Save the Dates

This post is just a wee bit tardy. We got our Save the Date cards out in a timely (enough) fashion, but I somehow totally forgot to post about them. Probably because I was so exhausted when they were finished, that I no longer had any energy left to give them! Honestly though, I loved working on this project. It felt so great to see the full, completed stack of them sitting on my project desk.

For those of you who didn't realize, yes, the Save the Dates were handmade by yours truly. You're all aware that I come from a short line of cardmakers, so the concept is really not that far-fetched. In fact, many of you made it quite clear that anything less would be unacceptable! However, this is not your typical stamped card. For starters, I didn't use any stamps. Creating 80-someodd individual cards is quite a feat in general, and way too much work with stamps when you're a perfectionist.

Instead, I decided to type up all the details and print them out. The concept started with the dandelion image in the corner. I fell in love with the image when I found a pdf stationery kit of it for sale on Little Brown Pen's Etsy shop. I knew that I wanted to go with this specific size/shape, based on the StampinUP! envelopes that are super fun and perfectly sized for STDC info. So, I messaged Little Brown Pen and they were awesome enough to scoot the image around (for a small fee), so that I wouldn't have to waste oodles of paper.

So far, so good. Then I had to go searching for the right font, cuz Arial and Times New Roman just weren't going to cut it! I found the font family I used (Birmingham) as a free download on dafont.com. I was completely smitten by the way "San Luis Obispo" looked, and couldn't be swayed after seeing it. The process of getting the font from dafont.com into a useable format in Word was another story--thus enters Annemarie, friend and graphic designer at work. She was an incredible help through this process and I still owe her a very large beer!

Side note--yes, you read correctly above--I said Word, as in Microsoft Word. I know, it's not a design program, and the fact that I use it is totally laughable. However, I only dream of going back to school to study graphic design...to date, it's still a long shot! Thus, I own no cool software, and instead deal with the horrors that are Word. Thankfully, I have another rockin friend (and Bridal Brigade member), Julia, who is amazing in any computer application she's ever touched. That girl can manipulate a textbox like nothing you've ever seen! She helped us design Gina's STDC and I learned a few tips from that project that helped me with my own.

So, here I am with my cute, perfectly placed dandelion PDF, and my separate Word doc with all the text. I knew from my experience on Gina's that if I sent the cardstock through the printer twice, I was asking for disaster (crooked alignment that would make me CRAZY). So, enter Annemarie once again. She used her fancy schmancy programs to overlay the two documents into one, so that I could print them on our incredibly unimpressive and constantly irritating inkjet printer at home.

After that, it was pretty quick and easy. Cut, corner, file, and adhere a mis-matched array of adorable, coordinating patterned paper to the back. (I just couldn't help myself! It was all just sitting in my supplies looking fun, and irresistible, and already purchased!)

Long story short, I'm pretty stoked. Considering my lack of training, skill and worthwhile tools, I think they turned out pretty darned cute! And very us. And very our wedding. Yay for DIY wedding goodness!