Hello Lovelies!
I have ALWAYS been a fan of hand delivered invitations, Christmas cards, thank you notes, and paper products in general. Receiving a tangible invite or card that is beautifully made from quality products always gives me happy feelings inside. There are a bunch of websites that offer these products with a variety of different designs, some even from local designers.
Recently, I ordered my baby shower invitations from Minted and received them in the mail yesterday. I absolutely LOVE the way that these baby shower invitations came out.
I also recently (back in December 2017) purchased some Christmas cards from Tinyprints by Shutterfly. Those were also GORGEOUS, and since I ordered a lot less than I did for my baby shower invites I was able to get everything I wanted on them.
I received a lot of compliments on both the baby shower invitations and the Christmas Cards, so I wanted to do a comparison video and blog post to show you all the difference between them both, and help aid you in your paper product future endeavors!
If you are interested in all the details on what went into my decision making for both the Christmas Card and the Baby Shower Invitation, read on! If not, you can scroll to the bottom of the page where there is a graph that gets to the point of expenses and the pros and cons for each website and each product I purchased!
First and foremost I want to give you a little detail about each paper product I orders, because they were both so different. The baby shower invitation I ordered was from Minted and the Christmas Card I ordered was from Tinyprints by Shutterfly (which I will refer to as Tinyprints from now on).
Minted - Baby Shower Invitation - Showered Wreath Foil Pressed Baby
I went with the standard 5x7 invitation for my baby shower. I had to order around 120 invitations, and because paper products are a little more on the expensive side, I went with just the standard rectangle invitation with no backing. Cutting out all of the "extras" like fancy edging or a colorful back of the invitation kept the price low enough for me to be able to get as many as I needed.
Pros
1. The design of the invitation was beautiful. I loved the foil glitter on this invitation and couldn't find anything I liked on another website that was similar so this was a no brainer to me.
2. The "signature paper" that comes with the invitation at no additional cost is a high quality 130 lb., 19.3 point thickness, and has a "cottony"texture. I didn't feel the need to upgrade to a higher quality paper, and I'm glad I didn't, because this paper is great!
3. Their website interface is SO EASY to use and looks really professional. Personalizing their invitations is so easy. You can also change fonts, and move stuff around, so that is really nice as well.
4. They sent me a proof in an email after I paid for my order with a custom change that they completed at no additional charge. Yes, this does take your invitations a little longer to get to you, but having that extra proofing stage gave me piece of mind that all of my customizations came out exactly the way I wanted. They won't print your invitations until you approve the proof.
5. Minted is offering FREE receipt addressing with a printed design on the envelope. The matching design to my invitation was really cute and FREE!
Cons
1. Expensive. All custom paper products are pretty expensive, so you get what you pay for, and have to know that it's going to be pricey if you choose to go the custom route.
2. I couldn't get everything I wanted because of the price point of the standard invitation.
3. I would've had to pay an additional price for adding anything to the back of the card.
Tinyprints - Christmas Card - Berry Border Holiday Card
For our 2017 Christmas Card, I though I only needed to order about 50 (in hindsight I should've gotten more), so I was able to fully customize these invitations. I received so many compliments on these Christmas Cards and I am a sucker for Rose Gold (I love EVERYTHING rose gold), so that color foil was a big draw for me.
Pros
1. I got EVERYTHING I wanted on these invitations except the recipient addressing because it was not free! Because I only ordered 50 I got scalloped edging, an envelope liner that matched my card, and the rose gold foil!
2. The design was absolutely gorgeous. I truly loved it from the moment I saw it.
3. The website was easy to use.
4. The back of the invitation was FREE to customize with pictures and words. There no additional cost for this
Cons
1. Way more expensive because of all of the customization (this is just a personal choice. If i would've just gotten the standard invitation, it would've been way cheaper)
2. I didn't get the recipient addresses pre-printed because there would've been an additional cost.
3. Their "signature cardstock" was only 120lb. Though this was only a very small difference, you could tell that this invitation felt a little less "heavy" that the other, thus making it feel less "fancy".
Overall Comparison
Quality - Minted
Both paper products were high quality and their designs were gorgeous. The Minted invitation cardstock was thicker than the Tinyprints Christmas Card cardstock. Minted gets the win in this category.
Design - Tie
Both Minted and Tinyprints delivered in this area. There was a lot of different design choices from local artists that I really loved.
Personal Touches - Minted
Upon delivery of both boxes, Tinyprints Christmas Cards were just packaged in a plain box with a receipt. Minted's invitations were package in a Minted box that was specially packaged with bubble wrap, ribbon and even a sticker with an employee's signature who "checked your order and created it just for you", signing their name. This made me feel like my invitations were special to this employee and that I wasn't just another order.
Website Access - Minted
I found both Tinyprints and Minted's websites to be very easy to use. You can easily put in your information and customize your invitations to be exactly what you want. I know I talk about the Minted previously in this post, but honestly it's one of the reasons I chose Minted for my invitations. I think it's so important for the process. Minted wins for this reason alone in this category!
Cost - Minted
Because I ordered such VASTLY different paper products from each website, I actually went back on the Minted website, and re-customized the baby shower invitation to include everything the Christmas card included (scalloped edges, front and back detailing etc.) and I made the invitations identical as far as customization goes for 100 invitations. Minted actually came out on top being about $1.21 cheaper than the Tinyprints Christmas cards. Take a look at the image below to see how much everything cost for the specific paper product ordered.
I hope this gives you guys a little insight on the different websites and what they have to offer! If you have any questions, please feel free to message me! I would be more than happy to help!
- Kayla
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