A Weekend of Tasks...

With the holiday weekend, I have much more spare time than I'm used to. So, I plan to take full advantage of it all and accomplish some of the smaller tasks that I've been ignoring.

What I need to do this weekend:

• Pick up and paint dowel rods and accessories for the girls flower wands
• Pick up, paint & assemble ribbon wands
• Unpack & organize all our new kitchen toys from the shower!
• Mail shower thank-yous (they were finished Wednesday, but I'm just now getting around to getting to the post office)
• Finalize invitation nonsense

This last one, the invitations, have obviously been killing me the last few days. But as always, I think I've found a solution that I'm happy with and won't break the bank.

Before I go into specifics, here's a visualization of the new invitation with my oh-so-lovely Photoshop skills.

Using the blue invitations I still have, I'll be layering green and white mats, the white containing the printing. The text will be black, and our names and the design will be blue to match the backing. I'll be returning the original RSVP cards I bought (luckily they're all still in the package!), and having the company custom cut and print the new ones to match the green of the mat. The printing on that will be black.

Despite all the new paper, and the double-sided and color printing, this will probably only run about $100 or so total. The company I've found is absolutely fantastic, and has promised me a 2-day turnaround on printing, and 3-day shipping! So, if all goes well, I'll still have the invites a week before I wanted to send them. Awesome!! :)

Even though these have ended up costing more than I originally planned on spending, when you add in the cost for the Gocco, this new route, including the professional calligraphy, will probably only end up costing an extra $50. Not too bad, right? When you take into consideration that the average invitation costs $3.50, and ours will end up right around $1.15, I don't feel so bad!

Knowing When to Throw the Towel In - THE FOLLOW UP

It's official -- we're definitely going the professional route on the calligraphy.

I am SO pleased with this decision. I know it's going to turn out absolutely fabulously, and don't regret the price tag!

This is the script we're going with:

Flourished Copperplate:



Our calligrapher, Katie, of Belles Lettres Designs, is fantastic at what she does, obviously. I think it's quite a gift to be able to do calligraphy, and have always admired those that could.

We've opted to go with the white ink on the blue envelope, even though it will cost more. There are still just a few aspects of my vision that I'm unwilling to relinquish.

I'll be dropping off the addresses tomorrow, and in lightning speed, they should be ready sometime next week!! Pictures will definitely follow! :)

PS - I was able to successfully sell my Gocco, so we're not incurring any extra costs here! Holla for the budget!

Knowing When to Throw the Towel In...

So I feel pretty bad about making such a fuss about the Gocco and our invitations only to have it all fail. Or as my coworker pointed out, failed a tiny bit.

I've come to the conclusion that the amount of time it would take for me to fix the problem, however, is not worth the stress and time involved. As an estimate, the invitations and reply cards would probably take 10+ hours because of the embossing involved, and the calligraphy, because it would have to be written twice to show up, would take upwards of 15 hours.

Determined to stay on budget, I've sought out other solutions. It's tough to give up on my vision, as I've always pictured this a certain way. Below is our invite, so you all can see what I'm talking about as I reference it... (some parts of blurry for privacy sake. You never know who's out there...Be assured, however, that we do have last names and addresses on the real invitation...)





(Designed by my trusty graphic design ninja)

I had always pictured the background paper as blue, the swirl and our names in white, and the other text in green. Since white ink won't print with a basic printer (hence why I purchased the Gocco originally), I'm forced to re-think the color scheme.

What I plan to do now is print the invitation on white card stock, and mat it on the original blue invitation panels we bought. The swirl will be printed in blue to match the backing paper. I haven't decided on text yet. I'm leaning towards keeping the text black and our names in blue, but then there is no green there, and it might look a bit jarring to have a green response card...?

I might do all the text green and our names in blue, along with the swirl. I think this would "fit" better, but I just think the text would look "better" in black.

Le sigh. Any opinions?

Now, since I've decided not to do calligraphy myself, but still have my heart set on it, I've been searching for a deal.

I've found a FABULOUS calligrapher who works out of Wheaton, and is willing to give me a 15% discount, due to the recession.

Isn't it dreamy??





She's also willing to do it all in white ink!

The problem comes that it's expensive. BUT, if I sell my Gocco (and I've already had 2 offers on it) and the favor boxes that I bought recklessly (again, already had an offer on those, too!), it won't cost me anything out of pocket. It's still $250, though :(

Another calligrapher based out of Evanston would be about $75 cheaper, but I just don't think her work is what I'm looking for. I figure if I'm going to spend this much money on something, I might as well get what I want.



So, in the end, the invitations aren't turning out to be what I originally pictured. BUT, I think I may end up with something just as fabulous, or even more so! Stay tuned!

Oh, and leave a comment on which colors I should use to print -- blue and black, or blue and green?