Miscellany: Paperless Post Test Drive

I love reading and blogging about books. My other favorite hobby is stationery. I love sending paper invitations for parties. I try to use (use up, I should say) my collection of boxed cards and notes as invitations when I can. For instance, I recently used a set of vintage-looking postcards for a pot luck invitation and some Italian note cards for my mom’s birthday brunch.

But there are only so many minutes in the day! Sometimes sending an electronic invitation is the way to go. So I was more than willing to take Paperless Post up on its offer to make a test run, including their hippest designs from Happy Menocal, John Derian, Jonathan Adler, and my favorite Rifle Paper Co., in exchange for a review here on Rose City Reader.

My law firm hosts an annual "clothes swap" event every fall, so I used my coins to make a the most elaborate clothes-themed invitation I could come up with.

Here’s what it looked like:

I wanted fun, because this is a casual event, that also had fall colors because it is in October. I love the invitation card itself, because the colors are fresh and autumnal, and the images are perfect for a clothes swap. The original design was for a birthday party, but it was easy to customize the words. You can also change the font itself, the size, or the spacing. And for no additional coins, you can add "letterpress" effect, which I did because I think it makes it look more like paper.

I chose a Rifle Paper Co. background to mix in flowers with the same green and persimmon colors with the geometric prints in the clothes:

There were a lot of envelope liners to chose from, but I went with the suggested liner with green stripes:

And, finally, I chose a feminine stamp because I liked it:

The design I picked cost "2 coins" and each add on -- fancy Rifle Paper Co. background, adding an envelope, coordinating envelope liner, fancy stamp -- cost an additional coin, for a total of "6 coins" per invitation. Coins vary in cost depending on how many you buy, from 25 cents per coin to 10 cents per coin.

We sent the invitation to 150 people, so needed 900 coins. The most cost efficient way to do this would be to buy the package of 1,000 coins for $100. So sending these fancy invitations to 150 people would cost $100, which is much less than paper invitations and, of course, we paid nothing for stamps!

I'm not ready to toss my stationery collection in the recycling bin. But I'll definitely use Paperless Post for more invitations, especially for professional events or when the alternative is that I send no invitation at all.