Category — Paper Projects

This second post for Wedding Week is all about the Thank You notes I created for our wedding shower. Not wanting to get behind on Thank Yous, I got started on them right away. I decided I was going to make my thank you notes for the shower, since there were not that many that I needed to write. I knew that as long as I could come up with a cute, but simple design, I could get them all made in one afternoon. Then Shawn was awesome enough to help write them out. Perfect!

Once I had made the decision to make the cards myself, I had to come up with a design. Originally, I thought that I would use our wedding colors (teal and orange) as a starting point, but our shower theme was a luau and I wanted something more tropical feeling.

I went immediately to my paper stash and chose a pink (Stampin’ Up‘s Melon Mambo, to be exact) cardstock for the base of my card. Then, I needed to gather some stamps that were tropical. I knew I had a palm tree stamp from A Muse that I could use, and then remembered that I also have a flamingo stamp from A Muse that would be perfect together! So I gathered all of my materials.

All of the cardstock, ink, markers, and sentiment stamp you see above are Stampin Up. The stamps I used are from A Muse. The ink is Staz On and can be found in any craft store and I also used the Spellbinders dies: Small Classic Oval (for the white) and Large Classic Scalloped Oval (for the orange).

Next, I did all of my stamping and coloring, my favorite parts! And this is what the pile of pieces looked like before I assembled them all.

Finally, I assembled all of the pieces for each card. I made about 20 cards total. This is what the final product looked like, en masse.

After this, we addressed envelopes, wrote our messages, and sent these happy notes on their way!

Well since they have all been mailed, I can now safely share our invitations here on the blog. These were so much fun to make. I love the way they turned out and there was a small part of me that didn’t want to send them! They were all so pretty I wanted to keep them for myself!

Because we are going with a carnival inspired theme for the wedding, it was important to me that the invitation carry that feeling. Months and months ago, my friend Liz sent me a ton of inspiring ideas for my carnival theme, including a bunch of great carnival/circus fonts. It was so hard to choose the best ones for our invites, but I am so pleased with the choices we made.

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The invites were completely DIY. I typed everything up in the fonts I downloaded from DaFont.com, hand trimmed all of the pieces, used a Sizzix die to cut the front of the invitation, and assembled all of the pieces. Of course, I digress, I did not do this alone. Without the help of my bridesmaids, my mom, and my aunt, this would have taken me ages to complete. With their help, it only took a few hours. A BIG thanks to my best gals for their help with these! I love when we can work on projects together!

This is the front of the invitations…

This is the inside of the invitations…

And, a closer look…

All of the products are Stampin’ Up – the paper, the ink, the stamps the ribbon in the colors Pumpkin Pie and Bermuda Bay. These are the colors for our entire wedding. Shawn’s fave is orange, mine is teal/blue, and I am lucky that those two colors go quite well together. The die that was used to cut the front is also from Stampin’ Up – the Top Note die.

The next step was envelopes. I have a friend who has impeccable handwriting and offered to do the calligraphy for my addresses on the envelopes, but that just didn’t seem like my style. I loved how Elise did her wrap-around labels on her response cards, and thought that I would like to have something similar for my own invitations. It would be so easy to do and something different. I did some reading up on whether or not my invitations would actually get where they needed to go with a wrap-around label and asked my future father-in-law who works for the USPS and it was decidedly worth the risk. So I started hunting for tutorials on how to create said labels and found the BEST thing! Leave it to Ms. Martha Stewart to come up with exactly what I need, exactly when I need it! I must admit, I have gotten a lot of my ideas for this wedding from Martha so I wasn’t too surprised when she had this great template for wrap-around labels on her site. It was so easy! I just saved the template to my desktop and typed in all of the info I needed, and it was automatically formatted. Then I printed them on sheets of label paper and trimmed them. Then I used my pinking shears to add a little detail to the edge of the label and viola! They were all ready to go!

The front with the mailing address…

And the back with the return address…

I knew I definitely wanted colored envelopes and since our invitations were teal, I figured orange would be a good color for the invitations. They were 6″x6″, so postage was a little more than normal mailings, but I love the square, gate-fold design of our invitations so it didn’t matter. The envelopes are not quite the same shade of orange as the paper on the invitations, but I really don’t think anyone is going to mind. I got the envelopes from Paper Presentation. They were very reasonably priced and delivery was quite speedy. I would definitely order from this company again.

So there they are, our wedding invitations! And with exactly two months from today to go, I have a ton of projects on the horizon! Thank goodness today is the last day of school! So stay tuned and check back frequently for more updates on wedding projects.

The last two days have been spent relaxing and preparing for some scrapbooking! My dear cousin Nikki came over yesterday to work on her wedding scrapbook that she is working on. Last time we scrapped together, I spent the day helping her along and working on her album with her. This time, I decided that I would like to work on my own very, very neglected albums. I am about 2 years behind on my scrapbooks. It makes me very sad. For a while there, I thought that I had completely lost my drive and reasons for scrapbooking, however, after yesterday, I realized that I haven’t lost it completely, it just needs to be honed in on and practiced more.

I decided ahead of time that I would work on trying to finish my 2007 album. This has been a tough year to complete, but I am chugging along. Finally getting past some of the more difficult memories from that year that I wanted to highlight, and moving on toward more of the enjoyable moments from that year. It was so nice to scrap again. I have missed it so much!

Here are the results from yesterday’s busy day…

I am hoping to be able to get more layouts done over the remainder of my vacation.

Since it is still December, I decided I would still post a few more Christmas music videos. I know most people have moved on from Christmas and are thinking about New Year’s already or even beyond that, wishing and hoping for Spring! However, it is still December, and in the spirit of savoring the holiday season, I have a few more songs I want to share.

This next video is so classic. Nat King Cole is so timeless and smooth. Love this.

Tonight I am starting to work on my Christmas cards. I always make handmade cards to send for Christmas and this year will be no different. Unfortunately, for the last two years I have been pretty bad about sending the cards that I have made. This year I vow to send the cards that I make. Today is the start of my card making, and I hope to finish them this weekend.

Here are the cards I made at my mom’s Christmas card class tonight…so cute! You can find more info for my mom and her classes here.

So far I am off to a great start! I love all of these cards! Thanks Mom for all of the great inspiration and pretty cards!

Here is the video for tonight. I love Chris Isaak’s Christmas album, you can find it here. It’s so beachy and traditional and yet not at the same time! Enjoy!

So this was a brainstorm that I had a few days ago…make posters using hand-cut lettering featuring my favorite song lyrics. This is the first piece in that installment…

I know it seems a little silly, but this is a song that I love right now…Ida Maria “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked”. You can take a listen right here.

I love the way this turned out. It didn’t take me very long at all to complete it. Maybe an hour or so, which I LOVE! A quick and fun craft can never be beat. I have big plans to complete more of these, some for myself, some for gifts for the people I love most!

This poster was made using some old patterned paper by Basic Gray that I have had lying around for a long time, some plain white cardstock, and a simple pair of scissors. I tried to use a craft knife to cut the letters, but it was too much, and taking way too long, so I resorted back to my trusty old scissors. These are what I prefer for this type of work.

If you have fun quirky lyrics you would like to share, let me know! Leave ‘em in the comments!

A few weeks ago my dear friend Lauren and I spent the day making cards with the new stamps that we bought at the OC Stampin by the Sea convention in May. These stamps were new to us, as they are the first unmounted rubber stamps either of us have ever bought. Most of the stamps that follow are from the Doodle Factory line by Starving Artistamps. They are a little more work than the wood-mounted we usually buy, but much cheaper, and, let me tell you, after using them, tons of fun! We had a blast spending the day together chit-chatting and creating! So here are my finished products from the day…Enjoy!

Simply put, my dad Rocks! Shawn’s dad also Rocks! That is why this pair of father’s day cards were perfect for the two of them.

These fun cards were made using Starving Artistamps Doodle Factory Creatures character stamps, Stampin Up ink, and DCWV patterned paper from the Green Stack – Recycled Paper.

The card with the creature that resembles a tree was made especially for my dad. This guy rocks a ‘fro much like my dad did in his younger years and my mom’s family used to call him Bird Nest, hence the bird in this creature’s afro. Hehehe! We all got a big kick out of the Bird Nest card

Happy belated Father’s Day to all the fabulous dad’s out there…past, present, and future!

this is a little something that i made as a gift for my little sister’s housewarming. i LOVE the way it turned out! i have been really enjoying my new adventures in paper crafting and using all my paper goodies for new decor items and what not.

this particular little cutie was made using Basic Grey’s urban prairie line (which can be found here). i stitched the clouds and used my own handwriting for the little message. when it was all finished i placed it in a small, square, white, ribba frame from ikea.

i haven’t been working on very many projects for my self lately. most of my time has been spent getting ready for the end of the school year, moving my classroom, completing assessments and report cards and trying to sleep! however, a few weeks ago, i did manage to get some good crafting time in while shawn was working all weekend.

these are the fruits of my labor…enjoy!

this is a wooden plaque i made to go in a grouping i am working on for the space above my fireplace. i need to find a few particular pieces, so it is definitely a work in progress. but this is the first piece.

this is another bird plaque that i made for my mom for her birthday. i might actually like this one better than my own, but it was the second one that i made!

i am still trying to get all of my older photos scrapbooked, these are pictures from the fourth of july in east hampton 2007. i am about two years behind in my scrapbooks, so i have a big goal to get these pages done, finally.

yet another page i finished for thr fourth of july 2007. i actually really like the way this one turned out.

well that is what i have to share for now. hopefully another update soon on my most recent project.

i have been so inspired by the class i am taking with elsie flannigan! we are in week two of a six week time together and it is absolutely awesome! my weeks are generally too busy to work on any of the projects, but i was able to spend a lot of time on friday night working on last week’s projects which included painting a new journal, creating some new journal entries, and creating a mini album – which i have only done once or twice before and never like this. i forgot to take pictures of my new journal which i love so i will have to post that later this week.

but for now, i can post the mini album pictures. this was a book i made to show some of the pictures of my sister jackie and i together when i visited her in san diego in february. enjoy!

this was so much fun to make and i can’t wait to make more mini albums. i also can’t wait to make more of the projects for this class.

in other news, this weekend was a blast! friday night shawn was home working on the nistico’s pictures so i spent the evening cooped up in my scraproom listening to my favorite music and crafting away. it was so nice to spend that time, i haven’t done that in a long time.

saturday shawn and his sister, amber, and myself ventured down to baltimore for the holiday heap craft show sponsored by charm city craft mafia. we had such a great time. there was so much eye candy, and it was so nice to see all of the different handmade goodies that each crafter had to offer. i got a few prints for my living room and a cute handmade purse and a few awesome cards to send to friends during the holiday season. after the show, we went to hampden for lunch at cafe hon which shawn and i have wanted to do for quite a while. it is such a great little place. after lunch we visited a fave store of ours atomic pop so we could each buy a munny to decorate at our munny decorating party this weekend. you can see the munny here…munny (i will have to update to include photos of the finished product after the decorating party).

sunday we had a photo shoot with zach and stacie and simon howes here at the house. we were shooting christmas pictures for them. we had so much fun with the three of them and the pictures turned out great! we are having so much fun with our recent shoots. particularly those involving the little ones (when did kids get so darn cute?!?!?) we concluded the weekend with our usual grimes/parto family dinner at outback steakhouse, which is always such a nice treat!

this week at school is american education week and i expect to have lots of visitors in and out of my classroom all week, joy of joys! wish me luck!