beware birds bearing messages

Now that our little postcards are safely away crossing air and land and water to reach their ultimate destinations, I think I can reveal a little of their making.

Step One:
Go to Boy's mom's place. Make small talk. Have dinner and then when you've finally stuffed yourself silly with salmon, stemmed veggies, calamari, and all sorts of soups and breads, pounce on the moment before complete after dinner stupor to ask her to please take a picture of you and the Boy for some snazzy Save the Date cards.

Step Two:
Once you get her to agree to a rather inarticulately explained idea (for shame, all those long hours of toiling away for an MA in Literature and all she gets is gestures, diagrams and a "Just trust me, I see it in my head"), and you finally drag the Boy in on the fun, then have your brain become suddenly blank.

The boy will turn and look at you and ask, "Well, what do you want to do?"

You will respond coolly, "I dunno. Something funny and dorky, you know, like us."

"Um, like what?"

"You know. Silly."

"OK, I don't know what you want. I can't see inside your head." Turns back to the basketball game on the tele.

grumble grumble. sigh. "OK, let's just take some pictures of us standing and holding these signs I already printed out.

Step Three:
Take a multitude of awkward pictures. Thank the Boy's mom for being a good sport. Now wait weeks to print the pictures out. Got that?

Step Four:
Finally decide it's probably cutting it a little close that the wedding is less than six months away and the save the Dates card really should've been made and sent out (especially for those guests overseas) and then drag one giggly bridesmaid to your local Walmart wherein you proceed to jam up one of their photo kiosks in your pathetic attempt to print out 100 copies of 4 2x3 pictures. Get frustrated and leave and then blog about this frustrating experience.

Step Five:
Wrangle the Boy to going back to said Walmart but this time printing out a few copies and then copying the entire photo and printing it that way (ha ha! I did manage to beat the system and left relatively not annoyed).

Step Six:
Finally put together the postcards using 1) the dorky pictures, 2) some old watercolor paper so generously donated by giggly bridesmaid (I just adored the weight and texture of the paper), 3) one Xyron Sticker Maker, 4) one paper cutter and some odds and ends including stamps and pens.

Here are the dorky picture I spoke of.


Take the picture and run it through the machine. You just turn the little knob on the side and it will cranks the picture through the machine. Just be careful in the timing you put the next picture in so they don't overlap and you don't get sticky coating on part of it.

The picture comes out the other side on the sticker paper. Peel the picture off the paper...

and then put it on whatever paper you want to use (in my case, it's the watercolor paper). I made sure to leave some room on the edges so that when I cut them out I'd have a border around them.

After you get all the photos onto the paper, you'll have sheets and sheets waiting to be put out.

Cut the postcards out using a paper cutter (or a steady hand and a pair of scissors on lines drawn using a ruler works just as well).

Once done, you've got a nice stack of postcards.

I attempted to run the paper through our printer but it was too thick. So racking my brain for other ideas, I decided to punish myself by handwriting all the postcards. I took stamps I had purchased when we first got engaged and I was on this kick that the wedding will be bird-themed (still is though the ideas have been diluted somewhat since the first rush of infatuation or pragmatic sensibility). I stamped he little birdie on the top left-hand side and the vine and birds down the middle of the card to divide the text and the addressee sides. I had wanted to get one of those nifty vintage postcard stamps but time being short and me being impatient I went with the vine and I think it turned out rather well. Then I hand wrote the little note coming out of the bird's beak ("Save the Date!") and the message ("Boy and Girl are getting hitched! (Details to follow)) and when my hand wasn't complaining anymore, I wrote all the addresses of our dearest friends and family and then we sent them out.

(all pictures are by me)

With a sign of relief, I say: Huzzah, they are done!

Next step: invitations, programs and escort cards. Thank goodness I've already a good head start on most of these.