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.

papier collé

A little quiet but can you blame a girl? Life has been a little busy (though things have begun to die down only in preparation for the holidays), almost too busy to really plan anything about the wedding. In all honesty, I am torn about designing it because it almost seems like I keep changing my kind every two seconds (and really, why can't a bride do this?) Only, it makes talking it out with other people difficult because I jump from style to style in an attempt to discover the all allusive "OUR Style." Grrrr, frustrating. But here it is, trying to blend the romantic half of myself with the fun and playful (dare I say it, whimsical?) part of our relationship with the more traditional leanings of the Boy. I love color (which has made it hard to narrow down "colors" because I love all sorts of combinations), he likes things with cleaner lines. Marrying the two isn't hard; finding something that screams us while maintaining our individual personalities proves a little more challenging. Which doesn't help my tendency to procrastinate. In an attempt to avoid the last minute melt downs that I know would come if I didn't plan ahead, I attempted more research.

I was browsing the blogs when lo and behold, I fell in love with these adorable invitations and save the date cards made by Celine, a lovely bride sharing her gorgeous wedding on Once Wed. Aren't they cute? I love the whole fun use of color and illustrations throughout the paper goods.

I love these adorable Save the Date cards. They're fun and give the guest a hint of the going theme of the wedding. I think they're cute but for us, I was thinking of something else for our Save the Date cards....

This is the cover of their invitation. It makes me want to dust off my old drawing pencils and sketch a little cartoon of me and the Boy (it would actually be fitting as I once made the Boy a comic book--with him as the super hero--way back in high school).

I love the singing little birdie on the left. I showed it to the Boy and he really liked it as we had planned on a bird theme for the wedding (not like nests and eggs but a subtle sprinkling of little birdies, bird cages, and maybe little birdie foot prints). Still working on how we'd like to word the invitation though.

Thought this was the most hilarious RSVP card ever! We have to definitely steal this idea; it's so us and out quirky sense of humor.

Long before this set of invitations, I had wanted to somehow include a map for our out of town guests (and a few in towners who had never been to our wedding site). This could be an inspiration for one way to style it.

I love the idea that Celine and Jin incorporated their guests. They had planned to go to Spain on their honeymoon so they sent along this cute stationary and had guests write down tips or places to visit in Spain. I think these would make really great thank you notes after the honeymoon.
And here is the happy couple:

Thanks to Celine and Jin, I think I may have found a little more direction with wedding plans. If you are one of the fortunate people coming to our little wedding, please don't judge me too much if you see more than one element lifted from this stylish lady's wedding--like the Boy, I think I knew it was the one when I saw it.