Where to get custom Save the Date magnets printed online?

November 30, 2005 8:45 AM

I'm helping a friend design Save-the-Date magnets for her wedding. Any recommendations on where to get them printed online?

I did some googling, but most of the sites I found seemed kinda fly-by-night. I'm just looking for some sites that people have actually used and gotten good results from. Also, we'd like to design it ourselves and then upload our design, rather than use any of their existing templates. Reasonably priced would be super double great bonus.

posted by sa3z to Shopping (13 answers total)

I had something like that done at Vistaprint. The magnets turned out fine (but only used two colors).
posted by exogenous at 9:22 AM on November 30, 2005

You might also try Docustar.
They print digital direct to a magnetic substrate called Magnetcote. Their distributor is David Bettendorf from Newpage Corp. out of Chillicothe (mention them when you call).
posted by UnclePlayground at 9:28 AM on November 30, 2005

Hit your local board or the Destination Weddings board on The Knot and ask the question there. Magnet "STD's" (I know...) are very popular.

You could also try this, this, this or this.
posted by suchatreat at 10:05 AM on November 30, 2005

We did ours at VistaPrint as well. The magnets aren't as... magnetic as I'd hoped -- they stick to the fridge fine, but they wouldn't hold up a collection of pizza flyers -- but the printing is fine and the price was great. We used a stock photo, but Vistaprint

(Pure vanity forces me to also link to the front of our save-the-date card, hand-stamped by us, and with a line from an Escher poem we discovered here on Ask Mefi.)
posted by mendel at 10:13 AM on November 30, 2005

Er, we used a stock photo, but Vistaprint will take your design too.
posted by mendel at 10:14 AM on November 30, 2005

VGkids.com.
VGKids do a fantastic job, and are socially conscious, as well as being incredibly easy to deal with.
posted by klangklangston at 10:26 AM on November 30, 2005

Shannon and I used VistaPrint, too, and really liked the quality -- while I agree that it's not a super-strong magnet, I wasn't really expecting it to be. We designed our magnet ourselves; the colors were great, and we got a lot of complements on them.
posted by delfuego at 11:21 AM on November 30, 2005

I'm not sure you care to hear about DIY alternatives at this point but: if the budget for this project was $200 or so, you might want to check out professional button presses. The presses can also can be used to make magnets. 2.25" machines are around $150 on eBay -- you may want to go larger depending on how much info you want on them -- and 100 magnet part sets are around $25. You may have to spend above and beyond that to get decent color printouts of your design, but of course you're left with a cool button machine in the end. In my experience the magnets aren't very strong but they at least hold tight to the fridge.

P.S. Tecre is a good brand -- don't get Badge-a-Minit, which is a lower end machine that can't be used for magnets, AFAIK.
posted by kmel at 12:21 PM on November 30, 2005

This is a good resource ... I personally used Vista Print as well (and used 3 or 4 colors) -- they turned out great, but I did attach them to cards with tape when I sent them out, and some of the fronts tore where the tape was pulled off afterwards.
posted by roundrock at 1:10 PM on November 30, 2005

Also in the DIY area you could look at one of the many past AskMes about stickers and put them on magnetic sheets yourself. More work but a lot more personal experiences with sticker printers to be had, I think.
posted by phearlez at 1:34 PM on November 30, 2005

(Escher? Escher? Well, that's creative of me. E.E. Cummings!)
posted by mendel at 4:35 PM on November 30, 2005

iPrint.com does great work.
posted by AuntLisa at 5:46 PM on November 30, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks for all the great suggestions!
posted by sa3z at 2:55 PM on December 1, 2005