Every Bride Needs Some Eyelets

As I began my quest to design our own wedding invites, I decided it would be cute to gocco a bunch of sunflowers tied with a bow on the front. Then I decided it would be even sweeter if the bow around the flowers was a real ribbon. The bow would serve both form and function! Well, it lacked heavily in the function part. While it held my two sheets together without the need of glue, it failed to hold them firmly. So when the invite it held upright, gravity takes the top page and swings it down at an angle. FAIL!

Now not wanting to have to toss my bow idea away or have to determine the best glue to use from my glue box, I decided to try a variation of the ribbon. As bridal bouquets are not simply tied once around the middle but the ribbon wraps several times, I could make my ribbon zig zag down the paper where the stems will be.  This did have great function as it held the paper tightly together but it was totally lacking in beautiful form.  The bow only covers the holes at the top of the zig zag leaving the ones near the bottom to look less than ideal.  Even if the ribbon was laced loosely, you could still see through the invite and it looked more like a 3rd grade project than a formal invitation.  FAIL #2!

So I kicked around ideas of what to do for the next few days after that...  I could just glue the top sheet to the bottom but then that completely takes away my desire to layer reception info under the wedding info.    I could glue the edges under where the bow will sit but I had decided originally that I didn't want to glue the invites.  With 150-200 needing to be made, that would be a lot of drying time if there were glue sticks involved or a lot of glue tape packs to be bought (the alternative/more costly/faster route I would choose).  Then while digging through my basket of wind-catcher materials I found copper eyelets I bought a month prior from Wildcard with the purpose of using them in a bookmark project that was put aside for wedding tasks.  At this point I had nothing to loose and decided that maybe a hammered on eyelet can hold my sheets in place.

What do you know, it actually worked!  All it took were two eyelets in the holes for the ribbon.  And banging some eyelets in place with a hammer will surely serve as a great stress reducer too!  So I took to ordering just a few anodized ones!

I think every bride needs some eyelets to hammer away at, don't you?