print-it-yourself items from etsy

zazzu

Is it worth it to get "you print it" files from etsy sellers for invites, goodie bag tags , banners, etc? Or is it a huge pita and  worth just buying ready made stuff? Any experiences?

WatchPot

I did an invite for my MIL's surprise 60th party.  We gchatted for about 30 minutes to finalize the design  and I had the file 15 minutes later.  I was very pleased and would do it again.  I printed at Walgreens with a coupon. 

casmommy

My experience was only so-so, but I think it was probably due to my inexperience and not the seller. I ordered a photo invite and was told at Target it needed to be printed as a photo on photo paper in order for the photo to look reasonable. I took it to a camera store and they agreed. It ended up costing 1.50/invite and I had to mount the invites on cardstock to avoid the photo paper look. Kinkos probably could have printed on cardstock, but the location of the Kinkos was inconvenient. I spent $35 on printing and $15 on the file, I could have ordered from tinyprints or paperstyle and paid the same without the extra effort on my part.

I ordered cupcake toppers and dealt with the hassle of having them printed at Kinko's. They turned out cute, but it was more time consuming than I thought it would be. The instructions usually say to cut out with a 2" circle punch and leave out that you have to cut out the square shape first in order to get the punch in there. Some of mine were imperfect from getting impatient and not centering the punch or cutting wrong. Considering I spent $11 for the file, 1.00/page for the copies and 3 something for 50 lollipop sticks when I only needed 15 and it took an hour or two, it would have been just as easy and cost effective to buy the already made toppers.

I learned my lesson and bought the favor stickers and water bottle labels already printed for a very fair price.

Sorry for the novel, I guess I would say its worth printing yourself if you have a high quality printer at home and/or like being able to be hands on.

Irishsapphire

We just put in our order from an etsy seller.  They will be emailing us.  I had some leftover cardstock that I got from Michael's that I had used for the Bumps & Babies Fair.  And my FIL has the the photo paper.  He has a better printer that can print really good pictures.  So hopefully it will come out looking good.  If I did not access to a good printer aka at the inlaws, I probably would have not been as adventurous.