Free Printables

I had the honor of co-hosting a baby shower for a sweet friend last month.  I was asked to make the invitations and other printed materials.  The theme was kind of a classy/French country/all white flowers type of thing.  I was unsure how to do the invitations since I didn’t want them to be all white.  I love the look of cards and invitations that are done with watercolors and are handwritten so I went with that.  I did end up putting a little blue bow on it as well as a way to further let people know the shower was for a baby boy.

The picture above is a sample of what I came up with. I painted it and then scanned it into the computer so I could add the text.  Instead of trying to use my own handwriting I used a handwritten font to achieve the same effect.  The two free fonts I used are Sail and Mountain Retreat.

I am sharing my invitation with you to use if you’d like!  I have made two blank versions so that you can download them and add your own text. One, is completely blank on the inside and the other I left the little decorative dots if you want to try and use the same format as me.  I also made a fill in the blank version if you aren’t great at computery things.  You can just write all the info in with your pretty handwriting.  Of course, if you are using the blank version you don’t have to use it for a baby shower.  It can be for whatever you like.  You can even crop out the bow if you don’t want it.

The key to making it look like it really was painted is to print it out on quality paper.  (And this digital version really doesn’t do the final product justice.)  I used Epson Fine Art Velvet paper (which is what I print all of my artwork on) and it was so thick and soft.  They are sized at 5×7 but I cut my invitations in an oval shape around the design.  I also added the extra special detail of hand painting all of the envelopes with a pretty and simple leaf pattern on the front and back flap.  I think that was a really nice touch.

p.s.  I’ve been wanting to post this for a while but have been unsure what the best method is for sharing something to be printed.  Hopefully this will work. Click on the links above and then when the image appears you can right click on it and save it as a picture.

OH, and if you happen to use them I’d LOVE to see what you did with it.  Please send me a picture via email or on my facebook page.

©2013 Jocelyn Naquin  All rights reserved.  These are for personal use only.