get your craft on #6: diy invitation pocketfold

With The Wedding Day approaching, my attention has turned to all things papercraft as I gear up to send out our invitations. In my true DIY wedding style I have taken it upon myself to make all the stationery for the wedding - this includes the invites, the reply cards, the gift registry cards, the map and any extra information we might want to include for our guests. All these inserts meant only one thing: pocketfolds (for anyone wondering what the heck I am on about you can go here to catch up).

In keeping with our rustic elegant theme we are going to use all classic creamy thick ivory card with kraft paper accents. After a search high and low for all things pocketfold I only came up with one supplier which did a kraft paper one. I got samples sent from the U.S to no avail as they were just not what I was imagining (too pale, not grainy enough and a bit flimsy rather than sturdy card). So I thought to myself how hard could it be to make them? All 70 of them?! Here goes...

To begin you will need...

• A3 size sheet of kraft card, or any colour/pattern which takes your fancy (I got mine from Papermarc)
• Paper trimmer (I use a fairly cheap Fiskars for this sort of work, I also have a more heavy duty guillotine but don't find it as accurate - you need accuracy for these pocketfolds to work!)  
• Sharp paper scissors (for any spots you can't reach with trusty paper trimmer)
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Paper scorer (I use Martha Stewart Craft's paper tool, purchased from Spotlight)
• Magic dot adhesive tape (available from craft stores and I find very accurate and strong, you can also just use double sided tape but I think it would be more fiddly and less adhesive)

I wanted our invites to be 5 x 7 inches and the pocketfolds to open like a book, with two sides as opposed to the popular tri-fold you often see with a wrap around cover. To allow some room around the invite I decided that each side of the pocketfold would need to be 5.5 inches x 7.5 inches, allowing half an inch border around the invites and inserts.

On your piece of A3 card measure and rule the following lines using your pencil and ruler, make sure they are accurate and straight as when you fold it together it will make a difference!

You should have two 5.5 x 7.5 rectangles as well as a rectangle below the right one which will become your pocket flap. To make the pocket flap sturdy and for your inserts to sit neatly inside the pocket you will need to add some 'wings'. My magic dot adhesive tape is 80mm wide, so I made my pocket wings 100mm wide to allow room to run the dispenser along the strips of wings.

Now you can cut out your pocketfold template using your paper trimmer. Slice down the 7.5 inches, careful not to slice off your 1cm wings, and  then all around the shape you have ruled up. You may need to use your scissors to accurately get in around the 1cm wings. You should end up with a template like this:

Using your paper scorer and ruler, score down the main fold line of your pocketfold. Then score the pocket flap fold and the two wings. Fold on all your scores to create your pocketfold. See how it's coming together now???

At this point I realised I wanted my pocket flap to not be as large so decided to trim that down to 2.5 inches. Ideally I should've done this in the trimming process, or at least before I scored and folded my wings. A lot of pocketfolds have a v-shaped pocket flap also, I wanted mine to be straight but you could cut whatever shape you like into yours.

Roll some adhesive tape along the outside of your wings (the side which will be pressed against the main body of the pocketfold). Don't tape down the inside of the wings, as this is what is creating a sturdy little pocket for you to fit your inserts in perfectly.

Now fold your pocket flap up and press the wings down to stick to the main body of the pocketfold. You can fold your pocketfold closed and press under some heavy books to make it sit nice and neat (and to make sure that the adhesive tape really sticks and your pocket flap doesn't jump back out).

There you have it - my DIY pocketfolds for our wedding invitations. Easy as pie. Now just another 69 to go...

*Note that this pocketfold was actually my third I had attempted and I still made a few mistakes! You will get really good at them after a few I promise, it's all in the accurate and straight cutting. The straighter your lines, the less room for error!

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella