stinkerpants design

In my last post, I mentioned that I’d been working on something really big since mid-November, and it was taking a lot of my time and energy.  That was a little bit of a lie.  The truth is, I’ve been working on SEVERAL things, and I actually have a lot of cool surprises for you guys for 2010.

However.

The project I was referencing in that post is definitely the biggest, and I’m going to tell you about it today.

How about I give you some clues, first?  Okay, here’s the first one:

I didn’t want to tell you about this project until I was pretty darn sure it was going to happen.

Yeah, that was a lame hint.  How about another one?

This project affects two cats, a dog, five chickens, and a lot of people.

Maybe you might be feeling a little bit closer to knowing what’s going on, but just in case…

This project has involved me sitting around on the couch, watching a lot of Law & Order: SVU on Netflix streaming while trying not to puke.  In case you were wondering, yes, I do sometimes watch TV while drawing.  However, I don’t usually do it from the couch, and my job definitely doesn’t make me want to puke.

Got it yet?

No?

Okay, how about THIS one?

hahahahahaha.  That one was pretty clear.

Yep, that’s my news: Y and I are having a baby!!!  We found out in mid-December when I was five and a half weeks along, and we were both surprised and very happy.  This was definitely in the plans for 2010, but we were very lucky to have it happen in 2009 instead.

So here are the details:

• I am now 11 weeks pregnant, and Little Stinker is due August 16th.
• We have had two ultrasounds, and the last one was really cool: the baby was actually moving around in there quite a bit, and we got to hear the heartbeat!
• This baby has knocked me on my keister.  I didn’t have enough energy to tweet (thanks to everyone who asked where the heck I was, by the way!), let alone blog, which is why I seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth.  Thank goodness the holidays are a slow season for business-related projects!  I’m starting to get my energy back, though the 24/7 nausea is still around.  And that, combined with the fact that I don’t have to hide this news anymore, means I’ll be around again.  :)
• We don’t know the sex, but we definitely want to find out.  The appointment for this is in late March.  We don’t particularly care whether it’s a boy or a girl, but we can’t wait to find out.
• The baby will be a Leo born in the year of the Tiger.  Apparently this is very good news because the baby will get along with both Y and I.  As my friend Lisa said, it will be a Liger.  And really, that’s just awesome.
• Our parents are very, very excited.
• I will be taking a maternity leave, but I haven’t quite got the details of that worked out yet.  If you have a project you’re thinking of starting after August, though, you might want to contact me sooner rather than later!

I think that’s it!  I’m really, really excited to make a lot of cool things for this kid!  Whoohoo!!

Hey everybody!  I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and aren’t having TOO hard a time adjusting to reality again!

I am really excited about a big ‘ole project I’ve been working on since mid-November.  It’s taking a LOT of time and energy, but I think it will be worth it, and I think you guys will be really excited to see what it is, too (I hope, at least!). I should be able to reveal what’s going on in a couple of weeks (I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag too soon!), so sit tight.

I actually have a lot of cool things planned for 2010.  I can’t wait to share everything with you guys when plans get more settled.  In the meantime, how about a fun project from last year?

When I was contacted by W & M last year, I immediately loved them.  W’s got one heck of a sense of humor, and both of their personalities immediately jumped out of their emails.  I wanted to be their BFFs (but I’ll settle for Facebook pals, hahaha).

W & M wanted to play off the theme “Opposites Attract” for their Save the Dates.  Although they met when they bought identical townhomes, their personalities and interests are totally different.  The theme made for a really fun project and a super cute Save the Date.

I drew W & M in front of their individual townhomes  with objects that describe their interests on either side.  And, as you can see, W’s sporting his motorcycle leathers (and I love M’s dress, don’t you?!).

W is a total adrenaline junkie.  He loves motorcycles and sports of any kind.

M on the other hand, is more my speed.  She’s into reading, shopping and an awesome collection of high-heeled shoes.

The back of their card features their cats, which are hilarious.  One is totally tiny, and the other is gargantuan and sleeps in really strange positions!  Super cute.

I love drawing custom illustrations for people with big personalities.  It makes brainstorming for the right idea really fun, and the end product is always super unique.

I don’t know about you, but the month or so leading up to The Holidays seems to go at WARP SPEED.  I always think, “I still have time to get a gift,” and then before I know it, it’s too late to order something online.  This is especially true for people like my husband and my father, who are notoriously hard to buy for because they seem to have everything.

An awesome gift for people who are hard to buy for is a family portrait. This year, I worked on several family portraits as holiday gifts, including this super cute one of the P Family:

The daughters split the cost of the family portrait as a gift for their parents.  What a thoughtful idea!  I’m sure their parents will love it (and I can’t wait to hear their reaction!).

It’s too late to have an actual portrait finished by the holidays, because the design and printing process can take up to six weeks.  But it’s definitely NOT too late for a family portrait gift certificate!  I will work directly with your friend or family member to create a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork of their entire family (or of anything they want, actually).

The Family Portrait gift certificate is $300 and covers both the cost of the drawing and printing in any size they want on high quality art paper or canvas.

Each gift certificate is printed on thick, beautiful art paper and presented in a fun, colorful envelope.  I’ll send the gift certificate to you, or directly to the recipient.  And for those of you who are SUPER late?  I can send you a full resolution image of the gift certificate to be printed out on your home printer and presented to your loved one moments later. I’m Jewish, so feel free to contact me as late as Christmas morning–I’ll have the image to you in no time.  ;)

See?  Last minute gifts can still be thoughtful!

While every season has delicious recipes, I have to admit: my favorite time of year (food-wise, at least) is Winter.  Why?  Because of soup, which is best when it is cold as heck outside.

This time last year I shared my favorite Carrot Soup recipe. It’s still one of my staples, soup-wise, but I’ve added a couple more to my Fall/Winter arsenal. And because they bring me so much joy, I’m going to share the recipes with you, right here, right now: Potato Corn Leek Soup, Carrot Soup and Curried Cauliflower Soup.  I’m about to devour a bowl of Potato Leek Soup as we speak, actually.

Those of you with CSA boxes will be happy with these recipes, too, because they utilize delicious in-season veggies like cauliflower and leeks, that you might not know what to do with.

Potato Corn Leek Soup

My current favorite is the Potato Leek Soup.  This recipe was served at my friend Karen’s birthday a couple of years ago, and I’ve loved it ever since.  The original recipe is from Cooking Light.

image from here

Ingredients

• 2  tablespoons  butter
• 1  tablespoon  olive oil
• 1 1/2  cups  coarsely chopped leek (about 1 large)
• 1/2  cup  finely chopped celery
• 1/2  cup  finely chopped red bell pepper
• 2  cups  whole milk*
• 3  tablespoons  all-purpose flour
• 3  cups  fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
• 2  cups  fresh corn kernels (about 4 ears)
• 2  pounds  cubed peeled Yukon gold or red potato
• 1  teaspoon  salt
• 1/4  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4  cup  finely chopped fresh parsley
• 3  tablespoons  chopped fresh chives

Preparation
Heat butter and oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat. Add leek, celery, and bell pepper; cook 4 minutes or until vegetables are tender, stirring frequently. Combine milk and flour in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. Slowly add milk mixture to pan, stirring constantly. Stir in broth, corn, potato, salt, and freshly ground black pepper; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes or until potato is tender. Stir in parsley and chives.

*In my kitchen, I almost exclusively substitute 2% milk for whole milk and heavy cream.  I personally don’t think cream or whole milk is worth the added fat and calories.  This soup is fantabulous with regular milk.

Carrot Soup

Last year’s favorite (and still obviously in the top 3) is my Carrot Soup recipe. The original recipe is from Moosewood Restaurant.

image from here

Ingredients

• 2 pounds peeled or scrubbed, chopped carrots
• 4 cups stock
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 medium potato, chopped
• 3-4 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1-2 small cloves crushed garlic
• 1/3 cup chopped cashews
• 2 pinches of nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon dried mint
• dash of cinnamon
• 1 cup milk

Preparation
Place carrots, stock, salt and potato into a medium sized soup pot and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer it for 12-15 minutes. Let it cool to room temp.

Saute the onion, garlic and nuts in the butter until the onions are clear. You can sprinkle in a little salt to help draw the moisture out of the onions. Towards the end of cooking, stir in the nutmeg, mint and cinnamon.

Use an immersion blender to puree. Whisk in milk. Garnish with toasted nuts, some toasted bread crumbs, grated parmesan, or eat just as it is.

Curried Cauliflower Soup

Last year we received a giant head of cauliflower in our CSA box, and I felt totally stumped.  My dad always hated Cauliflower, and growing up I decided I hated it too, despite never having actually tasted it (I trusted my dad, what can I say?).  When I used it to create this Curried Cauliflower Soup, I was blown away.  Apparently I don’t hate cauliflower after all. The original recipe is from Vegetarian Times.

image from here

Ingredients

• 2 Tbs. olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped (1 cup)
• 1 medium tart apple, such as Granny Smith, peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped (1 cup)
• 1 Tbs. curry powder
• 1 clove garlic, sliced (1 tsp.)
• 1 large head cauliflower, chopped into 1-inch pieces (6 cups)
• 4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
• 1 tsp. honey or agave nectar
• 1 tsp. rice wine vinegar

Preparation
1. Heat oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion, and sauté 5 to 7 minutes, or until soft and golden. Stir in apple, curry powder, and garlic, and cook 2 minutes more, or until curry powder turns deep yellow.
2. Add cauliflower and vegetable broth, and bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 20 minutes. Cool 20 minutes, then blend in food processor or blender until smooth. Stir in honey and vinegar, and season with salt, if desired.

I hope you guys love these recipes as much as I do!  And please, if you have your own favorite soup recipes, share in the comments!!

Back in August, I shared a little snippet of a drawing I was working on and asked if anyone could identify what it was based off of.  Here’s the finished product!

J & C contacted me and asked if I could base a save the date drawing off of the famous American Gothic painting by Grant Wood.  They had a few extra details to add: for example, they wanted to include their awesome kitties, and they wanted to change their outfits to be more personalized.

I love how it turned out!  Even the kitties are holding on to the pitchfork!

Coming to terms with Christmas has been one of the hardest issues I’ve had to face in my marriage.  I’m not even remotely kidding.

I am Jewish, and I guess I figured I would marry someone Jewish; Christmas isn’t part of my past, and I never thought it would be part of my future.  Growing up, I always felt left out during the holiday season; one of the great tragedies of my childhood was being forced to go Christmas caroling with my girl scout troop.  What the heck is wrong with “I Have a Little Dreidel,” I ask you?!  Don’t tell me that song sucks compared to Jingle Bells.  Everyone wants a dreidel made out of clay, dammit.

As I got older, my feelings of sadness turned into resentment; I still don’t understand why Christmas music starts in November and Target starts decorating in green and red starting in September.  And after working at Paper Source and being forced to listen to Christmas music 10 hours a day for an entire month, my resentment turned into full-blown hostility.

Y, on the other hand, loves Christmas.  Every year, he hosts a “Cousin Christmas” (now Chrismukkah, because of me) for all of his cousins, which involves gift exchanges, a white elephant exchange, and lots of food.  He loves everything about the season: everything from stocking holders to santa hats for the cats.

Our first holiday together included such hits as:

• Sara feels like a traitor as she hangs a Santa ornament on a Christmas tree
• Sara insists on getting a BLUE tree skirt for said tree
• Sara tries her hardest to “get on board” with Christmas by making stockings out of felt, then feels dejected when she looks around her own house and sees stockings, a tree, and a lot of red & green.
• Sara is secretly thrilled when her parents send a box full of gifts wrapped in Chanukkah paper, along with sugar cookies shaped like Stars of David.

But my quiet bitterness was interrupted by Y, who seemed to totally understand that celebrating Christmas (and not complaining incessantly) was really hard for me.  And to this day, his gift of a gorgeous menorah is one of the most meaningful things he has ever done for me.

We’ve been together for five years, and each year I’ve tried to make a bit more effort to enjoy Christmas–both by decorating the house and trying to squelch my inner hostility.  Last year, I made a “Happy Chrismukkah” sign and a giant sparkly “OY.” I gave Y a personal ornament for the tree, and tried my absolutely hardest not to get all Grinchy on him.  This year, my mom and I erected the tree and set out the decorations the day after Thanksgiving.  I still have mixed feelings, but I try my hardest not to show them.

Yesterday I read a post over at Not Quite Betty Crocker and started thinking about holiday traditions.  Marisa talked a bit about her own Christmas traditions growing up, and her apprehension about spending the holidays with her husband’s family instead of her own.

My family doesn’t have too much in the way of holiday traditions, mostly because Chanukkah isn’t an important holiday for Jewish people.  I do have some favorite memories of the holiday season though:

• For a few years, we had a nice dinner with friends on the first night of Chanukkah, complete with gelt and dreidels.
• Going to a movie on Christmas Day.  When we first started doing this, the theaters were empty because everyone was opening their gifts.  As I got older, though, (enter bitterness) the selfish people who had a great time opening their presents would all RUSH to the movie theater, making sure it was hard for us Jews to get a seat and enjoy the only good thing about Christmas.
• Lighting the menorah with my parents and our dogs.  Allie, one of our dogs, would howl to sing along.
• My mom and I each buying a new ornament for our Chanukkah bush, then setting it up together

I am really happy that I have those memories, and really, it’s kind of sad that Chanukkah’s not a very big deal.  My favorite holiday is always Passover: that is the holiday that means “family” to me.

But now I’m thinking about our future holidays.  My friend Marianne absolutely adores this time of year, and I think it has a lot to do with her memories of family traditions.  Last year, Jen suggested that I invent some of our own traditions–and now I’m taking her advice.

I am now making it my personal mission to make December our own month of Chrismukkah.  Here is how I’m going to do it (otherwise known as The New Stinkerpants Chrismukkah Traditions):

• Invent Santaberg.  He is a Jewish Santa.  I don’t know what he looks like, but I think he will definitely be very fat, have a big white beard (and possibly Payote) and a yarmulke.
• Have Cousin Chrismukkah every year with Yorkey’s cousins.
• Have a Chanukkah open house on the first night of Chanukkah every year.  Invite all of our friends and family over to enjoy appetizers and cookies and karaoke (Y’s parents love karaoke).  Every night of Chanukkah, have something special for dinner–maybe our future kids will get to choose their favorite dishes so everyone has something to look forward to.
• For Christmas Eve, everyone gets a new pair of pajamas and a new pair of socks.  If we can find some that are not super Christmassy, I will not be bitter (I swear).  Watch a movie.
• For Christmas Day, open stockings and gifts, then have a big brunch.  Put out a puzzle to work on and hang out.  Maybe decorate a gingerbread house.
• Have the entire family come over–aunts, uncles, cousins, kids, etc–for Christmas dinner.

These are my ideas for new Chrismukkah traditions, which I think will make me excited about this season instead of inexplicably hostile.

What are your family traditions for this time of year?

If any of you are readers of So You’re Engayged, you may have seen my guest post yesterday about Wedding Invitation Wording.  A lot of the brides and grooms who come to me for their illustrated wedding invitations already have their invitation wording worked out, which is fabulous.  But if you don’t, you might find some of these tips helpful.

Wording for wedding invitations can be a laborious process of answering questions like, “who is paying for this wedding?” and “do we include my ex-step-dad?”  At the end of the day, most of your guests aren’t even going to notice it; in reality, the wording for wedding invitations tends to matter most to people in your immediate family (read: the people who think their names should be on the invitation and may be offended if they’re not).  As you will soon find out (if you haven’t already) weddings are usually end up being about family, so sometimes it’s best to err on the side of honoring your close family members, rather than doing what’s most simple (just because you don’t feel like dealing with it).

If you’re a non-traditional couple, things might be a bit easier for you because you’re not concerned with formalities (ie, whose name goes first, whether you write “two thousand twelve” or “two thousand and twelve”).  In case you’re curious, you can find a full list of the “correct” etiquette for wedding invitation wording from Martha Stewart.

Meanwhile, I’ll share with you guys some of the choices my previous clients have used, and a few of my other favorites:

Short and Sweet:

Together with their parents
The Couple
invite you to celebrate their wedding
Date, Time
Location
Dinner and Dancing to Follow

or

The Couple
invite you to share in their love
as they celebrate their marriage
on Date at Time
at Location
located at Address
Reception to follow

or

The Couple
joyfully request the pleasure of your company
at their wedding celebration
Date, Time
at Location
Address
Dinner and Dancing to Follow

A little bit more involved:

Because your love and friendship
have helped us become who we are
we invite you to share in our joy
with a celebration of love and commitment
Please join
The Couple
Date, Time
Location
Address
Reception immediately following

And for something extra cute and personal, list some of your favorite things to do together:

They have been
scrabble opponents and biking buddies
cat parents and business partners
but most of all they have been best friends.
Please join
The Couple
as they come together in marriage
Date, Time
at Location
Address
Dinner and Dancing to Follow

If you’re willing to think outside of the box, you can come up with all sorts of fun and non-cheesy ideas. For a few more ideas, check out:

• the Knot
• My Personal Artist (Michelle is my buddy on Twitter!)
• About.com
• Offbeat Bride

If you would like to include your family members (especially if your family is large or complicated), you might check out this page, which has pretty much every combination you can think of.

Did any of you create wedding invitation wording that you truly loved, or have you come across something creative?  Of so, I’d love it if you would share in the comments!

Hi Everybody!  I hope you guys had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

This year we hosted Thanksgiving, which was our first major family event.  I have to say, it was a big success!!  I created a heavy-duty Google Doc that kept us super organized (including timing for when dishes went in the oven, etc), and all of our dishes were served warm and tasty.

I made most of the side dishes, and Y was responsible for the mashed potatoes and the turkey.  If you follow me on Twitter, you might already know that we have a turkey fryer, which we tested a few weeks ago.  It was a little crispy the last time, but this time it was totally perfect.

Y spent a pretty penny on a Heritage Turkey from Marin Sun Farms.  I wasn’t morally opposed to eating him because he had such a wonderful life, so I tasted a little bit of turkey–and I have to say, it was delicious.

And of course, with the responsibility of hosting comes the responsibility of decorating.  I drew us a little turkey to be our mascot.  He held up a sign to identify each of the dishes:

I think my turkey’s name is Fred–and as you can see, he is also a Heritage Turkey.

Below is a photo of the Chestnut and Apple Stuffing I made (I changed the recipe a bit so it was vegetarian).  I also made a Vegetarian Strudel, Green Bean & Artichoke Casserole and pumpkin and vanilla ice cream sandwiches (I just put ice cream and pumpkin pie filling between two graham crackers).  Everyone said things were delicious!  I am proud of us.  :)

In addition to our turkey mascot, I decorated with orchids and decorative gourds:

and I used chalkboard paint on glasses I bought at World Market to create useful place cards:

I have to say, it really was an awesome Thanksgiving, and we had a great time hosting it for our seven guests (from both my side and Y’s!).  I wouldn’t mind hosting it next year, too!

How was your Thanksgiving?  Are you guys ready for Chrismukkah/Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/The Holidays?

Last week I wrote a post about how raising chickens isn’t as easy as we thought it would be. In the comments, a few of you asked if I could talk about how much it costs to raise chickens. In my experience, you can make choices that make it either relatively cheap, or really expensive; I’ll talk about all these options.

Just to get organized, I’ll go over the few main expenses of raising backyard chickens first, and then I’ll expand on them in a moment:

1. The chicken coop and accessories: This is the home where your chickens will live. It needs to provide a safe place for them to stay at night, and a comfortable place to lay their eggs. You will also need a container for their food and a container for their water.
2. Food: Chickens eat a lot. They eat chicken feed and pretty much any scraps you give them.
3. Chickens: Of course, you need to buy some chickens. Otherwise the other stuff is pretty pointless.

Okay, now let’s talk a little bit more about our options.

The Chicken Coop

When we got our first two chickens, Y and I bought a pre-made coop from a local feed store. At the time, we thought we’d only have two chickens, so it was a good size. We also thought it was a good deal. As it turns out, this was an expensive route to take. Chickens need a coop and an enclosed area on the ground, so they can peck at the ground and not get picked off by an eagle. This coop and run are sold separately. Total, they came to about $350-$400 with tax, and we only had enough room for 2 chickens.

After we realized that we wanted more than 2 chickens, Y decided to build a new coop himself (I just realized that I never posted about this specifically, and I really should!). This new coop is really high quality, big enough for six chickens, and materials cost about $200-250.

Some people aren’t as handy as Y is, or don’t feel like investing the time. If you buy your own coop, you’re looking at probably $400 (but you might luck out if you look on Craigslist, as the woman who bought our first coop did!). As backyard chickenry gets more and more hip, you’ll find a lot of options for pre-made coops. For example, at around $500, I think the Eglu (pictured below, photo source here) is really cool, but you’ll probably want more than 2 chickens, so you’re looking at the big one, which is more like $1000 with the run.

If you’re thinking about going the DIY route (or you’re just interested in learning about the different types of coops), Backyard Chickens is a great resource for the different types of coops, and they have a lot of examples of homemade coops. People are pretty creative!

As for the accessories–that’s another one-time investment. I’d recommend getting the largest food containers you can so you don’t have to refill it all the time, and figure out how to hang them–otherwise you end up with a lot of chicken crap in the food, which is totally nasty. We bought large metal water and food feeders at the feed store, which probably cost about $50 total. The photo below is Tulip with the water feeder.

Another expense we have is bark chips. While at the Sunset Festival this summer, I checked out Sunset’s chicken coop and was very impressed. They used bark chips on the ground (in fact, they just recently wrote a post about their coop flooring), and it cut down on the smell and the need to clean the ground every week (the coop itself still needs to be cleaned, though). I came home and told Y, and we recently got a bunch of bark nuggets (around $50) to cover the ground. The results have been miraculous. The poop falls between the chips, and it doesn’t smell at all. I’d even venture to say that it smells good. So if you aren’t planning on getting the type of coop that you can move all around the yard (a tractor coop), I highly recommend the bark.

The Food

Chicken feed is pretty cheap. We feed all organic pellets, which we get from a local feed store. We get a big 50 pound bag for $35, and it usually lasts about 6-8 weeks (for 5-6 chickens). You’ll also need oyster shells as a calcium supplement, which keeps the eggshells thick. They hardly eat any of these, and they’re only 55¢ per pound.

Another cool thing about chickens is that they love scraps and will eat almost anything; here’s a list of all the things a chicken can and cannot eat. Chickens eating spaghetti? Pretty hilarious.

The Chickens

Chickens vary in price. You can get them as chicks and pay about $2 per chick, but then you have to go through the trouble (and heartbreak) of raising them. There are also upfront costs for that, like heat lamps, etc. We found grown chickens in our area on Craigslist, and paid about $25/chicken. One thing to note: chickens don’t start laying until they’re about 6-7 months old, and after a certain age, they lay less. So if you’re buying a “used” chicken, do your research.

The fun part about choosing your own chickens (as opposed to getting a kit with chickens included) is that you can choose what breeds you get. And different breeds of chicken lay different colored eggs. We get white eggs, light brown eggs, dark brown eggs with spots, and olive green eggs. It’s really cool.

In Conclusion

As you can see, the cost depends a lot on how much you choose to spend. How much are you willing to do yourself? We’ve spent more than we probably should have because we bought a crappy coop and didn’t plan ahead (although, we’ve been able to recoup (haha) some of our costs by selling stuff on Craigslist, so it’s not a total loss.

All in all, I’d say that unless you are super frugal and eat a lot of eggs, I wouldn’t do this to save money on eggs (at least not initially). We get about 2 dozen or so eggs per week for five chickens (when they’re all laying). However, for us it’s worth it not to support egg farms, and for the fun of it. It is really cool to have all these different colored eggs, and as I’ve said before: chickens are awesome!

This post should actually be titled, “Why I don’t recommend postcard Save the Dates, but postcard RSVPs are okay.”  But that was too long (haha).

When I was planning my own wedding, one of my first projects was creating our Save the Dates.   At the time, Save the Date magnets and postcards were super hip.  I didn’t want to spend a ton of money on magnets, so I decided on postcards.  I slaved over the drawing for the postcard, and when I sent them out, I expected at least some comments from our friends and family.

Not a peep, I kid you not.

Rather than admit to myself that my awesome Save the Dates weren’t as cool as I thought they were, I decided to think logically rather than emotionally.  The following are my excuses for the radio silence (which have since been substantiated by the not-so-scientific experiments of mailing myself postcards).

Reasons why Save the Date postcards are a bad idea

• Postcards are easily missed. In the sea of junk mail people receive, they can get lost in the shuffle or accidentally slip into a Penny Saver and get sent straight to the recycling bin.
• Postcards can get absolutely mangled in the mail.  My not-so-scientific experiments involved sending myself 10 postcards.  All of them were scuffed up and torn, and sometimes the postmark was on the wrong side of the postcard, totally smeared and obscuring the image.
• Allegedly, postcards are lost more often than regular envelopes.  I’m not sure if I believe this (we used postcard RSVPs, too, and I received every single one that was sent).  However, other stationers swear by this statement, so I thought it was worth including.
• Save the Dates in envelopes are more formal than postcards.  This may or may not matter to you.
• Getting something in a pretty envelope is just more exciting! I love getting a colorful envelope in the mail.  And with a boatload of awesome envelope colors to choose from with Stinkerpants, your envelope will grab your guests’ attention and will not be boring.
• Postcards will only save you $50 bucks, on average. One of the main arguments for sending postcards instead of cards in envelopes is cost savings.  But think of it this way: if you send 100 postcard Save the Dates, you’ll save $35 on classy A6 envelopes and $16 on postage (because postcards are cheaper to mail than regular envelopes).  That’s $51.  And at the end of the day, what’s $51?  After you’ve spent so much time and money creating the Save the Dates themselves, it would be a shame to have them ruined because of $51.

Those are some pretty good arguments against postcard Save the Dates, don’t you think?

Make no mistake, however: I am not opposed to postcards in and of themselves.  Most of the reasons above relate to your guests’ experience of receiving the postcards.  After all, this Save the Date is the first impression they’ll have of your event, and you want it to be a good one.

I have a completely different take on postcard RSVPs, which were also gaining in popularity around the time of my wedding.

Reasons why it’s totally okay to send postcard RSVPs

• When your guests see the postcards, they’re in perfect condition.  And once they get to you, it doesn’t really matter if they’re mangled.  Hopefully you’ve kept a few in perfect condition for your scrapbook.
• They might fit with your invitation design better. Our wedding invitations were tri-fold invitations, and it made more sense to include a postcard, rather than an RSVP in an envelope.  I was able to use a removable glue dot to stick the RSVP to the paper, which worked very well.
• You’re expecting them, so you’re less likely to miss them.  If you’re waiting to receive your RSVPs, you’re going to check inside that Penny Saver to make sure none of them are stuck in there.
• Postcards will save you $50 bucks, on average. Okay, so it’s only $48.50 per 100 RSVPs (for A2 size envelopes and postage), but heck: if it doesn’t matter what they look like when they get to you, why not?

And there you have it: Stinkerpants’ basic list of pros and cons of postcards as both Save the Dates and RSVPs.  As a stationer and semi-newlywed, I’ve had experience both personally and with my clients.  Hope it was helpful!  If you have anything to add below, feel free!