Adventures of a Bride-to-Be

Adventures of a (Second Time) Bride-to-Be

After a brief hiatus, I’m back…May 24, 2011

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been furiously working on my invitations because I can never leave “well enough” alone. Laura delivered the most beautiful thermograved invitations, Rsvps, and inserts, but I went a step (or 20) further.

I always wanted to do a boxed invitation to an event, but figured it’d be for one of the birthday parties for my girls. I have a love of paper (I think that’s now been firmly established) and adore details, details, and more details...so I spent a lot of time glittering, finding handmade papers, assembling, and finally boxing my Laura Hooper Callligraphy creations.

Once again, not to bore you with details, you can see the pictures below. I used large silver jewelry boxes, but when they arrived in a larger corrugated box, I noticed a few had been crushed in delivery to me. So, to be sure they wouldn’t get crushed by the US Mail after all my work, I tucked the invites into white mailer boxes.

Yes, officially call me enthusiastic about my papers. OK…obsessive-compulsive.

I hope this inspires brides to DIY; make each and every item “your own”. This was my way of setting the tone for the wedding (which I started with the Save the Dates), and I must say, set the tone I did.

I sent these out on May 23 and even the fine women at the Post Office were impressed by the packaging. I was thrilled to drop them off, finally finished with all my hard work (thank GOD there were only 52 in total!), and ready to find out who would be coming.

Many were delivered locally, so the boxes were received the following day. The best comment I heard about the first impression was “I wondered what present I got!”.

Rsvps came immediately, but trickled in (driving me crazy, of course!), and I actually had three guests email to ask if they could Rsvp via email so they could keep the whole invitation intact.

Yep, I done good.

My love of paper is my own personal inspiration to make invitations that “wow”, but it truly makes my day when people give me compliments on my work when they receive them; asking if they could keep the invite intact (one had her teenage daughter ask if she could take it to her sleepover to show her friends that weekend!) put me over the top with sheer pride in something I did with my own talent and, of course, quite a bit of help from Laura Hooper & her great team!

INGREDIENTS:
(a new word I’ve seen used in magazines lately)

INVITES, INSERTS, CALLIGRAPHY, LABEL DESIGN: Laura Hooper Calligraphy
HANDMADE CORAL PAPER: Creative Papers Online
FUCHSIA SHIMMER PAPERS & CARDSTOCK: Stardream Azalea by Gruppo Cordenon
CORAL FLAT BANDS: Options Coral 2” belly bands
SILVER PAPER: Mirrorcard
RIBBON: Options Azalea Single-Faced Satin
SILVER CORD: Scrapbook supply
GLASSINE ENVELOPES: eBay
FUCHSIA PAPER FLOWER: eBay or scrapbook supply
GLITTER: Stickles by Ranger in “Icicle”
SILVER JEWELRY BOX: US Box Company
WHITE MAILER BOX: US Box Company
ADHESIVES: Tombow Powerbond, Xyron Permanent Adhesive, 3M Foam Tape
STAMPS: Zazzle
Until next time,

“Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

xoxo,
Alycia