Eyelets and Wraparound Labels Made Easy

Mr. Tartlet and I absolutely wanted our guests to have a means of displaying our Save-the-Date cards once they were received, and ours were inspired by these adorable Save-the-Date luggage tags:

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At first, I was hesitant to adopt this idea because of countless stories describing sore fingers as a result of poor aim when hammering the eyelets into place. I'll try to explain: in their unaltered state, eyelets look like little hollow top hats that just sit loosely in a hole you punch in the paper. They have to be "set" or locked in place somehow so they don't fall out. Many tutorials suggest a hammer and a setting tool to squish the neck part of the eyelet flat, turning it into a bottom ring with the paper sandwiched in between it and the top ring.

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This method sounded noisy and complicated. All my reservations disappeared, though, once I come across a handy all-in-one tool called a Crop-a-Dile. It not only punches holes of the appropriate size for the eyelet, but also "sets" the eyelet in place with a simple squeeze of the handles. No muss, no fuss. We collected our rounded Save-the-Date cards, 1/4" gold-colored eyelets (purchased off eBay), the Crop-a-Dile and began!

First, we used the Crop-a-Dile to punch a hole of the appropriate size in the card:

Next, the eyelets were inserted into the holes and set using the same Crop-a-Dile gadget:

Once the eyelets were set, we tied a 3 mm satin ribbon through each hole so the cards could be hung!

We also made our own address labels using a Xyron, which is essentially a sticker-making tool. The model I have, the 2.5" create-a-sticker, applies a layer of adhesive to the back of paper (or other materials) up to 2.5 inches wide without the need for heat, batteries, or electricity. Being a gadget geek, I decided to invest in one because of this nifty idea from Martha Stewart:

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I love how sleek and clean these labels look! Rather than using her provided template, I designed my own address labels in Adobe Illustrator and cut them to size. I placed the trimmed address label on the feed tray of the Xyron:

Turned the handle to feed the address label through:

And the label is spit out the back end, complete with an even adhesive backing. There's a nice serrated tear strip on the back of the Xyron, so no need for scissors, even.

I peeled the label off the backing to place on the envelopes:

And ended up with this finished product, ready to be stuffed, stamped, and mailed!

 

As an alternative to the Xyron, you can purchase sticker sheets for your printer. However, since the Xyron 2.5 only cost a few dollars more than the sticker sheets, I decided to make the investment and have definitely gotten my money's worth from it. Were you inspired by a project that you just had to incorporate into your wedding? Anyone else out there love random gadgets that make your life soooo much easier?