Fly Away With Us

Our save-the-date cards are mailed and delivered (at least to the west coast), so I can finally blog about them. I was so excited last Thursday when I dropped them in the post office mail slot, I could hardly contain myself. Seventy-four in all, out into the world. Even though I enjoyed the process (for the most part), I’m so relieved to have them done and mailed.

When I started out, I intended to take step-by-step photos as I went along. But most of the nights I was working on these, it was about 3 a.m. and the photos just didn’t happen.

In any case, the first step was to tear the paper down. The letterpressed invitations will be printed on the most luxurious handmade paper I have ever seen — I told Rebecca that I could practically wrap myself in it — but it’s exclusive to Studio Olivine. So I had to find something letterpress quality (because I’m a paper fiend) that I could use for the save-the-dates, thank-you cards and programs that I’m flat printing. I found Arturo at Oblation and decided to order it in bulk from Paper Papers. They have the tea length paper for the other stationary pieces, but the save-the-dates needed to be 4.25″x6.25″, and the closest size they offer is 4.53″x6.69″. So thus ensued the evening of tearing:

Some of them were torn like that, with the metal ruler, but I was getting inconsistent results, so I switched to scoring with an x-acto knife, folding the paper over a few times, and then tearing without the ruler. Of course, I then knicked myself with the blade and promptly bled all over the cutting board. Two band-aids later, I finished the paper and printed the information on one side. I revised the design slightly from version 1 and used our wedding colors (blue and gray) instead of the basic black.

For the reverse side, I attached one of our engagement photos. That was by far the simplest part of the process. I picked three photos, printed through Shutterfly, and attached them to the cards with mono-adhesive.

Next, I wanted to do a little wrap piece with the date of the wedding printed on it. I wanted a modern twist on the belly band — something that would wrap around the left edge of the card and overlap on the backside by half an inch or so. I thought Moo cards would be perfect, and the size was ideal, but when they arrived, the color was way off and the coated paper was too thick to wrap around the card. So I printed and trimmed the little wrap pieces, and I was surprisingly pleased with how they turned out. I was worried about quality, but it wasn’t too bad.

The last step was to trim magnet tape into 1″ sections and stick it to the back of the cards. I admit, I was anti-magnet when we started talking about save-the-dates — I wanted to do something more original, and I definitely didn’t want to print flat magnets through an online vendor. Just not my style. But I’m glad I found a way to make a magnet that fit my aesthetic, because it sounds like they’ve been a bit hit with the family. My mom has hers on a crafting cubbie unit in her stamp room:

Also worth mentioning are the envelopes (although I don’t have any photos… didn’t think my family and friends would appreciate it if I distributed their home addresses!). I wanted the envelopes for all the stationary to match, and the light blue Arturo envelopes don’t come in tea length, so I ordered Stardream envelopes in quartz. It looks a little pink online, but it’s a creamy ivory — lovely with the soft white Arturo paper. I flat printed the return address on the back with my trusty Canon inkjet, and then I did something that I know you aren’t supposed to do: I flat printed the mailing addresses on the front too.

I know etiquette dictates that they should be hand-addressed, but I have teeny tiny handwriting that really doesn’t feel invitation-worthy. And honestly, I was worried that writing 74 addresses by hand would delay mailing by another couple of weeks, and I wanted none of that. I used our stationary typefaces, Burgues and Garamond Premier Pro, to set the names and addresses, and I was thrilled with the results. I’m actually considering doing the same thing for the invitations, although that’s undoubtedly an even bigger etiquette faux pas.

I desperately wanted to order custom stamps, but I couldn’t justify the cost — double the price of a regular stamp — when the USPS had a love stamp available that was irresistible in its own right.

Naturally, I dropped them in the mail before I actually had our wedsite up and running, so mailing was immediately followed by a 12-hour design/copywriting intensive to get that going before our guests tried to check it out. Yikes.

And on an unrelated note, I found this on my mom’s craft table when I got into town tonight:

Hmmm… Is someone getting ready for an Ali-inspired grid layout?