Papel Picado Wedding Invitation

Hello everyone, as this week approaches the day of Jennifer's surgery, I can hardly keep my mind on anything else. My dear husband suggested, I do some design work. It did help to get my mind to other places. I wish I could give her some moments of freeing her mind. She is, understandably, nervous. Our faith and prayers keep us strong. God knows we all need our minds re-directed to other things beside the thoughts of a long surgery and very long recovery. I think my daughter is most concerned about the long recovery. She is a very active woman and a mommy. She's already missing her children even though our travels won't take place until this Thursday.

While trying to keep my mind occupied I decided to work on a project one of my YouTube subscribers asked me about. She would like me to make a video tutorial on how making a Papel Picado wedding invitation tutorial. With all that has gone on and will be going on, it may be a bit of time before I can make the video tutorial. I did take the time to create and cut one out. They are lovely invitations, but I must say; they are very time consuming to cut and design.

The techniques of design are fairly basic. The most difficult task is making everything fit so it welds, cuts nicely and has a wedding look into it. With all of the intricate details of a Papel Picado you want to have pretty and intricate designs, yet you want to be careful not to go too far. For example; If I would do this over I would make the doves solid and place so heavier designs into the doves. Also, I would use a new blade and be sure to double cut when using a heavier card stock.

I started out with a rectangle measuring 5 x 7 then did an internal offset. From here I began choosing design elements. In the picture below I used the rose flourish for the top, but I also made one using wedding bells ( I forgot to take a picture of the wedding bell Papel Picado) I then worked on the placement of the doves, creating the border edged with some flower shapes and circles that I welded to the edge of the 5 x 7 rectangle. Now all that is left to do is to make sure I have plenty of room for the wording. I used the Adobe Garamond font to create the wording. Arial Bold would also work. Remember, when you weld you must weld to a "compound path". When I made the internal offset of the 5 x 7 rectangle I selected both the inside and outside of the rectangle, right clicked, and selected, "make compound path". This will make it possible for you to weld you border and inside elements to create the card. Another thing to remember when welding is to make sure your elements slightly overlap the areas you will be welding to create the look you want.

I'm looking forward to making another Papel Picado and have learned a few things along the way. When we send out wedding invitations it can be anywhere from ten to hundreds. I would not want to make hundreds of these without the help of some crafty friends who own a Silhouette cutting machine. I would also not like to weed out the hanging chads like I had to do for this one. Next time, I will use a brand new blade, make the elements a little heavier and yet maintain its intricate design, and I will always double cut....lol.

When you look at the photo below you'll be able to see all of the areas that were in need of welding to complete the card and the look. If you decide to try making one of these, I would love to see your design.

As you can see below, I took many pictures of this project. I created a cover for the wedding invitation with a paper band to hold it closed. You can't really see the lovely, sparkling crystal beads placed on the band. The beads did add that special touch needed to make such a lovely wedding invitation look even more special.

I almost forgot to tell you the meaning of Papel Picado. It means to punch out of paper. Just imagine how many of these lovely wedding invitations and other Papel Picados were made by hand. Each delicate detail was cut by hand. Thank goodness! We have cutting machines.