You're Invited OR Creating Corresponding Cards

One of the main parts of planning a wedding, which is basically just a glorified personal prom, is the invitations!  There are so many options nowadays.  This was one of the most exciting aspects of my wedding for me because I chose to design and make my own.  I even had a wedding "logo" that was on them along with the t-shirts I designed and printed for the wedding party to wear.  I was technically married in a t-shirt, but we also walked out of a chicken coop so it worked.  (I took some artistic licenses, I guess you could say, with our wedding theme.)  It was very personalized as were our invitations.  I used 100% recycled card stock and envelopes.  I got to experiment with different colors of vellum and natural jute twine.  I designed them all myself, included a quote from Tuesday's With Maury, and hand addressed every one. 

The card making was a memorable time; it was one stage of wedding preparation that I really enjoyed.  It took a lot of work, but was a lot of fun and very rewarding.  They looked awesome, if I do say so myself!  Other people liked them as well and I later had someone ask me to make their son's graduation announcements, which was a neat project to do as well.  My cousin is getting married this November and asked me to make her invitations for her.  I was very honored to be asked and excited because I learned while making mine that my love for stationery transcends my notebook collection.  I like to design and make my own cards! 

My cousin is having a fall wedding theme with leaves and such, fitting for the month it will take place.  Her colors are chocolate brown, red and a rust color.  I was so excited to work with these colors.  It's going to be gorgeous, that's my pallet!  I'm such an Autumn.  We met and decided over wine how they would look and ordered the supplies from www.paperandmore.com, which is where I also bought all of the paper and envelopes for my previous cards.  I talked her into using a wax seal on the outside of the inner envelope which we ordered also.  I was so excited to live vicariously through my cousin's personalized stamp!  I have always loved and wanted to use wax seals.  I was SO psyched! 

This weekend my cousin came up to help finalize and assemble the invitations.  It was a memorable occasion to say the least.  Friday night she arrived around nine.  I was still laying out the graphics and wording.  My mom kept Celie so I could safely get out my rotary cutter and mat.  I used to use this to cut fabric when I was in my Missie Susie seamstress stage.  I also used it to cut the paper for my wedding invitations and a ton of other stuff.  It's dangerous as hell and intimidating as shit, but is a vital tool for crafting and sewing.  I reacquainted myself with my tools and got to work.  We stayed up all night talking and catching up while I was printing all of the pages and cutting paper.  We stayed up until 4am and then I decided the rest could be done the next morning.  Saturday evening we were planning on having some other family over to my parents' house to help with the assembling.  Everything was decided, I just needed to finish printing.  Surely I could get that done easily tomorrow, right?

Saturday, of course we ran into problems as soon as I started printing.  First the printer jammed, then I ran out of ink, which I didn't have on hand.  Long story long, I got everything printed out and ready for the assembly party by around 9PM.  We took the supplies down to the crew, and after hours of taping, tying, stuffing, addressing and stamping we finally finished up around 3AM.  85+ invitations, DONE!  We then commenced with the celebratory drinking.  It was one hell of a night and morning!

The invitations turned out so damn nice.  I was actually REALLY proud of myself for this one.  I got to experiment with wax seals, and they turned out pretty good for my first time.  I am totally a stationery nerd, because even though it was nearing 2AM, I was sad when I finished sealing all of the inner envelopes. I LOVE PLAYING WITH MELTED WAX!  Yes...stationery is swell!