Back to the Hotel

Hello, there!  I wanted to show you one last detail of Julie's wedding invitations that we are quite proud of and then I promise to move on.  This was definitely a product of a brainstorming session between Julie and I. The problem?  How to include the hotel information with the invitations without it looking ugly/ghetto/cheap.  The solution? Make something awesome.  What else did you expect??

Julie's mind is a spreadsheet. That's how she thinks.  That is how she works. That is how she stays organized. She asked me if including a spreadsheet of all the hotel info would look ugly. I bluntly told her yes. So she challenged me to come up with a better way to present the information.  I accepted the challenge. Only, when I saw the information, the best way to present it was with a spreadsheet.  Boo for it having to be functional.  So, I kept thinking about it and then came up with this idea. Kelly and I did something similar for her wedding programs, so I just adapted it to Julie's spreadsheet and voila! Pure genius. OK, maybe I'm going overboard with the genius stuff, but I think it is pretty clever.  Yay for it being able to be functional and pretty!

We entered the spreadsheet onto an 8 1/2 x 11 paper so we'd get two to a page.

We then used a score board and scored the paper.

Cut it in half and patted ourselves on the back that it actually worked.  I was pretty particular that all the folds coincided with the beginning of a column so there was no folds over text.  Functional? Check.

Then it came down to the making it pretty part.  I bought cardstock that matched the outer and inner envelopes.

I then used my Silhouette to write "Hotel Information"on them in the same font we used on the invites.

Now, I realize the Silhouette has it's own sketch pens. And now they have come out with metallic sketch pens, but I didn't want to pay the price of those sketch pens and to have to wait for them to be shipped to me.  Especially because I didn't know how far the ink on one sketch pen will go, so I didn't want to get into the guessing game of how many sketch pens I needed.  I am also OCD and didn't know if the gold sketch pen would match the gold in the invitations, so I bought gold pens that best matched the invites, and used my own pens.

I also realize that the Silhouette has a pen holder. But, for the price, again, I didn't want to have to pay for it and then have to wait for it to be shipped to me.  So. This is what I did...

If you see a sketch pen, it looks like a short, fat pen. That is because the carrier that holds it only holds things that are about 1/2" wide. So, I basically took some thick cardstock and rolled it around my pen until it fit the carrier snugly.  Then I taped it pretty well together.

When I put it inside the carrier, I taped it to the carrier as well. I've used a sketch pen before, and the cap of the pen always pops off or loosens a bit as the Silhouette is working, which makes Pintobean very angry. So I've become accustomed to taping pens to the carrier just to prevent it from messing up whatever it is I am working on.

The only trick is to get the pressure of the pen right since you are not using a pen holder. This is probably where it is smart to have the pen holder, but I'm not really known for taking short cuts.  Yes, I can admit that, Anita. ;)  However, the pen pressure isn't an issue unless you find that the pen is not actually touching the page -- in that case just tap the pen down before you tape it to the carrier -- or unless you are working with really thick cardstock because it has some give to it when the pen hits the paper -- you will know you have it too low when you see the ink blotching.

The time sucking aspect of this is....the Silhouette is not designed to "print" fonts.  It "outlines".  Meaning, it simply just traces the outline of the letters you are working on.  So, basically when you are using the Silhouette to write or "sketch" words/letters, it traces the outline of the font.  Translation:  You get empty gaps between the lines that you will need to fill in - unless you like that look.

I enlarged the lettering on the previous pic so you could see what I am talking about.

So, once they were all printed, I cut them down and used the same gold pen to fill in the gaps.  Then let them sit overnight to dry.

Then I cut just solid cardstock the same size. So, essentially I had the front and back of what would be little hotel info booklets. I then pasted the cards to the spreadsheets.

For some added cuteness, Julie was trying to figure out where we could use these paper clips she found.

I made sure we found a place to use them.

And that, my friends, is the story of how the cutest hotel info booklets ever were made.  Oh, and do I need to mention that I rounded all the corners?  Because that's kind of my thing.  Rounded corners.

Are you not entertained?!?  That quote is a family fave.  Had to use it.

I have another really fun post in the making.  Just be patient with me.  I'm going to really lay this one on thick...  

The invitations. Pardon me while I ramble.

{Invitation shop in Navsari, Gujarat}

Julie's wedding invitations are out!  Such.A.Relief.  I feel like all the big items are done.  Now it's just the details.  Or is it more appropriate to say, all the huge items are done and now all that is left is the big items?  Either way, I felt like I had just finished my last final when we finished the last invite. 

So, before I left for India, Julie basically gave me free reign on the invitations since we were short on time.  Since I am such a paper person, I took this job pretty seriously and went to India armed with my own fonts.  I sort of hate the fonts that always seem to be used on Indian invitations.  Here you have these beautiful invitations on amazing paper and then they go and slap some Times New Roman in italics on them. So, I narrowed my font choices down to my top 10 faves for Julie to approve and took her favorite with me to India. 

Invitation shopping wasn't exactly the awe inspiring event I thought it would be.  I've seen some beautiful wedding invitations in my time so this was secretly the one task I was dying to get to, but the three places I was able to visit didn't have anything that left me speechless like I'd hoped to blog about. I had dreams of custom made invitations, but those dreams were shattered pretty quickly when Julie's parents saw how expensive it would be. :")

I wanted something elegant, but something a little different. I also wanted something colorful, but the one invitation I fell in love with was the one invitation that lacked color. But I figured we'll make up for it with the wedding. :)  So, while I didn't come back waving a flag of valor, I am pretty proud of them. They look kind of awesome.

Forgive the bad photos. I've tried to take pics in all kinds of light and the shimmer on the invites just do not allow good pics.

The inner envelope caught my eye out of the stacks and stacks of invitations I went thru because of this gold embellishment. It looked really modern next to the traditional invitations I was seeing. After visiting three vendors, the invitations were all looking the same or too typical, so at the end of the day, these stood out to me. I sent a snap of them to Julie and she loved them.    

We had a girls night one night and knocked out the bulk of the invitations. So I took advantage of the extra hands and had Mandy and Melanie round all the corners. Yes, details are important to me.   

The inside cards for all the events are all staggered like most invitations are. I originally wanted different colored cards for the different events, but the options this vendor had were not what I had in mind. And at the end of the day, the colored cards would not have looked right with the invite.  So, I left it alone.

We went with gold ink as opposed to the brown ink it originally came with because I felt the gold ink would give it a bit more glam.  And it does.

We took some time to address the outer envelopes. I rigged up my Silhouette with my own metallic pen, some cardstock, and some crazy taping skillz and got it to address a few of them for us.  I'll explain this a bit more in the next  post as I've already received a few questions about it.

I was on a roll until the third night of invitation assembly, so at the end of the day we had to settle for hand addressing the bulk of them. But, Julie lucked out there. As Kelly put it, Julie is really lucky to have friends that basically practice their handwriting as a hobby. So between Kelly and myself, we finished addressing the invitations that were left.

Before I left, I also had Julie send me images of a ganesh that she liked just in case I saw anything I wanted to have custom made with it. Came in handy because this invite did not come with a ganesh on it already and I didn't want the job of deciding which ganesh to go with. So I had them add the ganesh on the corner of the invite.

I am very pleased with the quality of the invitations. It makes me giddy to see them. When Julie brought them over for the first time, I got a little misty eyed. I love the invites, but I also love seeing her name on a wedding invitation. *Sigh*

Huge props to a preggars Kelly, Mandy, and Melanie for being apart of the invitation committee.  We couldn't have finished in 2012 without you guys. 

Back that card up

I'm kind of in love with this invitation, even though I didn't have too much to do with it. Julie and I had a clear vision of what we wanted for her mehndi invitations. She wanted a separate invite from her wedding invitation suite since it would only be going out to a few people.  But when I went to India, I asked three different invitation vendors to design them for us, but they all said it wasn't cost effective to "just make 100 invitations."  So I had to admit defeat.  Enter Sara from Carry the News. With just one internet search and a few clicks of the mouse, I found exactly what we were looking for. And you know what?  It looked even better than what we imagined.  Love when that happens.  

{designed by Carry the News}

Here is the invitation.  Me love you long time. 

I hoard coupons to Staples like I hoard ribbon.  So, keep an eye out on their website because they offer 20% off your entire print order fairly often.  And I've always found the customer service to be way better than Kinko's.  

I searched high and low for the right color yellow cardstock to print these bad boys on.  Julie was pretty specific about the color she wanted, so I was excited when I found it.  But, apparently not all cover weight paper is created equal.  When I got the cardstock in, it was way to flimsy for an invitation.  So, with Julie's permission, we backed them with red cardstock. I would show you a picture of that, but honestly, it looks like a red rectangle.  Kind of anti-climactic since I find the title of my post to be rather clever, so my apologies. 

I am on a mission to round every corner that enters my craft room, so we rounded all the corners.

And since my motto has always been "more is more," I contacted Sara again and asked her to make some custom labels for us.  Just keepin' it classy, folks.  And, of course, she sent us back some more fabulousness.

So we printed them, ran them thru the second greatest invention ever made, and had the most awesome custom labels ever for our envelopes. 

Aren't they gorgeous???  Cutest mehndi invitations ever.  I think I'll marry them. 

And it wouldn't be a true pintobean blog post without the gratuitous shot of the stack of finished envelopes. Sigh.  And best of all?  Julie loves them. 


Sara was awesome to work with, so if you ever get a chance, or need something amazing for your event, please contact her.  I am already thinking of what event I can have to use her other designs.

That's all I got for now.  Lately, I've been trying to figure out how to stop time Bewitched style but haven't had much luck.  But, I have tons to update you on.  Just been way to busy to stop and blog about the roses.  Oh, and I missed my February obsessions this month, so I'll make sure March is up soon! 

Neon Crafternoon

One of my favorite scenes from the movie Bridesmaids is when Kristen Wiig opens up a package, which happens to be the invitation to her best friend's bridal shower.  And the butterfly flies out and keeps getting in her face.  Makes me laugh just typing it.

When it came down to picking a color palette for my friend Julie's bridal shower, I wanted something vibrant without using any color palettes she is already using for her wedding events.  Neon seemed to be the answer. I have been totally obsessed with this neon trend that I've seen lately.  It's everywhere.  

I had a hard time figuring out what to do for invitations after I picked the color palette, though.  Aside from having crafter's block and making about 4 different versions of the invite, I got a little cocky while ordering supplies and didn't feel it necessary to order plenty of extra supplies for mistakes.  Not sure why my confidence suddenly took over because I make plenty of mistakes, but it did and I had to go with Plan B.  Then USPS didn't seem to love my ideas either.  They delivered one of my packages of supplies to Pennsylvania.  No where near where I actually live.  So that left me with Plan C, which turned into Plan D once I realized I was really short on time and Plan C wasn't going to happen.  But, sometimes Plan D turns into Plan Delightful and you can't complain.

This was the final product.  I had another design going, but by accident I dragged the shape and ended up getting this long line.  I thought, 'hey, that looks like fringe!' So I went with crazy with it.  And then I remembered these amazing invites and I knew I was on to something.  Even though the neon colors on my computer didn't translate to colors that printed, I think the invite looks vibrant.  I backed the invite with neon pink paper, but forgot to take a pic of that.  

I made separate hotel cards since most of the people invited are from out of town.  Since I couldn't find or order neon yellow baby envelopes, I made them myself out of neon yellow cardstock.  The pink flag is a high visibility label from Office Depot that I cut down to the size and shape I wanted. These may or may not resemble the labels that may or may not be missing from our office supply cabinet at work.   

                 

For the envelopes, I decided to get fancy and do some calligraphy.  Here is where I got cocky.  I didn't think I'd make enough mistakes to warrant purchasing another set of envelopes - they came in sets of 50 - so Plan B came into play when I realized that I am not as perfect as I thought I could be.  A huge blow to the ego, but I'm a survivor.  I'm not going to give up.  I'm not going to stop.  I'm going to craft harder.  Sorry.  Had to do it.  

I used Dr. Ph Martin's Bombay White India Ink as opposed to Dr. Ph Martin's Bleed-Proof White - what my old calligraphy instructor suggested - because that was all I could find at my art supply store and I'll just say - for other calligraphers out there - I didn't love it.  Buy the Bleed-Proof.  

I printed the mailing address with a white pen on more of the high visibility labels.  Obsessed.  I use these for everything at work, so it makes me happy to see them used on something like a bridal shower invitation.  

Here is the entire ensemble together.

I am a big believer that all envelopes should be lined.  So as much as it hurts me to cut pretty paper, I made sure to find some awesome paper to line the envelopes.  

And just because nothing makes me happier than seeing a stack of envelopes, here they are all ready to be mailed.

I was never happier to finish these particular invites since it was Murphy's Law from beginning to end.  But, I would have never finished them without Mandy.  She came to my rescue and helped me assemble everything and didn't say a word when I asked her to help me line 42 envelopes. Thanks, Mandy.  You're wild!!!!!!  Inside joke.  Just ignore me.  And thanks for listening to my crazy brainstorming sessions and not hitting ignore when you saw me calling you, Seester and Sarah. There are very few people in this world that will sit and talk envelope liners for an hour and you ladies are two of them.
 Julie and I are neck deep in stuff we have to finish for the wedding, but I can't say I don't love every minute of it.  I'll have another post for you soon.  Love it. Love it. Love it. 

Oh, and if you haven't already guessed it from the title, I've been singing this song in my head for the last two weeks or so. 

Old School

This one is old school, but I figured since everyone was back to school this month, I could legitimately post it.  That and I am procrastinating.  I have an audit at work on Thursday and I don't quite feel the pressure yet. Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?  That's my motto.

A cousin got married a little while ago - back in 2009!  OMG, time flies! - and I co-hosted the bridal shower along with her two sisters. She answered her calling to be a teacher.  And she loves it.  So, we figured we'd throw her a school themed shower.  So fun. 

The color scheme was chalkboard black, chalk white, and Granny Smith Apple green - aka chartreuse. Humor me here.  I wanted to do a modern take on the teacher-apple concept so instead of a red apple we went with green. 

The envelopes were black to resemble a chalkboard. I addressed them in my best old school penmanship using a white pen.  I remember when I was in elementary, penmanship was actually my worst subject.  I would get marks against me because I wouldn't slant enough.  Or I slanted too much. Annoying.  The ironic thing?  Now, I get soooooo many comments about my handwriting.  Ha.  Take that, Mrs. Denniston!!!! 

The invitations were file folders much like a teacher might assign a student to take home. I couldn't resist adding a black label on the front to write A + P, her and her (now) husband's first initials. 

The invitation was inside the mini file folder.   I designed it so that it looked like a loose sheet of paper filed away.  For the RSVP, I added "remember to do your homework by the due date" at the bottom of the invitation.   

I've seen my nephews' take home folders from school many times, so I knew there was always some sort of spreadsheet that teachers include to show the students - and parents - what their homework assignment was.  Usually it is handwritten by the student.  So, I included "homework" for each guest to RSVP and gave all the information they would need to RSVP as well as the registry information.  I then paper clipped it to the file folder to prevent anyone from losing their homework.  :) 

Here is a full shot of the invitation.  I started out writing each guests name on the file folder tab to personalize it a bit more, but I didn't like how I wrote some names so I left it off for the majority of the invites. 

Andrea's sister's took pics, so you'll have to trust me when I say the shower was really cute.  We made a ton of decorations.  I had to throw in a penant banner, of course.  We played charades - an aunty favorite in our family - with wedding words.  Then, we surprised the guests with a true or false "pop quiz" about weddings. 

Andrea has her students do an "All About Me" posterboard so they can all get to know each other, so her sister created an "All About Me" for Andrea with pictures of Andrea growing up.  She can now use it in her classroom for her students to get to know more about her!

You know I couldn't leave out the classic old school lunch bags. These held the favors, which were personalized for each guest.

Inside the bags we included goodies like erasures and pencil sharpeners as well as these pencils which I had custom made to say A + P = 12.19.09, their wedding date. 

The shower was a big hit and so much fun.  It was a good mix of friends and family so we partied for a good 6 hours.  It was probably the most fun I've ever had putting a shower together.  My girl cousins are pretty awesome, so the planning process was just about as much fun as the shower itself.  I can't wait for the next one....

Pop Goes the World

Remember that song?  I'm sure some of you are going to say no because you were born the year it came out, but it was my jam back in the day. And I've been singing it for the last couple of weeks while working on this next project. 

You may remember Priti.  She created the amazing dessert table at the shower I co-hosted.  She's co-hosting a baby shower for her sister and she will be putting her mad skillz to work again to create another amazing menu.  She asked me for help with the invitations since she couldn't really find anything she liked, so I came up with a concept and crossed my fingers that it worked.  And luckily it did. 

The colors?  Mint green, light blue, and brown. The theme?  She's About to Pop!  Love this theme.  I'd filed a few ideas away for friends already so I had a few directions I knew I could go.  For this project, I stuck with bubbles because, well, bubbles are cute and they pop and they remind me of polka dots - which I kind of have a thing for. 

{image via Iman Sadhegi}

I love when bubbles look like they are glued together in multiples and look like they are attached to each other, so I used that as my inspiration. 

I designed the invite in my Silhouette to fit an A7 envelope and used the print and cut feature. Once they were printed, I cut 6 different sized circles.

I had to make 60 invitations, so I cut 360 circles in total.  Don't they look cute all stacked together like that?  Then, I invited my friend Mandy over for a night of hard labor crafts and we glued them together by layering them.

Essentially, each bubble contains information on the shower. And, while you can't exactly tell in the pictures, the invite is just the bubbles themselves.  The brown background is just cardstock so you don't see my ugly craft table. :) Cute, huh?

I couldn't resist using a pop up dot to make the word "POP" pop off the invitation.  Not sure how many people will catch that, but I thought it was a pretty darn cute idea myself. 

But, I didn't want the envelopes to feel lonely.  I love a hand addressed envelope, but I have to admit I am a sucker for labels.  When making invitations, I am always torn between hand addressing the envelopes or using some cute labels.  When there are a lot of invitations to send, I think labels are an awesome option so that one isn't stuck hand writing 60 invitations.   

So, I printed out labels in the same fonts I used on the invite.  Not pictured is the return address label on the back.  I made it green.  The labels were a splurge, but I imagined that when guests received their invites, they'd see the envelopes and know something really cute was inside.  :)  Because there is. 

I'm not going to lie.  These invites took me a long time to make.  Without Mandy's help, I would probably still be putting them together.  But once they were finished I was literally about to pop with pride.  Love them. 

Party Like a Princess

Recently, I had the opportunity to use my powers for good rather than evil.  My Seester's coworker, Brenda, asked me to make some invitations for her daughter's 1st birthday.  All I had to hear was "princess party" and I was all over it.

Since Brenda had a clear vision of what she wanted, the only thing I had to worry about was ruining this little girl's first birthday party with horribly constructed invites.  No pressure. 

This is what Brenda fell in love with.

{image via Paper Chick}

Obviously, Paper Chick is in a whole other league from me, but I told Brenda I would see what I could do. So I got to work and tried to figure out how to produce something that would end up being the same concept Brenda wanted minus the skills Paper Chick has. This is what I came up with.  

Naturally, I consulted my Precious my Silhouette.  Side note...The more I work with my Silhouette, the more I feel like I become invisible and am consumed by crafty thoughts.  Love that machine.  Anyway, the Silhouette offers a couple dress options, but nothing that would work as is, so I chose this shape and modified it slightly to fit what I envisioned.  I made sure that the invite would fit in a standard A7 envelope and that there would be enough room on the skirt to fit the text Brenda wanted.

I recently saw The Count of Monte Cristo and was a bit enamored with the invites he sent for the extravagant ball he threw for himself.  The font was basically consistent throughout the invite and I felt like it looked really regal that way.  So I kept the font consistent despite my inclination to use one or two more.  I think it made this particular invite look really girly. And what's more girly than a princess party?? 

For the details, I chose pink tulle and pink ribbon. You can't really tell the tulle is pink, but it has a sparkle to it that the white tulle didn't have so I basically had to use it.  I have a reputation to uphold after all.  And just because I think pink and pearls go together like tulle and ribbon, I added a pearl at the neckline. 

I couldn't get a good shot of the tulle - the light wasn't working with me this morning - so here it is from another angle. 

And just because I thought they looked so cute all together, I had to share a snap of them all packed up. 

With as much love as Brenda has poured into making her daughter's 1st birthday a true celebration, I can't help but be honored to have had a small part in it.  Thanks, Brenda. 

April Shower: The Invite

I will break this post up for those that have short attention spans because, well, it's a lot of pictures....  

I co-hosted a bridal shower for my friend last weekend with 5 other women. Four out of the six of us coordinated everything and poured a lot of blood, sweat and tears into the decor and food.  The blood was negligible, because really, you can't be a paper crafter and expect to escape paper cuts.  The sweat was, well, sweat.  The tears mostly came from Mr. Bean every time I told him we'd have to order in again, but he managed to stay alive. 

We anticipated 60 people would attend - 78 were invited - and had only an hour to set up.  This was definitely the biggest event I'd ever worked on with the most number of hosts, so for about 2 weeks I literally lost sleep trying to wrap my head around how we would pull the shower off.  But, I think we did a really good job considering. Half of us were working from out of town so big props to the iPhone, email, FaceTime, email, camera phones and email.  Yes, there were a ton of emails....thank you internet and Steve Jobs!

Once Anita and I hashed out a color scheme, we got to work on the invitations.  Sharmee's favorite color is red, so Anita and I were sure to incorporate that in the color scheme. I pretty much drove Anita crazy because I couldn't make up my mind whether to make the invitations or buy them despite the fact that in a few days I was leaving the country for almost two weeks.  To me, the invitation sets the tone for the event, so I am always careful to choose the right invite.  And, I will admit, sometimes I over think it. Handmade invitations aren't always the most cost effective approach despite the perception that DIY is cheaper.  Especially considering we had to make at least 65 invites.  But, it is a labor of love.  I think anyone that crafts will agree with me on that one.  But, I'm hard headed and crazy and paper is my thing so we went with handmade.  Since I used quite a bit that I already had in my stash, these invites ended up costing a lot less than buying something online. 
 

I designed the invite in PSE and went through about 200 different design options.  But, I finally decided to go with a long invite since we had so much text and I wanted to keep it as clean looking as possible. 

Originally, I wanted to add double faced satin ribbon to make a bow that would wrap around the invite, but the floral element threw me for a loop since I couldn't get it to not completely clash with the envelopes and the ribbon once it was printed, so Anita came up with the clever idea of using our scraps to make sort of a mod belly band around the invite.  Awesome idea.  

The invite fit into a #10 standard sized envelope.  I created some labels for each envelope since addressing 65 invites wasn't exactly the best use of my time 4 days before I left for Ireland but I still wanted them to look pretty and not like we just slapped labels on.  So I created some cute labels with fonts from the invite.  Anita was kind enough to put up with me a while longer and cut all the labels down and apply them while I was gone.  The label folds over the backside of the envelope and reveals the return address.  The invite was not what I envisioned originally, but everything I wanted it look like.  Love when that happens.