One of the business ideas you could consider venturing into is the wedding invitation business. I have written extensively on how to start a wedding card making business in Uganda. If you picked interest and want to make laser-cut wedding cards, probably this post is so helpful to get you started on the actual work.
Even if your intention is not to run a wedding card making business, this tutorial is helpful. Why? It’s because you can decide to make cards for your dream wedding by yourself to save on the wedding costs. You can also offer to prepare them for your friends’ or relatives’ weddings. They will appreciate your offer.
Making wedding cards isn’t difficult at all if you’re passionate about it. Some skill in graphic designing is essential. But even if you don’t have it, you can source it from the people who can create the wedding card design you want. Goleza Designers offers this service for free to its customers.
What Do You Need to Make Laser-cut Wedding Cards?
There are six things you will need to make laser-cut wedding cards, and they include:
- Wedding card papers (A4 size)
- Laser cutting machine
- Glue
- Card accessories like buttons, ribbons, etc
- Digital printer
- Paper clippers
- Ruler
- Bone folder
- Glue gun
If you don’t have a laser-cutting machine and digital printer, you have the option of sourcing them out. For instance, you can come to Goleza Designers for both the designing and laser cutting services. To print the text card, you look for someone with a printer that produces quality prints.
The above items I have listed are the only solid materials/tools you will need to make laser-cut wedding invitations. They are easy to get. Probably, what you will find challenging to perfect is the skill of creating the card design and turning it into a real object that will please others. It’s what I am going to take you through and the reason for coming up with this post.
Make Laser-cut Wedding Cards in 10 Easy Steps!
To make laser-cut wedding cards, you will go through the following steps:
- Choose your design
- Select the wedding card paper colour
- Cut the design into the paper
- Fold the card
- Glue the card
- Add a card accessory
- Print your inserts (text cards)
- Insert the text card into the pocket
The above steps are easy to track. However, poor artistry can quickly spoil your work. It’s, therefore, essential to follow every step accurately and carefully for your final products to look amazing. Now, let’s go through each of them in detail.
#1 – Choose Your Design
Wedding Card Designs
Your wedding invitation cards are the first impression guests get about the wedding. You, therefore, have to take the time to get the design right. There are several sources from which you can get the right design. For instance, you can look at sites selling laser-cut invitations. We also created many laser-cut wedding card designs from which you can get inspiration.
Having selected the design, you will have to prepare it for cutting on the machine. Not many graphic designers know how to create an image for cutting on a laser machine. Probably, we shall, in one of our upcoming posts, talk about it. But if you cannot create the design in the vector format, which the laser machine understands, then you can source this service out. As already mentioned, at Goleza Designers, we offer this service free of charge to our customers.
When creating the design, you have to consider the size of your wedding invitation. Our standard size usually doesn’t exceed 14cm by 20cm because if you make the card bigger, it may not fit on A4 paper. In most cases, the clients determine the size they want.
#2 – Select the Wedding Card Paper Colour
Wedding Card Supplies
Selecting the paper is seemingly a simple step, but if you are not careful, you may use paper colours that do not match your wedding colours. So you need to select the paper colour that is in line with your wedding colour theme. Choosing a wedding paper colour that you will use throughout can make or spoil your wedding cards if you don’t do it carefully. Usually, clients come with colours of their preference.
#3 – Cut the Design into the Paper
Now that you have your design ready, you need to cut it into the wedding card paper. You do this work with the help of a laser machine. If you don’t have it, the only option is to source this service out. At Goleza Designers, we offer this service at a cost ranging from Uganda shillings 500 to 1,000 depending on the time it takes to produce the card on the machine. That’s about USD 0.13 to USD 0.27.
Cutting the wedding card is easy because an automated machine does it. However, what makes it difficult is the quality of the cutting. Make sure that you remove all the cutouts entirely from each card manually. When the machine cuts, some of them will fall out by themselves. But there are those cutouts that will remain. You have to remove them manually. If you don’t, it will lead to poor quality.
It’s therefore important to know that when you’re looking for someone to cut your wedding cards, get one that will give you cards without those cutouts remaining. Otherwise, you will have to remove them by yourself, which takes much of your time. At Goleza Designers, we use a blower with strong pressure to eradicate the cutouts and give you a finished product.
#4 – Fold the Card
To make laser-cut wedding cards, you have to go through this important step of folding them one by one. This step is so delicate that you need to handle the cards carefully or else you spoil them. When folding cards, you have to use a bone folder or any other tool that is not as sharp as to cut the paper. You can use a finished ballpoint pen.
With the bone folder and ruler, draw gently a line which you will follow to fold the card with your hands. This process is known as creasing or scoring. It takes time because you do it on every card manually. After scoring, you then fold each card carefully following the creased mark. To create a crisp edge, you go over the folds with your bone folder.
The purpose of creasing first the paper is to soften it so that it doesn’t break. Secondly, it enables you to create a crisp edge that looks nice; hence, great artistry.
#5 – Glue the Card
To make laser-cut wedding cards, you use glue. Ordinary paper glue can work perfectly well. You need to pay special attention when glueing the cards so that you don’t spoil them. If glue goes on them, where you don’t need it, you destroy them because some layers will peel off as you try to separate the two parts. And nobody can take such cards.
Glueing can make or spoil your wedding card making business. You, therefore, need to do it with extreme care. When sticking, add a thin layer of glue, evenly spread, so that it doesn’t drop where you don’t need it. If by mistake it does, use a clean cloth to remove it immediately before the glue sets.
#6 – Add a Card Accessory
Accessories make laser-cut wedding cards look more appealing. You can buy them from various shops around. At Goleza Designers, we make custom wooden wedding card accessories if you need something unique. We sell them at only Uganda Shillings 200, equivalent to USD 0.05.
To add accessories, you need a glue gun with stick glue. The glue gun melts the glue sticks for the card accessory to attach firmly onto the cards. A good glue gun costs about Uganda Shillings 25,000 (about USD 6.80).
#7 – Print Your Inserts
After finishing making your wedding card pockets, you then embark on printing the inserts. You have to design these inserts properly. We shall not go into how to create good text card designs and the designing fonts to use because we wrote about them extensively. Just follow the links to learn more. When printing the text card, use a printer that will produce quality work.
#8 – Insert the Text Card into the Pocket
With your pockets and text cards ready, the only thing remaining is to put your card together. This step is the last o, and the easiest anyone can do.
Conclusion
Having created the cards, you then become proud because you’ve made your invitation cards, 100% on your own. If you are passionate about this process of how to make laser-cut wedding cards, give it a try. We are ready to support you with the cutting service at very affordable prices to enable you to earn big from your wedding card-making projects.
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