Design by Laney

Design by Laney I make wedding invitations and I teach artists how to make money.

06/19/2026

If you aren't using Symbols in Adobe Illustrator, you are leaving so much time and energy on the table! Whether you're designing a custom deck of playing cards, creating a repeating pattern, or managing a brand monogram across a massive wedding invitation suite, the Symbols panel is your ultimate secret weapon for efficiency.

In this tutorial, I’m taking you behind the scenes of a super fun project—a custom deck of popular pup playing cards—to show you exactly how Illustrator Symbols work.

You’ll learn how to make global changes to color, font, and layout across dozens of artboards simultaneously (even on locked layers!). I'll also show you how to scale and rotate individual instances without breaking the master link, and exactly when you should "break the link" to customize a single element. Think of them exactly like Smart Objects in Photoshop, but for your vector files!

♣️ Want the exact template used in this video? The full playing cards class and template are exclusively available inside our Stationery School Membership for stationery and graphic designers. Join the community and unlock instant access here:
👉 https://designbylaney.com/stationery-school

🎓 Brand new to Adobe Illustrator? Don't sweat it! Grab my FREE Adobe Illustrator Beginner Class to master the foundational tools and start designing with confidence:
👉 https://designbylaney.com/free-illustrator-course

What we cover in this tutorial:
🔄 What is an Illustrator Symbol? The basics of creating a master element and why it acts just like a Photoshop Smart Object.
⚡ The Power of Global Edits: Watch me change a color and a font once and see it instantly update across every single card in the deck.
🔒 Locked Layer Magic: How symbols can update elements across your entire file, even if they're sitting on a completely locked layer.
🛠️ Transformations & Scaling: How to resize, rotate, and reposition individual instances while keeping them linked to the master symbol.
🔗 Breaking the Link: When and how to decouple an element from the master symbol so you can edit it independently.

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Links contained in the video and/or description may be affiliate links which earn us a small commission at no cost to you! We appreciate your use of our links so we can continue making free content for you!

----------

Hi, hey, hello! Welcome to the Design by Laney channel! I am a wedding invitation designer & stationery business educator! On this channel, you'll find videos featuring design tutorials, systems reviews, and the most requested tips and tricks for running a creative business - yes, including my favorite printers!

New to Invitation Design?
💌 Check out our *From Start to Suite* course!
https://designbylaney.com/from-start-to-suite

🤓 Sign up for our FREE Adobe Illustrator course series:
https://designbylaney.com/free-illustrator-course

👩🏻‍🏫 Want to learn even more about running a stationery business? Join us in Stationery School!
https://designbylaney.com/stationery-school

💛 Follow Along:
www.instagram.com/designbylaney
www.designbylaney.com
www.facebook.com/designbylaney
www.pinterest.com/bylaney

🖨️ My Favorite Print Shop www.printswell.com/a/laney
📋 Try Dubsado https://www.dubsado.com/?c=designbylaney
📋 Try Honeybook http://share.honeybook.com/laney

06/16/2026

If you’re designing wedding invitations, social media graphics, or signage in Adobe Illustrator, you’ve probably wanted to change the default white background of your artboards. Whether you're trying to simulate what your design looks like on colored paper stock or trying to flood print a background color, Illustrator has a few built-in tools to help—but they might not do what you think!

In this tutorial, I’m walking you through the two official ways to change your artboard background color: using the Simulate Colored Paper setting in Document Setup, and testing out the Background Contents feature.

I’ll show you exactly which option is just a "non-printing preview" and which one creates a permanent, printable color layer. Plus, I'll explain why I’m personally sticking to the old-school method of drawing custom vector rectangles for my invitation suites!

🎓 Brand new to Adobe Illustrator? Don't get overwhelmed by the settings! Grab my FREE Illustrator Intro Class specifically designed for creative business owners and artists:
👉 https://designbylaney.com/free-illustrator-course

🎨 Ready to master the ultimate design workflow? Check out the Adobe Creative Cloud Bundle to see exactly how I connect Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop for custom invitation design:
👉 https://designbylaney.com/ccbundle

What we cover in this tutorial:
🖥️ Method 1: Simulating Colored Paper – How to use Document Setup to change your artboard previews (and a laugh at the 90s-style color picker), plus why this color completely disappears when you export your PDF.
🆕 Method 2: Background Contents – A look at this feature, how to set it up on a new file, and how it handles saving out printable color backgrounds.
🔴 The Bleed Problem: Why the new background contents tool falls short for professional print design and doesn't stretch to your 0.125-inch bleed lines.
📦 Social Media vs. Print: When these native background tools actually make sense (like fast exports for Instagram graphics) versus when they trap you.
📐 Why Rectangles Still Win: Why drawing manual vector shapes gives you the absolute best flexibility for multi-page stationery suites with varying paper colors.

🔗 Related Videos & Resources:
• Wedding Invitation Printers: Testing 6 Different Shops! → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QflYmP2QbU&feature=youtu.be
• Stationery School Membership → https://designbylaney.com/stationery-school

~

Links contained in the video and/or description may be affiliate links which earn us a small commission at no cost to you! We appreciate your use of our links so we can continue making free content for you!

----------

Hi, hey, hello! Welcome to the Design by Laney channel! I am a wedding invitation designer & stationery business educator! On this channel, you'll find videos featuring design tutorials, systems reviews, and the most requested tips and tricks for running a creative business - yes, including my favorite printers!

New to Invitation Design?
💌 Check out our *From Start to Suite* course!
https://designbylaney.com/from-start-to-suite

🤓 Sign up for our FREE Adobe Illustrator course series:
https://designbylaney.com/free-illustrator-course

👩🏻‍🏫 Want to learn even more about running a stationery business? Join us in Stationery School!
https://designbylaney.com/stationery-school

💛 Follow Along:
www.instagram.com/designbylaney
www.designbylaney.com
www.facebook.com/designbylaney
www.pinterest.com/bylaney

🖨️ My Favorite Print Shop www.printswell.com/a/laney
📋 Try Dubsado https://www.dubsado.com/?c=designbylaney
📋 Try Honeybook http://share.honeybook.com/laney

06/09/2026

If you have a shop on Minted, Etsy, or Zazzle, you know the struggle: every single design needs multiple mockup photos, and doing them manually in Photoshop can take hours. In this video, I’m showing you the exact plugin I use to create 300+ mockups in just a few minutes—completely hands-free!

We’re using a tool called Bulk Mockup, and I’ll walk you through the 3-step process of setting up your PSD templates with smart objects, loading your design files, and letting Photoshop do all the heavy lifting for you. Whether you need 35 mockups or 600, this workflow will save you days of admin work.

What we cover in this tutorial:
✅ Smart Object Setup: How to prep your Photoshop files with clipping masks and proper rotation.
✅ The 3-Folder Method: Organizing your templates, designs, and exports for a seamless run.
✅ Bulk Mockup Plugin Walkthrough: Watch me generate 35 mockups in under 3 minutes.
✅ Choosing the Best Shots: Why I create 42 mockups per design so I can "pick the best" later.
✅ Minted & Etsy Tips: Optimizing your product listings with professional hero shots and close-ups.

🔗 Resources:
• Get Bulk Mockup (Affiliate Link) → https://gumroad.com/a/928251731
• Free Adobe Illustrator Course → https://designbylaney.com/free-illustrator-course
• From Start to Suite Course → https://designbylaney.com/from-start-to-suite

~

Links contained in the video and/or description may be affiliate links which earn us a small commission at no cost to you! We appreciate your use of our links so we can continue making free content for you!

----------

Hi, hey, hello! Welcome to the Design by Laney channel! I am a wedding invitation designer & stationery business educator! On this channel, you'll find videos featuring design tutorials, systems reviews, and the most requested tips and tricks for running a creative business - yes, including my favorite printers!

New to Invitation Design?
💌 Check out our *From Start to Suite* course!
https://designbylaney.com/from-start-to-suite

🤓 Sign up for our FREE Adobe Illustrator course series:
https://designbylaney.com/free-illustrator-course

👩🏻‍🏫 Want to learn even more about running a stationery business? Join us in Stationery School!
https://designbylaney.com/stationery-school

💛 Follow Along:
www.instagram.com/designbylaney
www.designbylaney.com
www.facebook.com/designbylaney
www.pinterest.com/bylaney

🖨️ My Favorite Print Shop www.printswell.com/a/laney
📋 Try Dubsado https://www.dubsado.com/?c=designbylaney
📋 Try Honeybook http://share.honeybook.com/laney

06/05/2026

Ever wonder how a professional stationery designer manages a completely custom wedding invitation project from scratch? In this video, I’m taking you behind the scenes of my exact three-program Adobe workflow using Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign.

We’ll walk through how to go from a totally blank canvas to a cohesive, print-ready custom suite. You'll see how I map out artboards based on a client's Dubsado invoice, how I establish a balanced material and print color palette, and how I bridge the gap between vector layouts and raster art elements.

If you’ve ever felt stuck trying to make one program do everything, this video will show you how letting each Adobe tool do what it does best will make your design process faster, easier, and much more fun.

🚀 Ready to master this workflow yourself? Grab the Adobe Creative Cloud Bundle for invitation designers. It includes deep-dive classes on Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop, showing you exactly how they interact:
👉 https://designbylaney.com/adobe-creative-cloud-course-bundle-for-stationers

🎨 Save hours on sourcing! Get instant access to my Stationery CC Library, featuring exact die lines and color palettes for over 30 top stationery vendors (like Printswell, Cards & Pockets, and LCI):
👉 https://designbylaney.com/stationers-creative-cloud-library

What we cover in this workflow walkthrough:
🗺️ The Blueprint: Setting up your initial Illustrator master template with custom artboards for vellum wraps, wax seals, and enclosures.
🎨 Material Sourcing & Color Theory: How to balance printed ink colors with real-world papers, ribbons, and wax seals using digital vendor libraries.
🔄 The Illustrator-Photoshop Bridge: How to edit raster watercolor elements and public domain art in Photoshop and have them automatically update live in your Illustrator file.
✉️ The InDesign Hand-Off: Why I switch to InDesign at the very end of the project to run a flawless data merge for guest address printing.
👁️ Pro Design Tip: Using Trim View in Illustrator to see exactly what your suite looks like without the distracting bleed lines.

~

Links contained in the video and/or description may be affiliate links which earn us a small commission at no cost to you! We appreciate your use of our links so we can continue making free content for you!

----------

Hi, hey, hello! Welcome to the Design by Laney channel! I am a wedding invitation designer & stationery business educator! On this channel, you'll find videos featuring design tutorials, systems reviews, and the most requested tips and tricks for running a creative business - yes, including my favorite printers!

New to Invitation Design?
💌 Check out our *From Start to Suite* course!
https://designbylaney.com/from-start-to-suite

🤓 Sign up for our FREE Adobe Illustrator course series:
https://designbylaney.com/free-illustrator-course

👩🏻‍🏫 Want to learn even more about running a stationery business? Join us in Stationery School!
https://designbylaney.com/stationery-school

💛 Follow Along:
www.instagram.com/designbylaney
www.designbylaney.com
www.facebook.com/designbylaney
www.pinterest.com/bylaney

🖨️ My Favorite Print Shop www.printswell.com/a/laney
📋 Try Dubsado https://www.dubsado.com/?c=designbylaney
📋 Try Honeybook http://share.honeybook.com/laney

05/29/2026

If you want to design wedding invitations professionally, you have to master your file setup in Adobe Illustrator. In this tutorial, I’m walking you through how to go from a totally blank document to a fully organized, ready-to-design wedding invitation suite template.

We’ll cover the absolute essentials every stationery designer needs to know: understanding artboards, setting up proper 0.125-inch bleeds for print, ensuring your document is in CMYK mode, and keeping your resolution at a crisp 300 DPI.

I’m also sharing a game-changing file-saving trick using the .AIT (Illustrator Template) format so you never accidentally save over your master templates again, plus a sneak peek into how I use Creative Cloud Libraries to instantly load vendor envelope colors and print-ready die lines.

🎨 Skip the manual setup work! Grab my Stationery Creative Cloud Library featuring popular vendor color palettes (like Cards & Pockets and Printswell) and exact die lines here:
👉 https://designbylaney.com/stationers-creative-cloud-library

🚀 Ready to master the entire Adobe Suite for invitation design? Check out the Adobe Creative Cloud Bundle to learn exactly how to connect Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop for a flawless, professional workflow:
👉 https://designbylaney.com/adobe-creative-cloud-course-bundle-for-stationers

What we cover in this video:
📐 Artboard Basics: How to use the artboard tool to manage different sizes (5x7 invitations, 3.5x5 details cards, and custom envelope liners) in one file.
🧮 Illustrator Math: A quick trick to automatically resize or move artboards using basic math right in the width/height panels.
🔴 Bleed vs. Cut Size: Why the red line matters and how to make sure your background graphics bleed correctly.
⚠️ New 2026 Feature Alert: Why I recommend skipping Illustrator’s new "background contents" tool for print-ready design files.
💾 The .AIT Method: How to save your file as an official template so it always opens as an "Untitled" document, protecting your master file.

🔗 Additional Resources:
• Free Adobe Illustrator Course Series → https://designbylaney.com/free-illustrator-course
• From Start to Suite Course → https://designbylaney.com/from-start-to-suite
• Stationery School Membership → https://designbylaney.com/stationery-school

~

Links contained in the video and/or description may be affiliate links which earn us a small commission at no cost to you! We appreciate your use of our links so we can continue making free content for you!

----------

Hi, hey, hello! Welcome to the Design by Laney channel! I am a wedding invitation designer & stationery business educator! On this channel, you'll find videos featuring design tutorials, systems reviews, and the most requested tips and tricks for running a creative business - yes, including my favorite printers!

New to Invitation Design?
💌 Check out our *From Start to Suite* course!
https://designbylaney.com/from-start-to-suite

🤓 Sign up for our FREE Adobe Illustrator course series:
https://designbylaney.com/free-illustrator-course

👩🏻‍🏫 Want to learn even more about running a stationery business? Join us in Stationery School!
https://designbylaney.com/stationery-school

💛 Follow Along:
www.instagram.com/designbylaney
www.designbylaney.com
www.facebook.com/designbylaney
www.pinterest.com/bylaney

🖨️ My Favorite Print Shop www.printswell.com/a/laney
📋 Try Dubsado https://www.dubsado.com/?c=designbylaney
📋 Try Honeybook http://share.honeybook.com/laney

05/25/2026

Tag yourself - I’m “in the midst” 🙃

#
Trump, Trump jr wedding, rsvp, wedding invitations, invitation design, reply card

05/25/2026

Cleaning up for our move, I was finally forced to get rid of 6 years of design samples that failed for various reasons - some I never even added to my shop 🤷🏻‍♀️ some never sold and eventually got retired. Some I just re-thought and re-imagined over time! Failure is part of the process, the main difference is that some people keep going through failure, and some people give up after failure. So anyone you see online that is experiencing success probably has a pile like this in their history!

, wedding invites, invitations, designer, failure

It’s not necessarily about what specific CRM you have - it’s more about what it’s doing for you! Comment CRMChart to get...
05/22/2026

It’s not necessarily about what specific CRM you have - it’s more about what it’s doing for you! Comment CRMChart to get our comparison of 5 top options and discount codes for each one :)

#
crm, client management, dubsado, honeybook, small business crm, wedding crm

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