Wedding week is back!! You all gave me so much love the other week regarding all of my wedding stuff, I thought I would share more! Round 2...
Throughout my wedding, I tried to save every penny. I did not want to spend anything I did not have to nor did I wish to have a $20,000 affair. I splurge on some things that I really desired, but not much. When it came down to some areas, getting crafty was the answer.
I wanted to spend every penny possible on my girls (and guys) that were helping us through our big day. Spending the money on the gift bag, however, seemed silly. Printing on brown paper bags seemed like a great idea. It does take some additional work that I didn’t anticipate but overall, they turned out great.
To mimic my brown paper gift bags, make sure that you have a photo printer. Office printers are not designed to take thicker paper and jam really easily when you try. Usually this is easily figured out by the title or model of your printer. I have an HP PhotoSmart Printer compared to an HP OfficeJet Printer. Easy enough, right?
Take some thick, plain scrapbook paper (8 ½ x 11) and tape the brown paper bag, flap down. Ensure that the flap side is down or it will get stuck in the printer and damage it. Set your printer to let it know that it is getting ready to print on thick paper. Usually, printers have a setting for large photo paper. This is what I pick. Manually feed only one paper in at a time; allowing the printer to take from the paper tray also can cause paper jams. In between each print, I would run at least one paper through the printer for ink blots and such. This minimizes the extra ink build up that is created by printing on thicker paper. Allow up to ten minutes of drying time for each brown paper bag prior to touching the ink.
After all of the bags were printed, I took a paper punch from Michaels and decorated the top of the bridesmaids’ gift bags by punching a design on them. Additionally, I punched a larger hole in the groomsmen’s gift bags and tied them with yarn.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/160917218/printable-design-for-brown-paper-bag
This will allow you to buy and print on your own gift bags. I have different designs for my girls and guys, compared to those that just helped out in the wedding. I additionally added my “Call Anybody but the Bride” and “Wedding Timeline” into these bags; I'll show you these sometime this week.
Such a little thing to make a personal touch for our wedding party, our gift bags were adorable! Or maybe I’m just bias?
