You're Invited (Part 3)

Once you open my invite, this is what you'll see:

The Invite is the part I won from the contest on weddingbee from HelloLucky! The design is Shangri-La one of the new Joel Dewberry designs that I waited for what seemed like forever to come out. I had them change the colors and I think they came out fabulous. HelloLucky was great to work with and I would suggest to anyone who's looking for some fabulous invites. The quality was fantastic. This is where the butterfly theme started emerging.

I made the inserts in the pocket fold on my own. Here is a closer look:


The rsvp card on the right was also won from HelloLucky!


Anyone else make more work for themselves by using pocketfolds?

You're Invited (Part Two)

I'm going to reveal my invites. I'm pretty sure everyone has gotten them, and I've gotten such good feedback from those who have received them which makes me feel like all the obsessing was worth it.

Remember a few posts ago when I said I printed my envelopes and just didn't care anymore? Well, my grandmother thought I had written them all out in calligraphy, so I guess they did what they were supposed to. Fooled everyone, and it's my little secret that they were printed and not had written.

Since You've already seen the envelopes a few times, I'm going to start by showing you what everyone saw when they opened those up.

Here is my pretty Turquoise pocketfold :

the front


The back


I had a craft weekend back over the winter when the man went Wild Boar hunting with his friends. I created the little tag with our names on my Gocco. I used some scraps of Pearlescent white cardstock left over from our Save the Dates that I had cut down (I saved the scraps for this very reason) After Goccoing the design, (which was a little harer than I thought would be to line up) and after letting it dry, I used a pair of tweezers to pick up those little 5mm swarovski flatbacks (left over from my cake topper project) to glue them on.

I wrapped some pink ribbon around the outside to hold it shut (I used a little double sided tape right under the little card with out names) to hold the ribbon on and then I used a glue dot to hold the little 1" name piece on.

I love how my invites turned out.

Up next, the inside contents....


Have you obsessed over a project only to discover it was totally worth it in the end?

Cross your fingers!

My First dress fitting is today. Here's to hoping my dress still fits me. Cross your fingers for me girls, I'm really nervous that it's not gonna fit nicely. When it came in in Feb. it fit but was tighter than I had expected, I figured it would be perfect if I could lose 10 lbs. And then I quit smoking and gained 10lbs, not exactly the direction I wanted to go in. I've re-lost about 5 of those pounds (I've been working really hard but they just don't seem to budge!) So I'm still 5 lbs up from when I got it in Feb and it was pretty tight then.

I'm a two timer

and I think I like it.

No, I'm not crossing or cheating on anyone, but rather I do craft projects twice. I can't seem to love the projects I create on the first go around, but on the second try it's a different story.

I few weeks ago I took a guestbook I had gotten at Wal-Mart on the super cheap that looked like this

and I thought it was too plain so I turned it into this

and I wasn't completely happy with how the letters didn't match the ribbon perfectly but I was trying not to care. Last week I was in AC Moore and found the perfect HOT PINK glitter letters on sale for half off, so I thought I'd give it a try with those and this is the final product:

I LOVE how it came out. I think it's a lot better.


I peeled off the letters I had glued on with rubber Cement (totally didn't create the bond I was thinking it would, but I guess I'm glad) and Knew I needed to put something over the spot those letters were glued to (there was a letter outline in glue there) so I attached the Pink letters (the backs of them were sticky). Once I decided that I really liked them I re-enforced with some hot glue in spots where I needed it. Super easy and quick.

There is also the flip flops I did several time, the rehearsal dinner invites which I did twice before I got them right, the pomeanders I'm redoing because of the great flower drama (sigh- totally wouldn't have redone this one unless I had to). So you see, DIY is all about trial and error and then retrial. It eventually leads to success though and I do think it's totally worth it.

Have you rethought or redone any of your craft projects?

PS> I lost my battery charger for my new camera and the battery died, I've been taking all my pics on my old camera and although it's only a 4 megapixle and my new one is an 8, I think I like my how the pictures look from my old one better!

You're Invited (part one)

I have been getting a lot of compliments today from people who have received the invites in the mail. Yay. I'm not sure if everyone has gotten theirs yet, and I'm sure they haven't since it's only 2 days after I mailed them, but I so want to share...............................

so here is a sneak peak of the invite when it was in rough form. This is not the final project, but a sneak preview of part of it. Hope you all enjoy, the best is yet to come.

To Bling or not to Bling, that is the question.

These are so amazingly cute. And if I was a rich bride, I wouldn't think twice about buying them for my amazing bridesmaids, but since I'm not a rich bride, and I have six (6) bridesmaids, these cute havianna flops with swarovski's that sell for $56/pair are out. Way out.
Drool. What a great bridesmaid gift this would be. I sure know I would dig it.

Would I, could I, make them myself? For an Insane moment I seriously considered it. I had some swarovski flatback crystals hanging around leftover from my cake topper project when I decided smaller was better. ... hmmm.

I grabbed a pair of flops to try it out and realized:
1. Adorning flip flops with swarovski= super time consuming, time in which I do not have to do 6 pairs.

2. the rubber cemement I thought would work wonderfully, sadly, did not (I bought to craft rubber cement, totally different than the real rubber cement. The craft one sucks and the crystals were wiping off).

3. It was not turning out as pretty as these ( I think larger swarovski's were needed).

4. I was not buying more swarovski's.

Like I said before, these were out, but something else was in. A better idea, a cheaper idea, a way less time consuming idea....

Have you started a project only to flip flop halfway through and go a totally different way in the end?

Some girls have all the luck

My invites are out so I feel comfortable enough to share my little secret with you.

I was ALWAYS planning on making our invites. After all, I had dreams of making them with a Gocco and even went as far as purchasing a gocco for the invites off ebay. In early December, when I had some extra money and I saw some paper items on sale that I wanted, so I went ahead and I purchased all my paper supplies to make the invites. I bought all my paper from paperandmore and I will purchase from them again because I think they have great product.

I ended up purchasing some pearlescent white cardstock already cut into 5x7 pieces at 11.00/per pack of 100 (it was normally 16.00/pack) and I got some pearlescent turquoise pocketfolds(on sale for $40/pack from $50). I also got the matching pearlescent turquoise envelopes, and the 4bar envelopes for the RSVP card in the pearlescent Azela (so pretty). I was ready to get going on my invites, but I hadn't quite decided on a design.

I knew I would purchase a design from istockphoto to adorn the invites, but I was so overwhelmed with all the choices and I was in my "I can't make a decision" phase. In december I hadn't quite developed our butterfly theme either, that came later, much later. So there I was with paper, but no design. And since I didn't have a design and I had a lot of time, I was putting off making of the invites.

and here is where my little secret comes in.

don't hate.

One day while I was perusing weddingbee while I should have been working, I came across this contest hosted by weddingbee for a bride to win 50 digitally printed invitations and RSVP's from HelloLucky!'s new digitally printed line, all you had to do was go to hellolucky!'s site and droool over their beautiful invites while secretly plotting how to get some invites from them and then leave a comment on weddingbee on which design you liked the best. And since I always enter contests and never win, I went to hellolucky!'s site fell in love with all of their pretty pretty invites (they do letterpress too). The invites were definately out of my budget, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to enter the contest because winning stuff is cool.

A few days later I got an email from "Bee Kim" saying that I had won the contest. I almost s**t my pants. Serisouly, I don't win stuff, ever.

How did I choose 1 design from their fabulous fabulous line? I'm not sure, but after browsing thier designs and then stalking their blog, I saw they were comming out with some new designs and they gave a preview of a few in their blog. I found the "one" on their blog in thier new line that hadn't come out yet. I patiently waited for the new line to arrive. Okay, who am I kidding, I didn't wait patiently at all. I think I emailed them to find out when those would be available. Since I still had a little time and they could print them in 5 days, I wasn't completely worried. However, their new designs took a little longer to arrive on their website than anticipated. But I have to say, what I got was well worth the wait.

I decided since I couldn't afford more invites (since I had already bought a gocco and all my invite paper) I would make the remaining ones. I was supposed to recieve 50 of the digitally printed invites (which are so so pretty and totally worth getting if you are looking at purchasing invites), but they ended up sending me 62 (yay for extras) and 65 of the rsvp's and since I only needed 8 more, I made the rest.

I hate to keep you in suspense but I can't show you just yet. Once I know the guest have recieved, I'll gladly share with you my labor of love (although not as labor intesive as it would have been).