Adventures in Save the Dates

Last weekend, Allen and I were able to finally finish our first crafty wedding project. Success! While it was definitely nice to see it all come together, there were definitely a few bumps in the road. Since I am not even close to an expert when it comes to all things print and crafty, I am happy to share my mishaps with all of you to avoid in the future.

First - the design. As always, never an easy process for me. I started out sketching, mostly trying to work on the "logo" for our wedding. I wanted to have an image that we could carry through all of the pieces of our wedding (with some variations), and finally came up with something that was both typographically and aesthetically pleasing (to me), with about 4 different designs and layouts. Then, I started working with photos that I thought represented the Traverse City area a bit - I wanted people to look at the save the dates and get excited about the possibility of going up north for the wedding. The final product turned out like this:

(Under the 9.10.11 it says "traverse city, mi" and on the back is the hotel and website information)

My mom had seen the photo on one of the sites I had looked at (I used istockphoto.com for this particular photo) and was immediately on board. Once I showed it to Allen, he was in love and instantly wanted a glass of wine. Success! I decided on the square format based on some free leftover envelopes I had from a job at work, and definitely couldn't throw those babies away! They were a clear vellum so the recipient could see the image through the envelope. Love.

However, the full layout of the card was actually on a 5 x 7" card. I did this because I used a site called Vista Print to print the cards. They're one of my favorite sites to use, especially for down and dirty printing - even though their options for specs can be a bit limiting, the printing always turns out really nicely. So when we got them, they looked like this:

(We need a new camera - sorry for the blurriness)

This meant that Allen quickly became my go-to cutter buddy, and he used my paper cutter to cut them down to size. I had this from previous art projects in school, but you can get them for super cheap at Michael's, and they come with different cutters so you can perf, score, etc.

The next step was inserting into the envelopes (an easy while-watching-Jeopardy activity), and then we affixed the return address labels. I purchased a return address stamp from Paper Source to save on cramping and cheesy return labels. I figured that since we'll be sending out a lot of wedding-related mail in the near future it would be worth it. Top that off with a handy $10-off promotion, and I grabbed this guy for $25 worth of hand cramp savers:

You can change out ink colors, and if we ever move, we can replace the plate with a new address

Then we stamped our return address onto some round sticker labels to use as our sealers (saving precious taste buds and preventing tongue paper cuts - always a plus):

Ta da! Love those envelopes.

The final step was addressing these suckers. This is where we had some problems. Again, I used my trusty Paper Source to find some fancy address labels, and ended up finding vellum labels that would allow for the wine image to be seen through the envelope without a chunky label covering everything up. Amazing! This would have all been great, except that the template that I downloaded from PS was incorrect. Twice. I set up my template in InDesign to allow for use of a scripty font that I had used on the invites. Due to the vellum, it was difficult to see on the actual label sheets where the die cut of the label fell. So it wasn't until we were pulling the labels off to affix to the invites that we actually realized that half the labels on each sheet printed off-center or completely off the label.

Epic fail. This would be where I would show you a picture of this monstrosity, but we were so frustrated in trying to re-work them that I never got around to it. After trying to re-layout the labels for the cut off addresses, and after going through way more labels than we had intended, we ended up getting the save the dates out in two batches - first were the ones that were at least still mailable (even if they were off-center), and the second drop was of all the people from the first batch that their labels didn't really meet my standards. The second batch went out about a week later after procuring more labels. So, if you got your save the date late, that's why! And even the second batch still didn't turn out 100% the way I would have preferred. But, it's done, and lesson learned - measure the template yourself, and get labels with a clear die cut so you can see mistakes right away. Done and done for next time. At least it wasn't for the invitations.

Overall, despite some serious address label frustrations, I am really, really happy with how they turned out. I think they portray the overall tone of the wedding with the bay and the wine (naturally), and I'm proud of the work we put into them together. Hopefully everyone else enjoys them as much as I do!

It's been a busy, busy week!

In the midst of getting over a foot of snow this week, there has been lots and lots of excitement around here!

Exciting event #1: Mel and Scott are engaged!!

Scott was kind enough to include all of us in his big moment by having us appear at the Ren Cen downtown right after he popped the question. While I didn't get their first grand entrance on video, I did manage to score the slow clapped entrance when they came downstairs to meet us:

(Video all thanks to my amazing sister - she got us a Flip video camera for Christmas!)

It was all very exciting. And then things got even MORE exciting when I got a phone call Sunday morning saying....

Exciting event #2: Jill and Michael are engaged!!

As if one amazing engagement wasn't enough, now my best friend in the world calls me and tells me that she is now engaged to the love of her life (who, just happens to be another one of my most favorite people in the world...and Allen's too. There's a bromance involved).

Awwwww, love :)

So it's been a crazy, amazing, really exciting time with everyone! I couldn't be happier for my friends, and it's been fun to be part of all of it. Plus, now I have fellow crafters to help me with my wedding stuff (and I will totally return the favor for you guys too - this crafting bug won't be going away quickly!).

Speaking of the crafting bug...a little sneak peak of our save the dates:

More to come on those once people start receiving them. Needless to say, Allen and I have been extremely productive on this crazy snowed in day of ours. 

Checking off the To-Do's

My my my, it has been a while.

But can I just tell you - we have been so, SO productive!! Through the holidays, the time off of school (which I'm now back into), and everything in between. Productive, productive, productive.

A few highlights of items checked off the to-do lists:

• Bridesmaid Dresses - check! Since we have such big bridal parties, I'm letting my lovely ladies pick their own style of dress. They'll all be from the same manufacturer, the same length, and the same color, but the style is all completely their own. I want my ladies not only to be comfortable in their dresses, but if they feel comfortable they will look even more fabulous than they already are. Plus, I love how everyone is going to look unique. Woo!
• Groomsmen Tuxes - check! We were able to get our account set up with Men's Wearhouse, and all of the men will be looking dapper in their tuxes. The guys have it so easy - they just get measured and it's done.
• MY Dress - check! Yep, you heard right. I have a dress. But that's all you're going to hear about it ;)
• Wedding website - check! I was finally able to take some time and update our wedding website with all of the event, travel, and accommodation information for our guests. Hopefully it's helpful for people, but I definitely enjoyed putting it together. Check it out at: www.allenandkaitlyn.com.
• Registry - check! Well, at least one part of it. We did a partial registry at Bed Bath & Beyond, but will also be hitting up Crate & Barrel in February and possibly Macy's if necessary. At first I wasn't sure how much Allen was going to enjoy registering, but once he got that scanner gun in his hand I think he felt a new sense of power. I think we both got a little scanner-happy at some points (everyone needs a wine refrigerator, right?) so we may be doing some editing once we get our other registries taken care of.
• Wedding bands - check! A super easy night out resulted in us walking out of the mall in under 45 minutes with our wedding bands. I think we both just went in with clear ideas of what we wanted, and it was just quick as can be. We have them at the house, and it's fun for me to just take a quick peak at them whenever :) So fun.
• Honeymoon flights - check! We were able to secure our vacation time for the year, and are now booked for our TWO WEEK honeymoon! We'll be flying into Barcelona, spending a few days there, then fly into Rome, spend a few days there, and then spend the second week touring around Italy. I don't remember ever taking a full two week vacation (at least not since I was much younger), so I am really excited for our adventure!
• Save the Dates - almost check! I've been working on our save the dates for a while now, and after many, many, many drafts, revisions, theme and color changes, format changes, etc. I think we finally got our favorite nailed down. I really, really love them. I'll be sure to post more up once they finally go out, but I'll be releasing the art to the printer this weekend and putting them together in the coming weeks. But MAN! If I was this indecisive and nit-picky over our save the dates, I can't even imagine how I'm going to be on our invites.

It's been really great and a huge relief getting a lot of these items taken care of. I'm so excited to keep getting things checked off!

Adventures in Embossing

I've decided to start being a little crafty in sprucing up the paper products for our wedding. I've been looking into a few different options, and one that actually seems do-able on my end would be to do my own embossing. I know a lot of people who have done this and it has gone very well! So I have started on my own little embossing adventure and the results were great!

By the way - there are two types of embossing I'm looking at. One is blind embossing, where the image is raised on the sheet of paper but no ink is used (like a notary stamp). The other is heated stamp embossing where you stamp an image in ink, and use embossing powder and a heat gun to get a raised image on the paper - that's the one shown below.

Step 1: The Materials
I went and bought a Martha Stewart starter embossing kit (it was roughly $20 at Michael's without coupons, but since I'm all about the coupons, that definitely helped out!). It included embossing powders, an ink pad, stamps, and a stamping block. I then bought the heat gun and had some leftover cardstock at home that I used to stamp on.

Step 2: Stamping and Powdering
After I had all my materials ready to go, I took one of the stamps, affixed it to the stamping block (for this kit, the stamp just clings to the stamping block, but I've read up on other kits where you have to tape or glue them on - the cling stamp is much cleaner to work with in my opinion). I stamped it in the ink pad, stamped that on my paper, and then covered the clear stamp image with a ton of embossing powder (shown here).

Step 3: Tapping and Heating
I then picked up my piece of cardstock and tapped off all of the excess powder, revealing the image that I stamped down (shown here). I took the excess powder that I stamped off and put it back in it's original container, since it can be used again. After this, I took my heat gun and positioned it over the stamped image until you could visibly see the image gloss over. Note: I had originally tried this once with a blowdryer instead of one of the heat guns you could buy at the store (since I'm cheap and thought I could do the shortcut). It doesn't work, I promise. I held the blowdryer over the image for a good five minutes and nothing happened (and maybe that was just my crappy blowdryer). As soon as I sucked it up and bought the heat gun, the image embossed almost instantly - it's totally worth the investment if you're going to do this.

The Final Product

(sorry for the crappy camera work)

What you can't see from the photo is that the flower is glossy and the gold part actually raises up from the paper. It's a really cool finish, so I think this is the route I might go! I think Allen was pretty impressed with my craftiness, but is also slightly concerned about what this will do to our house - and possibly our kitchen table. I promise I will find a better work space for when this rolls out for the real deal. :)

I highly recommend this because it's so freaking easy, and will help anyone out that needs it for their own wedding! The catch is you have to find a stamp (or stamps in my case) that you love and want to incorporate on all of your materials. Another option is to make your own stamp, but we're going to see how the stamp hunt goes first.

Save the Dates

So, I may have spoken too soon in my post last week that I'm lacking wedding "style." All of a sudden, out of no where, all kinds of wedding fabulousness is smacking me in the face. I'll continue to post a lot of it up here as part of my own categorization method, but I've decided to also keep a few details to myself so I can make sure there's still surprises for those who actually come to enjoy our day. :)

In the meantime, I wanted to share these adorable letterpress Save the Dates that were posted as part of Clover and Bee's "Inspired Midwest Bride" series. I just love how intricate the design is, while completely taking advantage of the one color letterpress print. The entire Save the Date package that they put together is adorable - a vintage feel, but still crisp and clean, along with the long portrait composition. The calendar at the bottom with the punched out dates is absolutely adorable too! Plus, I love me some letterpress so I can just never get enough. Enjoy!