I recently was asked to do a sponsored post for the company Basic Invite.
Writing sponsored posts is new territory for me. Initially, I thought Basic Invite didn’t align with my mission here at “Outside the Box Learners” since I have an “education” blog and Basic Invite is a stationery company.
However, I perused the website and discovered that you can make your own cards from scratch (something my daughter has been wanting to do anyway), so I thought, sure why not?!
My daughter is an outside the box, creative kid and a huge part of the reason I started this blog, so I was excited to give her this opportunity. She was delighted to be able to design cards that she would then get to actually use! It was a pretty thrilling experience for her. 🙂
Creating Custom Designed Cards
Little Miss used Procreate (drawing app on the iPad- yes I know, a strange name, but a fabulous app) to make 5 designs that we uploaded to Basic Invite to create her own custom cards.
Some were notecard style (zero fold) while the others had a single fold. They all had different finishes because I wanted to see what they looked and felt like.
The velvet finish was ah-maz-ing. There was a slight upcharge so I would probably only choose that if I was ordering cards for something really special!
Here are the designs she came up with:
Easy and Pleasant Website Navigation
Confession: I typically am the kind of person who gets my custom cards at Wal-Mart.
However, I would strongly consider using Basic Invite for custom Christmas Card or Birthday Invites in the future just because it was that pleasant an experience and I found their website to be aesthetically pleasing.
And although it would be slightly more moolah than Walmart or Shutterfly (the other place I typically get my cards), the price point was not unreasonable, especially considering the customization capabilities. They also deliver a quality product.
Customization Capabilities with Basic Invite
The extensive customization capabilities are what sets Basic Invite apart from other online stationery companies.
Besides being able to choose between different shapes and finishes on the cards, they have over 180 different colors to choose from, which pretty much covers any color you could think of.
And you can customize down to the tiniest of detail. I had a lot of fun playing with this. They also have 40 different colored envelopes to pick from.
Custom Invitations
Because I was writing this post, I wanted to experiment with other elements of their site so I could give more info to you. Therefore, I created a birthday invitation from their designs.
This was easy and fun! I picked out the style I liked and then I was able to click on all the different parts of the card and customize it with the exact colors I liked.
Personally, I’m a fan of bright colors for birthday invites so this is what I came up with! You’ll also notice the polka dots on the back side which is also completely customizable by color and design (other options are collage, text, a single photo, etc.)
I opted for the shimmery red envelope here too (again, slight upcharge.)
Baby Shower Invitations
Baby shower invites are what they are currently featuring on their site, specifically baby boy shower invitations, monkey baby shower invitations, and baseball baby shower invitations.
I’m not currently throwing any showers, but I imagined I was, and picked out one design and then customized it two different ways in order to show some of the customization capabilities
Like I said, the extensive customization is what sets Basic Invite apart from other stationery companies.
Other Features of Basic Invite
Besides the 40 different colors of envelopes to choose from, the envelopes are peel and seal. They sealed up easily and also nice and tight.
Basic Invite has an address capturing service. I can’t speak to its ease of use since I didn’t use it. But it allows customers to share a link on various social media locations (facebook, Instagram, etc.) to request their family/friend’s address which is then stored on their Basic Invite account.
They also include recipient address printing at no additional cost for Christmas card orders.
While creating and ordering the cards, I noticed a chat window pop up if you needed help. I did not need help, but it was nice to know it was there if I got stuck.
There was a printing mistake on one of the cards, and customer service was great to deal with. Had to send a quick email and they got back to me within 30 mintues. And I had my new card in 3 days. 🙂
————————————
All in all, I think Basic Invite is perfect for people who want to be able to customize their cards to be exactly how they want them, down to the tiniest detail. That is really their defining feature.
**Right now Basic Invite is offering 15% off with coupon code: 15FF51
