I dragged Ryan to Michaels tonight to use my coupon, and I am now the proud owner of this:

image from Paper Source

You can not imagine my excitement!  I made another invitation mock-up just to show Ryan how it worked.  I think he is hiding in fear of the crafts that are taking over the apartment...

In other random news, I ripped a very inappropriate hole in my fat jeans tonight.  It appears that fate is kindly suggesting I hit the gym and lay off the pizza only diet.  I'll be sure to let everyone know how that goes, lol.

Thoughts on creative ways to use the Xyron before I start making my invitations?

Invitation Design Update

The other day I realized I haven't been by the apartment office to check for packages in awhile... and there were THREE waiting for me!  Most exciting was my Epson RX595 (which I purchased at the suggestion of Paper Source via WeddingBee).

As I have been waiting to do a million things until I got this new baby, I spent an afternoon working on my invitation layout instead of doing my homework:

ignore the blank spots, pretty please

I keep thinking it looks a little bland, but I also really like it.  And while I sat pondering what to do to make it less bland during dinner, Ryan reminded me, "About five people will judge what it looks like.  Those five people don't matter.  No one else will care."

I love it!  He admits that some people will judge it, but that it doesn't matter.  It's simple, easy, and I think it works just fine.  Is it bad if seven months out I am already resorting to "just fine"?  Give me your input!!

Invitation Planning: Continued

So of course I had to keep working on it, and luckily I found inspiration for how I want to put it all together.  (Makes me think it might be too busy with the name on there too.)  But you get the drift of what I am imagining, correct?

Image found here (PS: I love this girl)

In the meantime, I am starting to think that black backing with the opal stardream on the front might be prettier, and perhaps more striking?  I don't know, it might be too much black when it's all put together.  But I think it looks good here.  (Use that imagination and picture it without the white behind the scrollies and also without all the info blocked out, of course.)

You likee?

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Program...

... with this important message:

Ha!  Y'all thought I was going to finish my story!  But sorry, this takes precedence.  Clearly I have been staying up at night working on my invitation design, seeing as how my paper and book arrived yesterday afternoon!

It is sooo formal, and way more serious than I thought it would end up being.  And girly.  I really think it's girly.  (EEK!)  But... I kind of love it!  I know it's simple and basic and all that- but anyone who knows me knows I love simple and basic.

(sorry about the erased bits)

Imagine Stardream Opal backing with Soft White Paper Source paper as the front piece.  And the second image is my maybe belly band there to hold the other pieces in once it's all put together (ie: info card, rsvp card).  I thought maybe instead of an inner envelope, I could have black satin ribbon with a little name card holding it all together.  And for my little sample there, Mom is sending one to herself!  (Awwww!)  Or we could also try it without the name:

Thoughts?  Please let me know what you think... But make sure you say it as super nicely as possible!  I love really really nice (and flattering) constructive feedback.  Thank you!

We will resume shortly with your regularly scheduled programming.

Invitation Planning

So making the invitations is one of the parts of wedding planning I am looking forward to the most.  Many who have gone the DIY route with invitations have warned that it is more stressful and time consuming than they expected, so I decided to spend the summer making the invites, even though they will not be mailed until the beginning of November.  To get a head start, I have been working on a basic outline for a couple months.  No matter what I did though, it felt too boring.  (Sorry, I am not posting anything until I have something I am more excited about!)  Then I decided to go ahead and purchase this:

via amazon.com

Recommended by my old roommate as a good source of clip art to spice up the design, I thought I would at least give it a try.

Then I decided that I better at least have an idea of the colors and layout of the paper before I can finalize the printing, so I went ahead and ordered samples of some Stardream paper to check colors and weight for printing.  I decided to check out:

Quartz

Opal

Bronze

[Images are from www.paperworks.com but samples were ordered from handmade-paper.us (because they were $0.75 per sample!).]

Last, I decided to order some supplies from Paper Source... Because let's be honest, they have my heart.  (Dear Paper Source, Please open a store in Atlanta!)  Plus, I got the idea for my design from some of their DIY suggestions, so it seemed only fitting.  I decided to get some flat paper and some eco-white cover weight paper:

flocked gold with beige vines

eco-white cover

(the screen shot accidentally included the label, whoops!)

So once all of this gets to me, and I actually decide on what I am doing, I will post some more clues here!  Stay tuned!