Wedding Invitations in Style

I know, you can't believe it, two posts in two days! I'm pretty unmotivated to create today, so I spent this morning running errands. I took the long way to the post office to get in a walk (there was no way I was going to make my Zumba class at 9:30 given my allergies and general exhaustion this week; Pilates on Wednesday was quite enough for me, thank you very much).

After I mailed my packages, I walked a bit down Chestnut Street because I remembered seeing a consignment shop there that I've been meaning to check out when I didn't have my children in tow. It was great! Lots of nice things, little bit high on the prices, but good quality items and presented nicely. Almost felt like I was shopping in a regular store! Definitely a few steps above our local Salvation Army--I always feel like I need a shower after being in there. I found a corduroy jacket that fit great, but was a bit more than I wanted to spend, and a very cute pair of leather heels, but passed on both in favor of two great skirts on the clearance rack. I have two small children, and hopefully more to come, so I need to be realistic about what I really wear every day. In any case, it was good to get out of the house, and walk around in the crisp cold air--winter is my favorite season!

I'm posting because of a few requests to see the wedding invitations. I bought a tutorial on how to make it from another demonstrator a while back and modified it for the bride, who wanted the invitation to be in two languages, English and Russian. I like the color combination a lot--she wanted a blue to match her engagement ring, which is a light blue stone, very close to Baja Breeze. A perfect match! The bride also wanted a pop of red, so we decided Cherry Cobbler would the be perfect complement to Baja Breeze. I will say that I've got Elements of Style out of my system for a while now. I think that set will go to the bottom of the pile for a bit. Nothing like making 150 wedding invitations and 80 thank you notes with the same stamp set to give you style fatigue. Oh wait, I still have to make her programs, but I have some time before I need to get working on those!

These are the coordinating thank you notes--I used a template that I've been enamoured of for a while--I like the tone-on-tone style, and the little pops of color are great, in my humble opinion. Plus these notes are elegant and useful for a variety of occasions, so if she has some left over, she can use them for other things.

Hello from the hinterland

I know, a post from me, shocking! I'm not getting much stamping done these days (surprise, surprise), but I have been working on a few things. I finally got the digital camera situation sorted, and now I'm able to take non-film photos to post. (Just for the record, I got a Canon A1100 IS in silver, and I {heart} it!!) I hope to post a few more projects this coming week.

My share for today is a wedding invitation sample with matching thank you. An etsy customer requested one of my Evelyn pocketfolds; hopefully she likes it well enough to order the invitation set from me! That would make my summer, let me tell you. Her colors are Red Riding Hood, More Mustard and Very Vanilla, which are pretty striking together. I redesigned the folder a bit so that it can be made from an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of cardstock rather than 12x12, which is slightly more economical, plus I think this particular version is a little less labor intensive, which is a bonus for me, since everything you see has to be hand-cut, -scored, and -assembled.


I have to say, I really like how the thank you came out. I had purchased some dsp on the clearance rack this month (I know, I know, I said I wasn't buying any new dsp until I made a dent in the stuff I had, but I just couldn't resist--there were several packs in colors I use All.The.Time., plus on the clearance rack, the packs are half price! Can't beat that.) and the colors and pattern were perfect for the design. Like the paper? It is still available on the clearance rack--just click the sidebar for my store (the Cherish Card) and go to the clearance rack to feed your own paper addiction!

Looks familiar, right? Yep, it is a color change up of this card, which you may remember from earlier this spring.

Supplies:
Red Riding Hood, More Mustard, Very Vanilla cs, Juntos dsp (clearance rack)
Baroque Motifs, Sincere Salutations stamp sets
Red Riding Hood, More Mustard ink
Red Riding Hood taffeta ribbon
Open Scallop edge punch
Very Vanilla satin ribbon

Together Forever and The Stamp Doc

I found Melissa Stout's blog by accident a while back and immediately put her in my google reader. She has great ideas! I especially loved this one, which used the Together Forever stamp set, which I bought for a customer project, but haven't used much otherwise. I changed the colors to suit what I had supply-wise, and used heat embossing instead of dry, but I like the end result! Melissa's card used very vanilla and soft suede and the very vanilla was dry embossed using the Big Shot.


This photo shows the heat embossing a little better.

Supplies:
Red Riding Hood, Very Vanilla cs
Together Forever Stamp set
Versamark, Red Riding Hood Ink
Red Riding Hood taffeta ribbon
heat gun, clear emboss powder

Wedding Thank Yous

As I mentioned yesterday, the bride also requested some special thank you notes, so here is the result. I again took inspiration from Kristin, whose bridal shower thank yous were so pretty! I had to tweak the layout a bit to get it to work with what I had.

One thing I always forget to do when I'm making cards, but really finishes something off, is to stamp the inside (for darker cards, it's nice to put a mat in for writing). Renae Wilson, another SU demonstrator whose blog I follow, always does that on her cards, and they look so finished! I decided at the last minute to add it to the thank yous on the inside--I had to wrack my brains to figure out which stamp would work best in that corner. I was tempted by the circle stamp on Boho Backgrounds, since I used another stamp from that set for the front, but I was afraid it wouldn't go. So I ended up using the medallion from Baroque Motifs, which I figured worked well with everything else I've made her.

Supplies:
Chocolate Chip, More Mustard, Very Vanilla CS
More Mustard, Chocolate Chip Ink
Baroque Motifs, Boho Backgrounds, plus a retired SU set for the "Thank You" sentiment that I don't remember the name of that I borrowed from my upline, Tara.
Gold organdy ribbon (non-SU)
Hodgepodge hardware designer labels (very vanilla finish)
Paper piercing tool (for setting the brads)
Dimensionals (to stabilize the Hodgepodge hardware)
Designer label punch, Modern label punch, corner rounder punch, ticket corner punch

Wedding Programs

The woman for whom I made wedding invitations earlier this summer also asked me to make her programs and some special thank you cards for family members. I'll post the thank yous tomorrow, but here are the finished programs. The inside cover at the back says "Together Forever" and the flourish is stamped again on the back outside cover. For some reason my camera has major issues photographing clearly when something is stamped tone-on-tone. If anyone has any tips to correct this, I'm all ears!

I was inspired for the inside design by one of my fellow Philly Inkers, Kristin Fuller Kortonick, who designed her own wedding programs so beautifully. You can see her design here. I took a bit of inspiration from her for the front as well, but the final design was a combination of a whole bunch of things I saw while looking for ideas. I loved Kristin's idea of having a little pocket with a tissue and "Just in Case" labeled on the pocket, and so borrowed her idea (with some modification--Kristin heat-embossed a frame behind the label and then popped up the label on dimensionals--way too much work for me!)

Supplies:
Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, More Mustard Cardstock
Ivory cover stock for inside pages (non-SU)
Chocolate Chip, More Mustard ink
Baroque Motifs, Together Forever stamps
Gold organdy ribbon (non-SU)
Wide and large oval punches

Wedding Invitation Samples

Just a quick post today--some wedding invitation samples I made recently.

Supplies:
Bravo Burgundy, Ballet Blue, Pink Pirouette, Baja Breeze Cs
Chocolate Chip, Basic Gray, Pumpkin Pie, Pink Pirouette and Baja Breeze ink
Thoughts and Prayers, Baroque Motifs, Boho Backgrounds stamps

Fifth Avenue Floral Pocket Card

My mom had made a version of this card at her stamp club using Baroque Motifs and Soft Suede with Dusty Durango. Lacking both the set (it was at my house) and those colors of ink, I decided to make do with what she had, so I used Fifth Avenue Floral (on its virgin inking) and Perfect and Pale Plum, which I think turned out lovely! I think this card would make a super cool wedding invitation too. I should say forgive me for the lackluster photo quality--I was having one of those days where I just couldn't take a decent photo to save my life!

Original card design by Rebecca Harvey.

Supplies:
Cardstock: Perfect Plum, Pale Plum, Very Vanilla
Ink: Bashful blue, Pink Pirouette, Versamark
Stamps: Itty Bitty Buds, Fifth Avenue Floral
Ribbon: Non-SU wired pale plum organdy ribbon

Blog candy anyone?

The woman that I made all those wedding invitations for in late June/early July also wants me to make her wedding programs and a few special thank you cards. So I made a couple of sample fronts for the programs and sent the pics off to her so she could pick the one she liked the best.

I have a personal favorite; I'd like to hear from you! So leave a comment and pick the one you like the best by number and I'll choose a winner on Saturday August 9 using random.org. The winner will receive a special gift hand-made by me!

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

Supplies:
12x12 chocolate chip cardstock (cut to 6x12 and folded in half)
more mustard, very vanilla cardstock
gold organza ribbon
baroque motifs stamp set
chocolate chip ink

Wedding Card for Suzanne

And the last of the posts related to my cousin's wedding (at least I think so!). I decided to make her card using the double happiness stamp before I mailed it back to her (it and the bright red ink pad were hers) and do an emboss resist card. Plus it gave me a chance to try my hand at the Crop-A-Dile (new in my box last week!) and set some eyelets. I'm so into embellishments right now as I'm starting to acquire a few! (Gotta love those hostess benefits--contact me if you want to learn how to earn them!)

Paper: Creamy Caramel, Pumpkin Pie, Red Riding Hood, More Mustard, Ivory linen cardstock (non-SU)
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie, More Mustard, Kiwi Kiss, Red Riding Hood, red Martha Stewart craft ink (courtesy of Suzanne)
Stamps: Double Happiness stamp from Paper Source, Baroque Motifs (inside card: Together Forever (mr. & mrs. stamps) and Hugs and Wishes (congratulations) back of card: Together forever flower stamp)
Technique: Emboss Resist
Accessories: Copper eyelets, Crop-A-Dile, sponges, clear emboss powder, heat gun, white gel pen

(I stamped the sentiment inside and on the back in pumpkin pie--it looks nice on creamy caramel!)

Suzanne's Wedding Programs

After a bit of angst about whether my cousin would be happy with her programs in the new and "improved" format, my worries were unfounded. She was extremely happy with them! So here they are, all a bit different. Most of them are in the style with one skinny strip on the edge, but then there about 25-30 or so of the ones with 3 boxes at the bottom and just one of the diamonds at the bottom (it's the special one of the bunch!) They are double sided, with the song lyrics and wedding party on the back side in the same copperplate gothic font as the front.

Again, made using photo scraps from her wedding invitation photo, posted yesterday.

Wedding Programs & Thank Yous

My cousin Suzanne is getting married on August 1 in Minneapolis and I had offered to make her invitations, programs and thank yous. She ended up making the invitations herself (she is extremely talented and creative!) but decided that was enough work on that and asked me to do the programs and thank yous. Of course, I said yes. She had a very specific idea in mind for both and even included samples and pre-cut paper! Her invitation had featured a photo of a Chinese cloth with beads, coins and orchids strewn across it in a very artistic way, and she wanted the same photo cut up into pieces to use on the programs and thank yous. All I had to do was cut photos, stamp and assemble!

These are the thank you notes--she wanted the Chinese character for double happiness on them somewhere, so most of them have it stamped on the back, but a few have it on the front. It was kind of a theme stamp for her wedding stationary. All the thank yous are a bit different--there were two basic designs, and then a little riffing on them with what I had left over so she could have some extras.

Custom Bound Wedding Guest Book

Another custom item I finished earlier this week was a custom wedding guest book with Japanese ribbon binding. It was fun to do some book binding for a stamping break. The gal had this gorgeous deep red Uruyu paper and wanted brown and ivory to be the accents, so that's what I did! I'm really happy with how it turned out (not the least because the amount of very vanilla ribbon I had lying around was exactly the amount that I needed for the book.

Materials: Brown Italian book cloth, Red Uruyu paper from Paper Source, Very Vanilla grosgrain ribbon, chipboard
Glue: Sobo and Methyl Cellulose
Textblock: Cream-colored cardstock (non-SU)

RSVP cards, different colors

Here are the other samples I made, all the same idea, but different color combinations for variety. I'm starting to get the hang of Baroque Motifs, I think!

Paper: (1) More Mustard, Very Vanilla; (2) Not Quite Navy, Very Vanilla; (3) Red Riding Hood, Very Vanilla
Ink: (1 & 2) More Mustard; (3) Red Riding Hood
Stamps: Baroque Motifs

Wedding invite approved!

I got the final sample done for those wedding invitations and sent the pics off to the bride last night; thank goodness, she LOVED them! Now I just need my UPS man to deliver the rest of the materials so I can get to work assembling them all!

Here's a taste:


With custom monogram on the front


The inside with three inserts


RSVP card

Paper: Chocolate Chip, More Mustard, Very Vanilla
Ink: More Mustard, Chocolate Chip
Stamps: Baroque Motifs, Together Forever, plus custom designed monogram (non-SU)
Accessories: Glue Dots, 1 3/8" circle punch, lots and lots of Snail adhesive

Weddings in June

In pursuit of building my etsy store business, I've been making LOTS of bids on various alchemy requests, including wedding invitations. Mostly I've been shot down, but that's how it goes. Fake it 'til you make it. Well, I think I made it! I finally got a bid accepted by a bride in California for 75 pocketfold wedding invitations with 2 inserts and response card. Whoo-hoo! She needs them in a hurry, however (long story...), so that's what I'm going to be furiously working on for the next 2 weeks!

Here is the shades of gray sample I made for her to see what it would look like. Hers will be chocolate brown, gold and ivory, however. I'll post pictures when I'm finished with them. After some tips from Melissa Chadwick Levy, another Philly Inker, on how to use the big Baroque Motif stamp, I think I'm finally loving this set!

Paper: Basic Gray, Going Gray, Whisper White
Ink: Basic Gray
Stamp: Baroque Motif
Ribbon: 1-1/2" off white organza ribbon from Michaels or A.C. Moore (bought for a swag project a few years ago...)