My Cheating Calligraphy

I love them! They look great...I think I might have to try this.

They look amazing! Would you mind sharing the exact pen you used? I've been looking for one without much success. I don't like any of the golds (too yellow) but yours looks perfect!

Love this!! But you went over every envelope with a gel pen??!?!? Man... I wouldn't last! lol

Kristen, I used the "Gelly Roll Metallic" pen. $1.49 at Michael's. I actually bought 4 of them to be safe just because I wasn't sure of how many pens I would go through since gel pens run through ink faster. After 100 envelopes (50 rsvp with my address, and 50 inner with just names), I am almost out of my first pen. I imagine my 50 outer envelopes will use up another pen since that requires more writing.

I didn't think that I wanted gold, but when i went to Michael's with an extra envelope and was testing them all, the gold was my favorite.

Kadisha, it sounds like more work than it really is. It is mostly just tedious, but like I said, once you get started and more comfortable with the font and the letters and the curves, tracing them becomes much more like just simply writing. I sat down in front of the tv and it maybe only took me a couple hours to do all that I did so far (not counting my fighting with my printer tray... that made it take longer than it should have).

Photo of the pen, Kristen.

Those look great!!!!!! I might just have to try this

Wonderful idea! I wonder if I have the patience for this... Seems to be a good middle-point between labels and handwriting them.

I'm trying the light box technique with a bunch of flameless candles and an upside-down clear pyrex dish. I tried it last night with one of our sample envelopes, a flashlight and a random piece of mail, and I was able to see through it pretty well actually. Our envelopes are a light color but they're really thick so I'm surprised it might actually work. I figure it will be better with flameless tealights b/c the light points upwards instead of rolling around like a flashlight.

Off to the craft store now for fancy pens and ink, then I'm going to print off the addresses, and then I will wait for the UPS guy to show up so I can pounce and get my envelopes. I'll post results.......cross your fingers.

I'm definitely copying that idea! I love how professional looking they turned out.

Beautiful! They look absolutely amazing! I was lucky my SMIL does calligraphy so she did all ours, but had I not had her, I probably would have totally done something like this!

Great job. I wish I had known about this last year. Would have saved us a fortune.

Thanks everyone I can't take credit for the idea since Labake posted about it first, but I'm glad that I could provide everyone with another visual of how great it can work! Definitely beats paying a professional calligrapher!

Awesome, thanks for the info! I love the price, so double yay!

I love it! Thanks for sharing.

These look awesome! Such a great idea!

Yours came out GREAT! Wonderful.

Wow i will be copying this idea lol

They look awesome! Good job =)

BEST IDEA EVER!!! Wow! This is very impressive!!! I'm absolutely doing this for my invitations.

FutureMrsOhler we are getting married the same day!! When are you sending out your invites? I have all of mine, I just need to get started. My RSVP cards are to be back by April 5.