in addressing your own envelopes is to practice and I definitely set aside a lot of time to practice. I do have an art background, but I think that anyone could learn calligraphy, and if not formal calligraphy, you can obviously learn focal your feet as well. I am self-taught in calligraphy, and that is because I use so many different resources to learn over time. So if this is something that you want to do for your wedding, I would definitely recommend setting aside a couple months before your send out your save the dates or your invitations to actually learn this new skill, so the best thing to do when you’re starting out is to learn the basics, and that is going to require a lot of writing the alphabet over and over and over again to get really familiar with the words and the strokes of the letters, so one thing to keep in mind is when you’re doing down strokes, it’s a lot thicker, and when you’re doing up strokes, it’s a lot thinner and one of the best things that I found was to invest in getting a notebook and using your favorite medium, which we’re going to get into, but the best thing I would say is to invest in some dot grid paper. I have a notebook right here and my favorite notebook. Is this Rodya Rodya Rodya one and it is just a dot pad. I got this from Michaels and it was half off, because obviously I don’t go there without a coupon and what you should do is practice your strokes over and over again until you get the hang of it. And after learning the alphabet, you can start doing little phrases so a lot of times. I will just kind of write the same phrase over and over again. This just says, like hello, Spring A hundred different time. So that’s honestly what I would do to kind of build up my muscle memory, and that honestly helped a lot next thing. I’m going to suggest is watching a lot of tutorials. So even though this video isn’t really a tutorial based video, I will insert some clips of me writing and doing calligraphy. If you want a video. That’s more of a tutorial based video. I can definitely do that as we’ll definitely watch a lot of tutorials. I especially love Shada Campbell. She’s really helpful and really knowledgeable within calligraphy and art in general, so I watch a lot of her videos to kind of understand how to kind of go through the process of writing and also addressing and then mailing envelopes. Another big tip is when you’re following. These tutorials really find someone that is going to match the style that you like, so really take a look at their style of calligraphy and see if that is exactly what you want to emulate as well, so if they’re using a pen and nib or if they’re using a gel pen or a marker pen, there’s so many different styles that are out there, not only with the medium, but also with the style of the actual writing, so I know that there’s so many different types of cursive, so you can do something more formal. A little bit more of modern calligraphy, which is a little bit more whimsical. I found that it was easy just to kind of test out all the different ones and see what was most natural to me, and also what was most appealing to me. You’re gonna be adjusting a lot of envelopes, so get it down to a specific style, and that will help you out a lot other resources. I would recommend is to pick up some books and two that I have are lettering and modern calligraphy. So the type of calligraphy that you’re most likely going to do with your envelopes is going to be modern calligraphy. So that is kind of what you want to search up for when you’re looking for wedding envelope addressing. So that is a tip because, like old timey calligraphy is probably not what you’re looking for, and I find that books are really helpful because they come with so many pages that you can fill out, and it honestly goes through a lot of the basics, so I want to link this one down below. I got this one from Amazon, and then I also got this one as well and this is hand lettering. There is a little bit of a difference between hand lettering and calligraphy, but these honestly all helped. So you can see these are just filled with pages that you can go through and just learn the basics and get it down before you get it into the envelope. So look how beautiful this looks. It’s just so helpful because it even shows kind of what direction that you’re writing in and kind of the stroke, So I would recommend getting a book. However, if you don’t want to spend money on a book, you can obviously find some free printables out there. There’s a lot of great resources and I’m going to link them all down below of where I found worksheets that you can print out yourself whichever way you prefer to learn. Just get out there and practice and build up that new skill, yeah? I don’t know what else I need to say with that. So the next thing I’m going to talk about our tools and obviously this is kind of important to have. Because if you don’t have the proper tools, it will hinder kind of your process when it comes to making envelopes. So we are first going to start off with markers and mediums that you could be. Oh, infamous eight different ways that you can address envelopes, but these three ways are probably going to be your best bet when it comes to wedding invitations. Since you’re going to have to make so many of them, and the first way is going to be a proper pen and a nib. So this is a calligraphy nib holder. So this one’s pretty basic, and I got this off of Amazon. I think so I will link that down below, and as you can see, you can put in focus. Okay, so with that, you can put in different nibs and I will also have a link of kind of the most beginner friendly notes that I have found on Amazon, and you just put it in and you can dip this into ink or some watercolor based inks as well and this is going to be kind of the most formal. Look, you can really get those down. Strokes with this and it is a little bit harder to kind of get the hang of at first, but honestly, it is just so much fun working with this. My pens are falling everywhere. If you want an easier way to do calligraphy, then these are kind of the other two options that I have for you, and that is going to be gel pens, so regular, black or white? I ended up using white gel pens for my wedding or you can do markers. So markers are definitely going to give you the best kind of faux calligraphy of look because you’re able to find markers that have that brush tip that really emphasizes the down hand strokes, This one’s my favorite, and it is the food and, oh, ski brush pen, and it’s just the best for beginners. It comes in a two pack, it’s on. Amazon, and it is relatively inexpensive as well. It comes with two different pens, so it’s gonna come with a hard Nip and a soft nib, and I think the hard nib one is the easiest one for beginners to use, but definitely check these out. Okay, so definitely check out these pens. I would highly highly recommend it for beginners. It is just so easy and I still use this almost every single day when I do calligraphy in my notebooks. The next important thing to consider are your envelopes, so not only the style of envelope, but also the color. And there’s just so much that you can do with your envelopes for my wedding. I actually ended up using this pearly pink color, just because my invitations were purple. So these are my invitations, and if you want to save money, then you could just go with the basic white envelope that it comes with. And that way you don’t spend extra money, but since? I am a little bit extra. I went the extra mile. I’m saying extra too much, but I went the extra mile and I bought these pink pearly envelopes from envelopes. Calm it honestly was not that much for about two to 250 envelopes. You definitely want to give yourself enough envelopes. So if you mess up, you can just throw it away and not be afraid that you’re gonna run out, but these are the ones that I went with. There’s just so many different envelopes that you can get. Make sure that when you’re buying, you’re buying the right size for your invitation and like the colors just goes so well together with the rose gold and the pink and the purple, like just so many things that you can consider, and then even in the back. I have a white seal. So that is honestly one of the most fun parts about, you know, doing your own envelopes is just kind of figuring out all the different color ways that you can have it. So that is my recommendation for envelopes, lets. Take a look at your invitations. Kind of play around with the different colorways. Don’t feel like because your invitations one color that you have to match it exactly. You can kind of do a mismatched look as well also wanted to point out that there are some envelopes that come with an adhesive and these are just a lot of fun to work with because there’s a tab and you can just rip it off and seal it that way, which makes it really really nice and extra secure. So what also recommends that, that’s all? I have for envelopes So what I do when I do. Envelopes is to kind of measure exactly. How big envelope is mark off the sector point and have that as a guideline so that you are not messing up and also consider how many lines that you want on an envelope. So usually it’s going to be three or four lines and what? I’ve done is kind of measure it on the side of an extra piece of paper and use that as a guideline so obviously, guys are really, really important, and if you would like me to do a video all about guidelines and like an actual proper tutorial. I can do that in a different video, and if you really want to get fancy and think it’s worth the investment, you can get one of these guys and this is a laser level. I think that’s what it’s called. This one is from Amazon as well. It is from the brand. Black & Decker. I think it was maybe 14 bucks and for me. This was worth the investment because not only. Am I addressing my envelopes? But I am also addressing other people’s envelopes so and it’s just a great tool to have. And can you see the line and this is just super handy because you can get an exact line on there without having to draw real lines on your envelope and having to erase it after so, this is also really awesome and the last thing. I want to recommend when it comes to. Guides is getting a stencil. And those are also available on Amazon. I will link some down below, but honestly, it’s really, really helpful, especially if you want the perfect envelope, I would recommend it for beginners, especially if you just want to get the hang of the whole layout of an envelope won’t be talking too much. All right, so we have all those down and now. I want to talk about stamps and obviously understanding how much you need to pay with each stamp. I would recommend that you put all of your envelopes with invitation together and weigh it and see how much it’s going to cost you to send it. I was just really safe with my envelopes, and I put two stamps on. Each one and the best place to find stamps is obviously on the USPS website. They have a lot of cute stamps for weddings and love related stamps and Generals, But I also just ordered the basic American flag one, just because I did not want to spend a lot of money on special stamps, so I would kind of switch off between the two and then. If you really want to be extra, you can go to minted calm and they will actually make your own person my stamps and I literally have like one stamp. That’s not used to show you, but this was our stamp. So if you can see here, it goes perfectly with our invitations and mint. It is really nice since they have artisans that are going to design different parts of your invitation suite that really go along with each other. So the font on the stamp actually matches the font on the invitation, so that was honestly really satisfying to have. And if you look at it on the envelope, it’s also beautiful and that’s all. I have to say about stamps, but stamps are also very important. Don’t forget about your stamps and one of the last tools that you can invest in is a wax seal, and I know that this is also an extra step that you don’t necessarily need. But when it’s your wedding, it’s kind of nice to have that extra sprinkle of extra nest on your wedding invites and for my wedding. I use the company stamp titude, and that was really nice because you can customize your stamps as well. It is a little bit extra to customize your seal, but I think it’s totally worth it because I can use it for years to come. It comes on this cute box slides right out. You could pick off the handle color, and it also comes with an extra wax seal, and you can see how pretty it is and how well it goes with the rest of my invitation suite. So this was really cute. I’m really glad that I splurged on this and one tip that I would say to do is to mark the top of your stamp. So I’m permanent marker. I mark it up here to see that every single time I pushed down. It was going to be the right side up because I definitely messed that up at the beginning. So that is a little bit of a hack and I would say that there are customer service. That stamp shoot is really great. They send you a proof of your seal, so you can see exactly what it’s going to look like before It goes into production, and it’s just something so special to have so definitely would recommend this. I originally bought a melting kit And although a mounting kit is really cute and in theory really satisfying. Because you’re kind of lighting if I can open this, You’re kind of lighting the wax seal up over a light. I just think does this even worth showing you. I can’t even open this box. So traditionally you would use a tiny and break up these little wax seals, put it over a candle and light it up, but this just takes so much longer. So if you’re a bride and you want to save time and your sanity, honestly, just go with a hot glue gun and wax seals that you can put inside a hot glue gun. So these are the wax seals that I used and I got this off of Amazon. It came with a pack of sixteen and it works perfectly for mini glue, guns and mini glue guns are so cheap to get especially at Michaels. There’s literally like three dollars and you can always use a 20% off coupon or something like that on top of that. You can go ahead and melt these up with the glue gun, and this just sped up the process so much. I recommend getting this over the traditional wax seals because those are more for making envelopes one by one and using a hot glue gun just like sped up the process so much more. Okay, so with all those tips in mind, really think about what is going to make most sense for you, especially when it comes to how much time you have to dedicate to addressing envelopes. Obviously there’s so many other things that you’re probably trying to do in terms of DIY. So if you can set aside time for this, definitely go for it because it is very therapeutic, and it’s also really fun for guests to kind of have a special piece of snail mail that you personalize yourself, and I also wanted to show off my envelopes because I ended up kind of going the easiest route and that was using a gel pen. Here it is so. I hope this video was really helpful. For those of you, who want to get started on wedding calligraphy and to see what it takes to actually get something like this done. It is kind of a big project and it takes a lot of time to perfect it, but I think it is honestly worth it, especially when your guests are getting it in the mail, and then they just kind of feel a little bit special, knowing that it was made by you and handcrafted by you so again, if you guys want me to do a video, that’s more in depth and more of a tutorial on how to do this. I can definitely do that. Just let me know in the comments down below again. I’m so thankful to everyone who subscribed to my channel. I’m just excited for all the things that I’m going to be sharing on this channel. Please subscribe for more videos every single week and follow me on Instagram to see what I’m up to my day-to-day life and Ill. See you in the next video bye [Music]!