May 2013 Papertrey Blog Hop

Here is my entry for this month's blog hop.  Does everyone else agree that this month's hop has no rules really?  Pick some flowers and pick some colors and post them.  I like that!

I made my MIL a wreath for Mother's Day.  Here it is hanging on my door (only for this picture though).  I finally see my MIL today and this gift is going home with her.  Making a wreath can be pricey but I learned a nice frugal trick.  Skip the foam wreaths at the craft stores that run around $10 and buy a foam pool noodle from the Dollar Store....works like a charm!  Handy duct tape holds in in place.

 The flowers are cut from felt.  Some felt was purchased from PTI and some from MFT.  The flower die builders were purchased from MFT and once put together they were hot glued onto this wreath.  I bought a wood plaque at the craft store and painted it with chalkboard paint.  I hot glued a skew onto the back and stuck it in.  

Isn't my door just lovely?  1920's people!  We LOVE our house.  They just don't make them like they used too.  We'll never get rid of it.  These suckers were made to last.

I'm pretty sure my MIL will like her gift. . Super Easy!

 Oh speaking of my house, I need some help winning a spousal disagreement (we all know those, right?).  I'm confident I'm going to win this one.  Let me know what side of our house looks better: 

The right side with the white shades?

Or the left side with the tan shades?

Here is a picture of the whole house.  Which side looks better: left with tan shades or right with white shades.  

Geez, I'm going to smoke him on this one.

I got to go, I have a crying baby in the background and dinner is on the table waiting for me!  Bye Bye! 

The Best Card Ever

Expectations will be high with a title like that, don't you think?
I'm not worried, I know you're going to love these cards. My baby sis gets married in less then two months. It really is hard to believe that my baby sister is old enough to be dating let alone to get married! When I left for college she was in 3rd grade and while that age gap seems huge, I promise you it has gotten smaller and smaller as the years have gone by (and not because I stopped aging at 29).

There are nine years and one sister in between us but it hasn't stopped us from developing a sisterly bond. Two years ago when she called to tell me she was engaged, I was thrilled, but only half as much as the day she asked me to help her with her wedding invites! Yeeeeaaaahhhhh, homemade wedding invites...oh yeah, your fiancé is great too, you'll be married and in love forever, blah, blah, blah.

So here they are. The best card I (I'm using "I" here to make writing simplier but in full fairness my sister gets equal credit for these) have ever designed. It was a huge team effort, her and I, oh yeah and the fiancé had a tiny little say in these as well.

A little bit of bling, a little bit of chevron, a little bit of whimsy, oh my. So when you slide off the little outside sleeve with the groom's initial, you'll find a bit more chevron and get a full look at the cute couple. We wanted these to feel similar to her STD's (oh yes, my sister's STD's, who could forget those) in color and style.

When you open it up all the way, you find a cute little pocket holding all the details to their wedding. Don't readjust your screen, I did blur out some details to their wedding (I didn't think they wanted my million readers to show up on their big day!).

The ribbon is symbolizing "tying the knot", a theme we are trying to work with for all her wedding details, of course using cute bakers twine. Most of the invitation is printed on the computer but the saying, "love is patient, love is kind", is a custom stamp she bought on etsy (not cheap!). It was important to get that stamp on her invite, they both love that saying so much, they each have half the saying tattooed on their bodies....love is FOREVER too.

Here are a few shots of the inserts. We stamped the red heart on the inserts.
Making 150 invitations is a process! A LONG process. Especially when she was finishing her last semester in nursing school and I was you know, having a baby. These took us a TON of time, lots of designing and redesigning, and a couple trips to the post office to see if these suckers were legal to mail without having to take out a second mortgage on our homes.
Designing your own wedding invites is not for the faint at heart. It also isn't a project for a newbie! These were stressful and kind of pricey but the benefit and satisfaction of having and making the wedding card of your dreams is priceless (sort of like meeting and marrying the man of your dreams, sort of).

I'm looking forward to crafting with her for the rest of her big day and of course I'll share all the details right here on my blog.

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