Becky + Stephan

I meant to get this up a long time ago, but things just got away from me. It's another design I did for a really sweet girl out in Oregon, Becky.

She wanted pink, and one of the designs I had already done - which made my job a little bit easier :-) She was so much fun to work with and I LOVE how she added to her pocket fold by:

• Using an engagement photo to add a personal touch (or help relatives remember exactly who you are again..hehe - I should have done this!)
  
• the ribbon around the pocket
• using brads to hold the pocket in place instead of adhesive! (way cheaper I imagine PLUS it held it in place really well!!!)
  

I fell in love with this invite when it arrived in my mail box! It must have taken forever to assemble these but I can imagine the response she's getting from people - and it's nothing to do with my design! This girl really made her invite - HERS!

Check it out!

**Just a note to anyone interested in invite design from me - I am not taking anymore orders until after I return from my honeymoon in September. If you won't be needing anything until then, but want to book me now to save your place - please contact me at acgrundman@gmail.com as we'll chat!**

A Classy Fishing Themed Invite? Yah You Betcha!

OMG, I am so excited! I just finished my good friend Amy's wedding invites and I feel great! First off it was a nice break from the chaos of my own wedding plans, which today just were out of hand. And Second, to know that I was a part of her special day in such a great way, oh I could cry.

So, her lucky hubby-to-be popped the question on a boat while they were fishing, so she knew she wanted fishing incorporated somehow. She provided me with something she found that she wanted, and I tweaked it to what I could do right now, and this is the final product:



My favorite part of this whole thing is the RSVP - the wording on it, suggested in part by FutureMrs on Wedding Bee and the other wonderfully creative Hive over there:

For yes: We Will Be there Hook, Line & Sinker
For no: Sorry, Gone Fishin'

I think this will be the last project I take on before the wedding. At least a full pocket fold invite. Little things I'm ok with - but since I still have to do her programs, and thank you cards...who knows if I'll have any more time.

Wrapping it all Togeter

When I said that cutting the pieces of paper out that make the invite was the worst part of the invite process.....I lied. I hadn't yet been faced with the "belly band" issue.

I'm sure it would have been much easier if the piece of paper I was using to go around the invite was in fact the same size, as the invite. But no. I'm thrifty and wanted to use scrap from my inserts for it.

So I laid out the belly band like this, and tried as best I could after 2 glasses of wine to make it smack dab in the middle (you'll see the final result, is a bit off center. I blame the wine)

I then folded in the two sides, and using a glue stick applied adhesive to the edge of one of the belly band.Then I applied my square seal, and then put the adhesive to the other edige of the belly band. Doing it this way kept me from gluing myself to my invites - which I assure you could have been done with out any wine at all....

As you can see this one is a bit...off. LOL. But I fixed it before I mailed it out - I just never took the extra picture.


And here they are, boxed up ready to head to the Post Office, where I will double check to make sure I have the correct postage (I know I do, but I like to check things about 14 times...) and the post the ones to Europe to our friends overseas. LIKE AUNTIE NORA!!! HI NORA!!!

So this is 90 of them, I have about 30 more or so to get all together...and then they will leave me and I will be sad to see them go....

Finished 6x6 Pocketfold Invites!

Here they are, in all their glory. Months of work, waiting, freaking out and gluing tiny gems to paper and here they are! And they are almost ready to mail!

I have to admit that of all the steps: Designing, Printing, Cutting and Assembling - cutting was by far the worst part and the most time consuming!!!

Here's a quick run down of how it all came together.

• After the jewels were glued onto the invite and the invite stuck to the pink backing piece, I then stuck that whole piece into the pocketfold.
• Then I handed off the pocketfold to Mr S, who stuffed in the Drections/ Information card and the Reception/Accommodations cards and set that off to the side.

Now it was time to get the RSVP's in - and since I had 6 different RSVP's, and each one had to be numbered to coincide with the guests number on my Excel spread sheet this step tooo a little longer then expected.

• Mr S would read me the name off the mailing envelope (which I printed up months ago) I would find them on the list, write the number on the back lower corner of the RSVP and he would stuff it in, then lay the whole thing with it's envelope, in a big white box to wait for it's belly band.

The belly band will be the last thing to go on, I tried making the seals at home and honestly gave up cutting them out and simply ordered some sticker ones instead. Sure it was an added $40 for 250, but I'll use them all through out the wedding planning and what not, and it will save me a load of time.
I'm still finding time to take on design projects, be they for invites, programs, thank you cards, Let me know and do it soon if you're thinking about it. Soon I'll be shutting down design until after my wedding and honeymoon - so mid-Sept!!!

It's so Rewarding!

Remember a bit back I designed some wedding invites for a fellow bride - well she sent me one, and today it arrived!

Check out the detail on the cascading pocketfold inserts - when lined up they make one fluid image, yet it still appears on the individual cards in full as well.
I was so happy to be able to make these invites, and it's so rewarding to see how well they turned out as a final product. I'm proud to have been a part of this part of her big day!

Crazy.....about designing

Because I'm a total nut case I decided to take on a huge task during my own wedding planning - create and design from scratch someone else's wedding invites and stationary. Someone I didn't know, never met other then on the computer.....

Luckily I got to work with a really fun, and understanding girl, who wasn't one of those demanding Bride-Zillas! Phew! Seriously, if I had to deal with a bride...like me for instance, I would have flipped!

My Bride had a very specific design in mind, one that I couldn't find a graphic anything even close to use for her design - so I had to draw it from hand, by looking at some sample invites she sent me for inspiration. That was one of the most time consuming parts of all this.

Here's a little sample of what her dream and my designing came up with.

She's making a type of pocket fold invite, something similar to mine. And since she decided she wanted the same script font as me, and the same RSVP - they look similar in a few way! But it kept at least a few things easy for me!

The Main Invite

The Thank You Card

Inserts, as they will appear once printed and stacked

The Menu

I had a great time making these for her! I can't wait to see what they look like printed on Opal Star Dream paper and accented with the champange and blue!


Credits:
*Design Idea sent to me by Bride,
*Thank you Mrs Lemon again for your Awesome RSVP - it goes onto please even more!!!
*All other design created by myself using PhotoShop CS2

Finally, Final and Finalized.

Argh! No more! I have been pouring over these pocket fold inserts for days and I am done. The longer I look the more I can find and say "Oh I should move that a bit to the right..." but it's never an easy move, nooooooo it's a "hafta move the whole freakin' set up and realign everything" task.

So after mush deliberation, rearranging and renaming 2 of the cards, and adding some loving touches to all of them - I have the final finalized versions of the pocket fold inserts for my invites.

Tah Dah!

The smallest of the cascading inserts - RSVP. I added in some little animals, because nothing says "fancy dinner" like circling the image of what you intended to eat! I also added in the final food options. (PS - I have changed this up now...moved the "menu selection" tot he left a bit...it was really driving me nuts!)



The middle sized insert is now called Reception & Accommodations. It was simply "Reception" but really, it had like NO info on that was of much use so I moved the hotel info onto this one. Info has been blurred out to keep those crazy people from showing up uninvited....lol


The final insert, is also the biggest: Directions & Information.

I'm limiting the directions I give and instead of over crowding the card, which was my first choice...lol - I have listed my wedding web site for further info.

When all is said and done, they will look a little something like this (minus the black borders I added so you could actually see them on here) in the envelope:


Now if I can just get them printed, we'll be good to go.

Making My Pocketfold Invites -Part 1-

I finally got to start the invitation process *Scream with joy!* The instruction process is going to be done in installments, so if you have question between them - feel free to ask.

I started last night doing the one thing I knew I could with out needing to print anything, cut the pink paper to size. I bought 2 packs of Rose Quarts Stardream text weight paper from www.envelopemall.com. When pricing out the paper, we did find a place that sold 12x12 sheets but it was cheaper still to buy it 8.5x11 from Envelope Mall, especially since the scrap will not go to waste.

I needed 2 different sized pieces, a 6x6 square for the main backing to the invite, and a 2.25x2.25 square for the backing to the monogram on the band that wraps around the closed invitation.


I started with the larger of the two pieces. Setting the two separate sized pieces of scrap off to the side in individual piles, for use later. No scrap here!

I used a stack cutter because in my years of scrabooking I have leaned the Fiskars trimmers do not produce straight lines consistently, and I was not taking any chances with my beautiful wedding invitations.
The one used here is an Exacto brand and is even equiped with a laser light to show you where you're cutting. I borrowed it from my step-dad, but I would think you could pick it up for about $50 at an office supply store.


I placed each finished 6x6 sheet into piles of ten so I could keep track of how many I had cut. Since I ordered more pink paper then needed just for the invites, I didn't want to cut too much and not have any left for other stuff later.


Next I moved onto the smallest of the scrap pieces, which was about 2.25 x 5.

From it I got (2) 2.25x2.25 pieces for use in the band wrap

I set those off tot he side as well and then decided to use up the last of the scrap before bed as well. So I grabbed the larger of the two pieces of scrap and cut 22 pieces down to a 4x6 size and decided to give my table names a shot. As my printer isn't a big fan of any paper smaller then a 8.5x11 it was a real risk, but - better I tired it with scrap then with a full sheet.

It worked out really well, and I got out about 15 before the ink started to run low.

When all is said and done these table names will be placed on a black cover card stock backing and decorated with a clear jewel on the main loop(s) of the first and last letter. BLING!

More to come.....next I hope to print and assemble the actual invite, and finish the table name cards. We may even start on the construction of the wedding program itself!

Until next time!

You're Invited...

...To check out the official mock up invitation for my wedding! I printed it off at home today and carefully cut it with my CRAPPY trimmer. I will definitely be using a stack cutter for the actual invites once everything is printed!

Those little Fiskars trimmers cut things in lines as straight as George Michael!

Try not to notice that I seriously need to vacuum my carpet - and here it is:

This is the invite closed, with the wrap that is made totally from scrap!


Here's the invite open:


And with the inserts taken out:


I used pre-made pocketfold invites from LCI Paper

The paper is Stardream brand which I had to get from two different places because only one place I could find sold the Crystal (bright white) at a decent price.

I got the Crystal Stardream at Paper Depot Inc in Minneapolis MN. They do online orders now and they ship faster then anyone I've seen before! It was very well priced at .17 each.

The Rose Quartz (pink) paper I got at Envelope Mall along with the 2 sizes of envelopes I required for this project as well. Envelope Mall has by far the best priced Star Dream products online! Both the papers I bought in the text weight, as the heavier cardstock (or cover as it's called) doens't work too well with ink jet printers.

The envelopes are in 6.5 x 6.5 for the entire invite and the 4 Bar size for the RSVP, which you can see sticking up in the open invite picture, just slightly.

The two fonts are Feel Script by Veer which is not something you can get for free, it's $99.. And the plain font is BellMT which I used in all caps.

The flourishs are from two sets of "brushes" called Hipster Plumes (number 5 and 6). You can pick up these items at www.designerdigitals.com here The kits are well priced at $3.75 each and you will need a photo shop program to use them.

Please note that all pocket folds are different, if you buy yours from LCI Paper and need dimensions I'm happy to share mine with you - if you did not buy from them or do not plan to my dimensions will not work for you and you'll just have to do the trial and error game like we did to get the right dimensions.

The new and imporoved "The One" Invite

My beautiful invite, which I declared "The One" has been modified and bumped off the top of the list...LOL. I just couldn't stop tweaking it and making it better!

The general lay out is the same, I just changed the pocketfold inserts to all white and made the flourish on the right connect, so it looks like one fluid photo no matter if all or 1 of the cards in in it's place. I also, with the help of my awesome cousin tracked down a font I REALLY had to have, and changed that a bit.

NOW - it's "The One" - in it's "mock" version, as I'm waiting on the Stardream paper to arrive as well as all the envelopes. And as my printer has a hissy fit every 10 minutes (not unlike me) the print job looks a little crappy - but you get the idea!

"The One"

You'd think I was talking about Alex wouldn't you - nope...lol. Well I mean he is the One guy - but this is The One invite! I think I finally got it, thanks to all the help from the patient gals over on the Wedding Bee board who dealt with my constant complaining, question asking and posting of several different options over and over again! I love those girls!

Now I just have to find the best way to print it, make sure the paper I ordered looks good with it and decide weather I want the Gocco or not.

Good thing the hard part is over.....for the most part....lol. Now I have to go and make all the insert cards. Yippie.

Wedding Bee Front page News!

As promised here's the link to the font page of Wedding Bee where my invite is put up to the polls for all to see....

Okay so the link thing isn't working - I guess I'm not savvy enough to make it work. Here's another way to get to the site:

www.weddingbee.com

and if you scroll down you will eventually see my invites show up!

I have to say before I end this post that I really feel good about this invitation thing. I remember looking back over all these Wedding Bee posts and seeing these beautiful DIY invites that I never thought I'd be able to create. I asked a million questions and now, my invite is the one up and I'm getting a million questions! It's great.

I have a feeling after this wedding is over, I'll be on paper crafting overload and not want to touch another stamp of adhesive again for months - but until then - I'll enjoy every minute of it.

I'm Famous!

I also have a habit of exaggerating a bit from time to time too...

Maybe I should explain a bit better.

I'm a Wanna-be- Bee (that didn't help did it?)

Okay I'm a regular poster on WeddingBee.com a chat site where I go to talk to other brides to be. (their main bloggers are called "Bee's") It's a large site, and recently I've been posting the samples of the invite I'm making to get the input back from all the gals on there.

Well....they are posting it on their MAIN PAGE tomorrow morning to put it to a national vote, and I SUPER exited!!!

Now I'm all jittery, wondering if I took good enough pictures, should I blur out the info a bit better....will people hate it? Argh!

Anyway I'm sure I'll keep track of it on here as well, but if you'd like to check for yourself you can always go to the main page of www.wedding bee.com and look for it :-) I'll put up a link as soon as I have one.

Yippiee - I'm kinda famous!

Re-Vamped the Invite Layout

Okay, well after along look at the invite and realizing just how LOOOONNG it would take to stamp every invite the way I want, I decided to give another option a try.

I zipped over to a favorite digital scrapbooking site called Designer Digitals and looked for some similar flourishes for the side of the invite. This is what I came up with:

Ladies I give you Invite Option #3 *of what I will assume will be many....lol)

Now I just have to hope that when it prints on the Stardream paper it looks good.

Invite Sample #2 (6x6 Pocketfold)

Okay here's a second version of the wording layout - which do you like better? This we will call Invite Number 2 and the one in the post below will be Invite number1 - there's a poll to the right where you can pick.

Now please bear in mind, I've not finalized the paper color, or the fonts of our names yet - still working on that. I'm just looking for weather or not you like the layout of one over the other more. The font type will be darker eventually, and thus the black swrills won't stick out so much - so anyway PICK ONE!

6x6 Pocketfold Invites - Sneak Peek

Here's a little sneak peek at the invites, they are a work in progress :-)

As you can tell our colors are pink, white and black - and though we've not decided firmly on a shade of pink, we do know we are going to NOT be using the one you see in the photo.

Keep checking back, once these are final I'll be posting how-to's and more photos :-)