Saving The Date, Part 1: Handmade Pocket Folds

The design of our STDs (it still cracks me up that we can call it that! I know, I'm 10 years old.) evolved over about a month or so. I always knew I wanted to do a magnet, since I always loved receiving them, but had a hard time figuring out if or what we needed to accompany them. I did a poll on Weddingbee.com, and a lot of people said just sticking the magnet in an envelope would be good enough, but somehow I just wasn't convinced.

I then found this cute post using photo corners to attach the magnet to a card, and I was hooked on that idea. I was also smitten with pocket folds, but man, are they expensive! So I started thinking, what if I just made my own pocket folds, with the magnet inside? There are quite a few tutorials out there on how to make them, but my problem was the size of the paper needed. I was already set on using this paper from LCI Paper.


But it only comes in 8.5 x 11 (for $20.51 for a 50 pack) or 27.5 x 39.37 (for $232.51 for a 100 pack). I really didn't want to spend that much money for 100 of the large sized sheets, plus it seemed like they would just be too big and too hard to handle easily. So I decided to make my own template for a pocket fold made out of the 8.5 x 11 paper.

I started with a cutting mat, ruler, pencil, x-acto knife, lighter and a sheet of paper.

Using the lines on my cutting mat, I placed the ruler at 2.5 inches from the bottom of the paper (paper is lined up with the cutting mat lines, in landscape). I then lightly drew a line at the 2.5 inch mark, all the way across the paper, and made little hatch marks at 4, 5 and 10 inches. I cut along the horizontal line from the left side of the paper until just after the 5 inch mark. I also used the line on the mat to make a hatch mark at the top of the paper at 10 inches.
Next I moved the ruler to the side so the two hatch marks at 10 inches were lined up, and I cut down the side with the x-acto knife, until I hit the line that I'd drawn across the whole sheet of paper.

Then I moved the ruler over to the 4 inch mark on the horizontal line, and cut straight down from this mark.

What you're left with is this shape.

And here you can see how I cut all the way over to the 5 inch mark on the horizontal line, making a tab.

Now it's time to get out the lighter and make some folds. I know you scratched you head when you saw the lighter on the supplies list, no, I'm not burning paper, I just used it instead of a bone folder. It works just as good, and I didn't want to spend money on a folder when I could easily use something from our junk drawer! Start by folding over the left side, making a card shape, scoring with the lighter to make a clean fold.

Unfold the paper back flat, and then fold along the horizontal line so the pocket is folded up.

Flatten the paper out again, and using the x-acto knife, cut out little angled pieces off the tops of the tabs. This will help the tabs fold in better.

Next, fold the two tabs in. This is also a good time to erase the hatch marks at the bottom of the sheet.

Re-fold the pocket up.

And then re-fold the front, making the final product 5 x 6 inches. After all of these folds and re-folds I used the lighter to make nice crisp folds.

This is what it looks like inside, with the tabs forming a pocket.

So we've got the basic shape of the pocket folds done, and I COULD just go ahead and glue the tabs and be done. But nooooo, that would be too easy! So I added an additional element: ribbon! I used the same lilac satin ribbon from the card box, and layered it with chocolate grosgrain. Since the STDs are 5 inches wide, I cut the ribbon into 7 inch strips.

And I am crazy, so I had to iron all the ribbon.

After ironing, I glued the satin to the grosgrain, and then glued the layered ribbon onto the pocket of the pocket folds, and secured the tabs to the inside of the paper.

The finished pocket:

Stockpiling pocket folds. I had to make 82 total (and grrrr, Mr. Cola snuck in a couple extra invites, so I had to go back and make three more).

I ended up doing these in sections, to make the process more streamlined. So I did all the cutting first, then the folding, then the ribbons, etc. I also grouped these in sections of 5 pocket folds, to make it a lot easier to keep track of how many I was making.

Next up in part 2, I'll show you what I actually put in these pocket folds!

Did you end up making your own template for one of your wedding DIY projects?

(all pictures in this post were taken by me)