Assembling your handcrafted invitations

As you may already know, I have been designing custom handcrafted invitations for 5 years now. I'm actually transitioning into flat stationery design at this point, but I will forever love the textures and process involved in creating unique invitations for special events. When it comes to designing invitations, the possibilities are endless. There are so many fonts, papers and embellishments to choose from, and they're all available on-line or at any scrap-booking store. I learned early on while working on my first custom wedding, that no matter how beautiful a design may be, if it is not assembled with the highest quality products, you might as well be sending fliers out. In my case, I had presented a beautiful paper ensemble to the bride, which she immediately approved for production. At the time I thought any double sided tape or glue would do the job - wrong! After assembling the third set, I knew I had to search for a stronger higher quality adhesive, because the metallic stocks were too heavy and wouldn't adhere to the other layers. So I did a little more research and found the Scotch 700 ATG tape gun, which made my life a lot easier and allowed me to take pride in my work every step of the way, from design to assembly!
Here's the deal, glue sticks tend to warp the paper as the glue applies wet and then dries hard. Regular double sided tape is too weak and doesn't always hold layers of heavy card stock together, but the ATG tape gun is, in one word, awesome. It applies a dry adhesive that's pressure sensitive and easy to work with. One of my favorite things about it is that if you happen to apply the tape in the wrong place, you can simply rub it off with your finger. It forms a little rubber ball which you can just throw away, it doesn't ruin the paper, and your invitations never fall apart. Yes, it is a bit pricey, but so worth the investment. You wouldn't want your precious designs to fall apart as they're being pulled out of the envelope, would you? No, I didn't think so.


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