Team SB project #1 - How to cut paper

This is a less "entertaining" post and a more functional, directions oriented one. I am doing a pocketfold invitation, with three inserts, a belly band, and lined envelopes. I ordered the materials from cardsandpockets, but am cutting/printing everything myself.

My trial runs, so you can see where we're headed.
The invite mat & patterned paper will be different.

The DIY goods. Nothing too fancy: Scissors, paper cutter (not shown), pencil, ruler (the one in the pic is in millimeters, how annoying). Clover pocketfold, cream square flap envelope, 8.5x11" patterned paper, regular printer paper.

Step 1: So as not to waste the cardstock/expensive paper, I used regular paper and cut it into various sizes to figure out the dimensions I wanted. And to practice using my cutter to be accurate.

Some of the sizes we tried out. For the invite, invite mat, inserts, band, liners.

Step 1b: Good Thursday night tv, a tasty cocktail, and a helpful fiance make this go faster.

Step 2: Once we were happy with the proportion/look, we wrote down all the dimensions and what type of paper would be used (cream, clover, or patterened) and tried to figure out how to maximize the paper we had.

Trying to figure it out by hand. We couldn't find a regular ruler, so we used a yardstick. A lil' cumbersome.

I found the best method was to go into powerpoint and resize the slide so that it is 8.5" x 11" (or whatever size your paper is). Then make little boxes for the sizes you need for the invite pieces and color code them. Then you can move the boxes around to maximize the space you've got. Our results (for the cream cardstock) are below. We did the same thing for the clover & patterned paper, but it looks basically the same.

Side note: You should probably do this BEFORE ordering. I was stressing that I'd not have enough, but it worked out ok.

Two 4.5" x 6.5" invitation mats + 3.5" x 5" inserts fit on one piece.

Three 3.5" x 6.5" inserts on another.

Three 3.5" x 6" inserts on another.

Step 3: The easy part! Cut and paste. Cut out the sizes you've planned and glue them to the preformed pocketfolds. I used a two sided glue runner so that there wouldn't be a line from real glue and that they'd be securely tacked down with no "gaps" on the edges.

Mr. SB & Elliot cutting paper.

We didn't cut the cream cardstock yet, because I'm not sure how my printer will handle small pieces of paper so I might have to print then cut, rather than cut then print. But it's planned and ready to go for that day in the future. We also didn't glue in the envelope liners, because (for now) I'm planning on printing the addresses and don't want the extra thickness in the printer.

The finished result. All liners cut and folded/scored. Invite mats & belly bands glued down.

Overall, I think team SB did a great job on our first project (in my humble, unbiased opinion) and I can't wait to see the finished product.

How have your "team" projects gone?

Adding some swirlies

Although it fits the look and feel of our life and wedding venue not at all, I think damask weddings are pretty spectacular in their drama. I mean, how GLAMorous would you feel with these details around you. The black and white base with endless accent color options. So pretttty...

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And you can even get matching TP! :P

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Anyway, back to my wedding (yes, that was long enough thinking about some one else, back to me, me, me!), I was on the lookout for paper to multi-task as #1. envelope liners, #2. belly bands, #3. invitation mats. I ordered my invite products from CardsandPockets and they had a design your own paper option. I decided to go that route because at the very least, the colors would match. And they had a pseudo-damask option, the design "Swirls".

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I was a little nervous because the example didn't give me a great idea of the size of the pattern or what a whole page of it would look like. But I ordered some in clover & cream and was very happy with the result.

My own picture of a full sheet. The background really is cream, the lighting is just off a little here.

Although I hadn't planned on it, I'm very happy that we were able to incorporate a little damask-ish element into the wedding. I think the invite suite is much more interesting and cohesive because of it.

Up next: The making of the semi/mostly-DIY invites!

Where did you sneak in little patterns to your wedding decor?

A very functional little project

I was trying to think up stuff I can do during this lull in wedding planning. You know, the time where most big things are booked, but it's too early to actually start DOing anything (like seating charts or weekend itineraries or getting OOT bags together). I decided working on some paper designing that I had planned to DIY might be appropriate... which lead me to the wonderful world of escort cards.

Our caterer has asked that we designate on their escort cards what meal people chose (from our three options) or have specifically assigned seating. I was planning on assigning tables, not seats, so I wanted to try "color coding" their name to their order. I like the ideas of different colored grapes and found some various colored clip art from Microsoft online. (Classy, I know. But free, I dig that part.)

Into powerpoint I go, making little boxes 1x4" and inserting grapes & color coordinated names. I printed them out on cream cardstock, scored the top fold and it looked ok. Not great. Ok. (We're debating between the very creative "Table One" "Table Two" or the more cutesy "Cities that were important to us" for the table numbering. That's why Bridget's tag says Boston.)

Not loving this attempt, I headed onto the internet for inspiration. Our wedding is at a winery and the only alcohol we're serving is wine... glass labels/tags of some sort would be cute, no?

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Veryyyy cute. You could write/print the names on these tags and have the guests slip them on the wine stem, but the labeling-the-meal-choice isn't as obvious. And blue's not one of our colors.

This got me thinking though... wine charms! You could print the names onto a card (like the ones created by the Creative Memories tool, below) and attach it to the charm. Extra little favor! Bonus!

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They range from $5.99 for 6 for the Art Glass ones above to $15 for 6 for the pewter ones. Pretty reasonable actually. Except of course, I like the expensive ones better and was progressively feeling like the $6 ones looked cheap. And then, Michaels came to the rescue... DIY charms!

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Sorry for the poor quality, this is a blown up section of the image. But they have easy to follow DIY grape wine charm instructions on the webpage! Ok, so maaaybe they sound a little detailed, but it might be just the thing to keep my hands, and DIY/planning spirit, busy. I haven't gone to price check the components, but am pretty excited do that soon.

What projects have developed into something unexpected that is WAY better than your first thoughts?

I can totally do this...

I am planning on wearing my hair half up and I love the hair fascinators I've seen on various wedding sites. However, I tend to like the expensive ones and there's normally something that I would tweak about a given design.

From Etsy.

I was inspired by Weddingbee's Mrs. Pineapple, to give DIYing my hair piece a shot. It didn't look too hard... and I'd be able to add/subtract components to my little hearts content.

I bought some flowers at Michaels.

Then I took the big one apart. The little blooms had the pearls glued to the middle and just plucked right off the stems. I was actually disappointed that there weren't some "normal" shaped smaller flower petals.

Elliot came to help his mom. And chase feathers.

My most successful attempts, bottom left being my fave. I'm actually not that happy with them. The good news is that this didn't take too much time or cost too much money (~$4 for the flowers & $2 for more feathers than I could possibly use). I'll try again with these materials, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to order one, because I don't want to spend more on additional materials if it's just going to look home-made-craft-y.

Tired out from helping mom.

We'll see if it looks better in a few days when I revisit it. Do failed DIY projects get you down?

Trying to gather it all together...

Fairly early on in my wedding planning, I made a very dense (er, like, 25 pictures on one powerpoint slide) inspiration board with absolutely no record of where I got the pictures from. Oops. Well, it's fine for bringing to vendors or working on ideas, but not so fine for blogging.

So now, as an experienced bride-to-be, I made another one and have discovered that I *still* want to put way too many pictures on a given board. (Those folks at Style Me Pretty make it look so easy!) It kind of took forever, but I'm happy with the result.

Image Sources: Flower cones, Invitation, Dress, Brownie pops, Flowers in bottles, Cake, Boutonniere, Green Dress, Candle centerpiece, Bouquet, Floral centerpiece.

Some of it is still not quite *right*, but having an inspiration board makes me feel better. (In particular, I have an inspiration bouquet that I can't find a digital photo of. When I get around to scanning it in, I'll update the board.) But I think this definitely reflects the natural, unfussy, elegant and traditional, but not dated or overly formal feel that we're going for. In green, yellow, & white. While this is an "overall" look, I like the idea of multiple inspiration boards: one for flowers, hair, etc. Those are a work in progress.

How many revisions did your inspiration board(s) undergo? How closely did it reflect your overall wedding in the end?

5x8 does not equal 5x7

Ack.

I ordered my STDs and received them yesterday. The quality is beautiful, there are no typos, they arrived on time. It's exactly what I ordered. Which is the problem.

I definitely noticed that postcards on 123print.com came in two sizes: 4 x 5 5/8" or 5 x 8" I thought the 8 sounded weird, but assured myself it was either a typo or no big deal. Welll.... it looks weird! I'm very into balance and symmetry (it's my job after all!) and having seen the 5 x7" proportions in photos all my life, I don't love the 5 x 8".


The good side. There is extra background on the front and behind that is extra white space. So if I *did* decide to go and cut off that one disproportionate inch, I wouldn't be messing with the overall look at all.

The bad side. Having to cut each one by hand. We only have ~40 to send, but not a ton extra to play with/mess up. Mr. SB (as soon as he saw how "distraught" I was over the extra length) immediately offered that we could cut it. I take that as an offer to help. :)

To cut or not to cut? This is my first picky, detailed, bridezilla moment... and I'm so conflicted!!

Image Source.

I *have* told myself multiple times that no one will care... but isn't that the truth with 95% of wedding related decisions?!?

Update: Mr. SB just told me the cut one looks better. Decision made. Project Runway & I will carefully cut 50 postcards later tonight.

Did you intentionally ignore something, just to regret it later?

STDs

(Ok, I admit it. I still get a *tiny* kick out of calling Save-the-Dates "STDs." How 7th grade of me!!)

Anyway, we needed to send these for several reasons.
#1. All of our guests are from out of town and travel to California isn't always inexpensive or easy.
#2. Since we live in a tourist destination, I want them to have a chance to have options in booking flights and hotel (even though this should be easier in the off season).
#3. Since we're getting married in March, the Christmas rush will keep everyone busy in the months immediately prior to the wedding and I'm worried my invite (and their reservation making) might get lost in the piles of cards & bills.

Man, oh man, I did not want to spend alot of money on them. To me, STDs are a functional item, not a decorative or *fun* one. There are some cuuuute options (custom snow globes, anyone??), but, nothing I felt like dedicating a decent portion of my budget or spare time towards.

I was not into the magnet idea from early on. I can't really see anyone wanting a magnet with my face or name on it. That they'll definitely throw away. I mean, they'll have the card and either write the info down or keep it next to their calendar. Is the magnetism necessary?? (Though the example below is perfectly nice...)

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Somehow, Mr. SB got wind that people did photobooth STDs and thought it would be a cute idea (definitely his most specific wedding input to date). So I worked with the idea, but hit some road blocks. You can't send a long skinny strip. I didn't want to make it a magnet (I sound like such a hater!). Custom designing a card or inserting the strip into a card was more money and effort than I was hoping to spend. He was only so-so on the idea of a faux-to booth shoot (and I have no idea where one would find a photobooth in this area).

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I liked the idea of postcard STDs: simple, inexpensive, cheaper postage, very functional. Most of the pre-made ones just seemed a little generic and (obviously) I didn't want to pay someone to design something for me. I had ordered some postcards from 123print.com for my business and was happy with the quality and timeliness of their product & service. They let you upload your own design for free and the 5x7" shiny postcards seemed a nice size.

Enter Microsoft Office. This time it was Microsoft Powerpoint. I tried to incorporate some of our beautiful e-photos, green color theme, and the photobooth idea. It was a total fail. I really did not love how it turned out at. all.

But now we were less than 6 months out and I really wanted to get these dumb things rolling... so I decided to K.I.S.S. it. (Keep it simple, stupid. A great reminder for many aspects of wedding planning that take on a mind of their own.) We had these beautiful engagement photos and nothing specific to do with them. So I got to thinking... what if we printed a favorite photo, sans text, on the 5x7" glossy postcard & the info on the back. That way, people could save the photo of us for scrapbooking.. or framing?.. or.. whatever people do with pictures of other people. And it wouldn't immediately be outdated after the wedding.

Front of card.

Back of card.

One oops that I noticed later: I didn't write "Formal invitations to follow." I guess they'll figure it out soon enough.

Total cost: I had to order 50 and it cost $29.18 including shipping. Not too shabby. Unfortunately, I think they require 44 cent first class stamps (because they're larger than standard postcards), but I really liked the larger size and think it's worth it. We did save money not having to order envelopes. They're going out 5 1/2 months early... a little late according to "the rules", but I still think it is sufficient time for our guests to make arrangements.

End result: Successful project!!

Did you send STDs? How much effort did you put into them?

My first DIY attempt

One of the most prevalent topics in wedding planning is invitations. There are sooo many strange words for us rookies: letterpress, pocketfold, cardstock, A6, hand cancel. While my eyes swam at the many beautiful options and choices, another aspect jumped out at me. How unbelievably much these darn things would cost!!

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I decided early on that I could do without letterpress (though beautiful) and I was determined to give (semi) DIY a chance. Since this is basically a destination wedding, I knew I'd have to include a lot of information, so a pocketfold with multiple inserts quickly seemed to meet my needs. I found a great example of what I had in mind on weddingbee.com and another on the Cards & Pockets blog.

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I decided that I should give the DIY a try (even before we had a venue or date!) because if we had to order them, I wanted plenty of time to shop around and design.

Green. Pocketfold. Belly band. Grapes. Here we go.

Step 1: Microsoft Publisher. I already had it free on my computer. Hadn't used it before, but I was relatively comfortable with Word & Powerpoint and it was similar. (Side note: I don't know how to use Photoshop or anything fancier than that. Microsoft Office has helped me with a whole host of design tasks: business & personal.) Especially for the little inserts (on the right hand side of the pocketfold), I wanted similar styles with different sized paper and Publisher was super easy to figure out.


Step 2: www.istockphoto.com I search for most of a morning on various graphics websites and found a perfect image for ~$10. I just copied the free version to play around with.

Step 3: www.cardsandpockets.com Their sample sets were perfect for playing around with and had sufficient extra paper for a few mistakes. I found the company easy to work with, timely, and the quality was excellent. You don't have to worry about cutting or matching, well well worth it, in my mind.

Step 4: A morning in PJs with a pot of coffee & my handy at home printer (Nothing fancy, a $150 Canon).

Working on the wording & layout.


Lots of things will end up differently/better. In particular, that map is a disaster at the moment. BTW, that little "Respond" card is a mail-able size postcard for our guests to RSVP with and it fits nicely into the invite suite.


Let's be honest, there's no chance I have money in my budget for calligraphy. I think this pretty little font on my computer worked JUST fine.
(*A great tip from my MOH: Remember your audience. My family is not uber-wedding savvy. And will not cry over a lack of hand lettering on something they will immediately throw away.)

Optional Step 5: A frivolous little detail that I fell in love with was envelope linings. It was seriously easy and I really love how it turned out (especially when combined with the matching belly band). Remember how I mentioned Mr. SB is a good paper cutter?? :) Mrs. Champagne has a great tutorial. I used glue, not tape and didn't love the little line you can see in the envelope pic above. The paper I used was left over scrapbooking paper from the clearance bin at Michael's. I liked that it was a little thicker, so held up well with the wrapping around the invite, though almost anything will work, so I'll be keeping my eye out for various green papers over the next few months.

Voila!! I am marvelously happy with how they turned out and sent the copy to my family with a positive response. With this little boost to my confidence, I decided to move forward with the plan to DIY these. Stay tuned for the final, final result!

What major projects are more reasonable than you anticipated?