Hey That’s A Nice Life

Last weekend my friends threw a wonderful bridal shower for me (more about that later).  Naturally, my Mom was here for the occasion and she spent the night.  She told me before she came that she wanted to work on a wedding project while she was here.  I decided that a good task for us to tackle would be the menu cards.

There was some prep work to be done before she arrived.  First I designed the page so that we’d get three menu cards out of one 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper.  We repeated the font from the invitation.  Next I printed a master sheet and copied it onto the lighter blue metallic paper used in the invitation suite.   Finally, Don cut each sheet of paper into three panels.

Sunday morning, Mom and I got to work.  I cut strips of the darker metallic paper and used this awesome little craft punch I found at Michael’s (part of the Martha Stewart line) to make sand dollars and starfish.  Mom glued the sand dollars to the top of the card and the starfish in alternating locations on the cards.  We finished in about two hours and they look great.

I must have inherited the crafting gene from my Mom.   Check out her awesome work:

It was fun to work with her on this project.  Too bad she’s three hours away; there are at least three more big DIY projects to complete in 30 days.  Yikes!

One more shot from the project (in this one you can see how the starfish are in different places on each card):

The invitations are nearly assembled and I love how they turned out. Sure I would have liked gorgeous letterpress invitations on creamy thick paper … but the price was too dear. My favorite part about these invitations is that my fabulous friends / wedding elves helped me make them over a few evenings, some wine, some beer and lots of chatter. My second favorite part is how much money we saved. Have I mentioned how nice it is to have an almost vendor-free wedding planning process?

Here’s what we did:

1. The invitation is crafted from two pieces of 80lb cardstock (cut in half so that one piece of paper made two invitations) tied together with raffia. The background is metallic lagoon and the text overlay is aquamarine metallic. Both pieces have just a bit of shimmer. The text was laser printed two per page onto a regular sheet of printer paper and then photocopied (!) onto the invitation. We used a paper cutter we already owned to cut the darker blue sheets in half and then trim a quarter inch all around and cut in half the lighter blue. Two small holes punched into each piece allowed us to thread a thin piece of natural-colored raffia through and make a simple bow. Just below the bow we glued a tiny starfish.
2. The response card was designed as a self mailing postcard. On the front is a color photocopy of a vintage postcard from Ocean City. We used Photoshop to change the text from “Greetings from” Ocean City to “A Wedding In” Ocean City. The vintage image was printed four per page on some leftover cardstock from some long-forgotten craft project. The back is the actual response portion. There are three events that require responses for our wedding and we decided to include all three events on the same response cards without issuing separate invitations for each event. We added “Number attending” to the Welcome Dinner and Bagel Brunch events because children are invited to attend those events, but not the actual wedding and reception. Again, I printed the response cards four per page on the darker blue cardstock. Everything was trimmed on the paper cutter.
3. The insert is a half sheet of the lighter blue cardstock printed and photocopied like the invitation and response card.
4. The envelope is the same aquamarine metallic. The paper and the envelopes were ordered from www.actionenvelope.com which has a lovely assortment of colors and decent prices.
5. I ordered an address embosser from www.expressionery.com to stamp the return address onto the envelope flap. It has not come yet – I selected the 10 day free shipping method and had a 40 percent off coupon. Wahoo!
6. I am going to make address labels that coordinate with the colors and design of the invitation for the outside of the envelope – we aren’t actually addressing for another 6 weeks, though (in case anyone moves, etc.).

As I mentioned, the cost of these DIY invitations is pretty hard to beat. We made 76 invitations for the following costs:

• Lagoon invitation paper - $15.96
• Aquamarine invitation paper - $11.36
• Lagoon response card - $7.96
• Aquamarine insert card - $11.36
• Envelopes - $15.92
• Starfish - $12

I already had the raffia and the plain white cardstock used for the vintage postcard image. That brings the total cost for the invitation to $74.50 – or about $.98 per invitation.

That’s right – less than $1 per piece for custom-designed, handmade invitations.

The labels will increase the cost a little (not significantly), and of course there is the postage that has to be accounted for ($.59 per invitation and $.27 per response card). We could save money by hand addressing all the invitations, but I love the idea of creating a label that works with the overall theme and design elements. Miss Sushi, one of the WeddingBee bloggers, made some that I just loved and I decided it would work well for us, too. I plan to use the address embosser for the Thank You cards and next year’s Christmas cards as well (provided we do not move I’ll emboss every item we send in the mail!) – so the $16 I spent on the embosser can be shared across multiple projects. I had to order the paper and envelopes in quantities of 50, but I have other projects that require the same paper, so it will not be wasted.

Here’s the working idea I have for label right now. I am going to keep playing around a little, but I like the way it’s looking so far.

As I mentioned back in October, I have a pretty extensive list of DIY projects for the wedding.

Among the most important of these projects is the invitations.

As you know, I’m trying to stay way ahead of schedule since I have very busy spring. Thankfully, several of my friends offered to help with some of the DIY projects. My awesome wedding elves started helping me assemble the wedding invitations last week and we’re moving much faster than I ever imagined. Last week, Don cut all the invitation pieces, Katy hole punched them, and I tied them together. This week, Jaimie started adhering the starfish while Katy and I started (and finished!) the response cards. I am very pleased with the results.

The response cards were printed four per page and trimmed to be the size of postcards. Onto the front of the postcard we adhered a reproduction of a vintage postcard from Ocean City. It originally said “Greetings from Ocean City,” but Jaimie had the great idea to change it to “A Wedding in Ocean City” and I think it turned out great! I even had to time to stamp them tonight (after triple checking the USPS Web site to make sure postcards rates are not increasing in 2009). The only thing left to do on the response cards is to write a very small number on each one so that I can figure out who sent it in the event someone forgets to write their name on the response (which, I understand, happens more frequently than you might imagine).

Now I just have to print out and trim the information card (hotel and travel information, etc.), finish adhering the starfish and stuff the invitations. Oh, and address them.

Don’t worry little wedding elves, there are a lot more DIY projects ahead. We have to make the program fans, and the favors, the escort cards and the menu cards. Plus, I’m sure I’ll come up with a few more projects for us in the next 130 days!

Today my friend Erin and I took the afternoon off from work, had a leisurely lunch at the cafe at Nordstrom and then hit the Bobbi Brown counter where we had appointments for makeup application.

Skip this post if you don’t care a thing about makeup, because I’m going into some detail here. Do not skip this post if your name is Sofia.

I was curious about the long wearing cream eye shadows that Bobbi offers because my friend Kristen had just purchased some. The day I saw her, Kristen had taken a shower and her eye makeup still looked amazing.

Here’s the overall look the consultant put together for me. I’m not sure it’s what I expected, but it was pretty nice.

As you can see, it’s not too heavy (that’s kind of the signature of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics - natural, but taken up a notch or two).I was expecting an even more neutral eye pallet, though. The consultant instead used “sand dollar” (silver) eye shadow with “brown rock” in the crease (there’s also an all over shadow in “white” across the entire eyelid). The gel liner is called “espresso”. It does make my eyes look even bluer, I have to admit. You can see the shadow better in this picture. I didn’t buy anything because I want to see how it wears after a few hours and I want to see what Don thinks (since it would be very bad if on our wedding day Don doesn’t think I look like myself). I also think the eye liner might be a little dark ..,. her alternate suggestion was a lighter brown called chocolate shimmer.

In the event that you care about makeup stuff, I’m also wearing:

• Eye corrector and concealer (”bisque” and “sand”) to remove the darkness under my eye
• Foundation (”warm sand” in a stick tube)
• Bronzer (”light”)
• Mascara (”black” no smudge)]
• Blush (”pale pink”)
• Lipstick and liner (”pink mauve”)
• Lip Gloss (”rosy”)

Finally, here is a picture taken Saturday night where I’m looking down in a similar way to the picture above. This was not a long-wearing application, and I didn’t have any primer on so most of the shadow slipped right off my lid, but this is what I normally look like with eye makeup.

The colors here are a coppery brown, a light silvery blue near the brow, and deeper blue (denim) in the crease. Maybe it’s too muddy? Don doesn’t mind it so much when it’s freshly applied, but as the day wears on he finds it a little “raccoon-y”. So don’t suggest a smokey eye as I don’t think he’d find that nice on me at all.

Any opinions? I’m not a makeup girl … so, really, help me out here.
Oh - my dress is ivory and I will probably wear pearls if that make a difference at all (the consultant today did ask).

As I mentioned when I went through the first trial run of my wedding bouquet, I think I’d rather have a single type flower represented. We have people coming for dinner tomorrow night, so I wanted some flowers. I figured it was a good chance to try out a new bouquet style.

We were at Giant picking up some groceries and I popped a bouquet of cream colored spray roses in the cart. One bouquet - six stems. Total cost $4.

I followed the same procedure as the first dry run, including using clear packing tape and straight pins. This time I wrapped the bouquet in the ivory ribbon that matches my dress and added my something blue to the arrangement - a brooch with an aquamarine that belonged to my grandmother (her birthstone).

I really like the results.

Here’s a close up of the brooch.
It’s so simple and pretty - exactly what I wanted. And, again $4! Seriously, $4.

*happy dance*

This week I got a couple of great ideas from Martha and Brides.com. To get to our ceremony site, guests will have to cross a beach dune. I saw photos from a wedding where the dune fence was lined with torches. It will be light out when our guests arrive, but it’s a nice touch. Also - enter the cheapskate bride - it should be easy to score a bunch at the end of summer for a major discount.

I’ve been debating about whether or not to have a candy bar / buffet. It’s a nice touch and we have yet to attend wedding with one, but is it weird to mix my professional life into my wedding? If we do, I’d really like to focus on our wedding colors - blues, white, silver … but that should give us plenty of choices. Don says that unless we get all the candy gratis, we won’t have it … but I think he’s bluffing.

Weddings blogs are a dime a dozen these days. Mine is probably not going to be much different than most you read except that, you know, it’s about me. And Don. And Don and me.

And maybe you know us, so you think it’s mildly interesting.

First things first. We’re getting married. The tentative date is May 2, 2009 in Ocean City, Md. (my hometown). I say tentative because while we have a hold on a venue, we have yet to get a solid answer about ANYTHING from the caterer and so I’m still afraid it’s all going to go to hell.

I’m kinda a DIY bride, and also we’re kinda cheap. Not in the “if you come to our wedding the food will be lousy and you’ll have a terrible time” kinda way, but more in the “hey, I could do that this other way and save a lot of money” kinda way. We’ve selected a very rustic and bare bones venue and we’re doing a lot of stuff ourselves. In the coming months I may come to you to ask for help choosing music, or making invitations, or hanging up paper lanterns - so be prepared.

Considering that the wedding is 280-some days away, I have made a lot of decisions about color and themes and so forth … and if you’re interested, you can read all about it right here.

To start, I created my first style board. Yeah, I didn’t know what they were either. BUT apparently all the cool brides make them. *snort* When you find images that appeal to you for your wedding, you place them on style boards. I guess they help your vendors create exactly what you want … but since I’m replacing most of my vendors, I guess they will just help me stay focused.

Images here include: paper lanterns in our wedding colors for the ceiling on the reception venue, sea-themed cake and cake toppers, crab cakes (one of my very few must haves!), the idea that inspired my table decor idea, the sunset over the bay in Ocean City (the indoor / outdoor reception venue shares this view), very simple flowers, starfish wine cork, the top of the first dress I saw that I fell in love with.