Stinkerpants

The Table!

March 23, 2008 in Wedding (also on Weddingbee) • DIY Projects • Drawings • Favors

This post was originally featured on Weddingbee.  To see all of the comments, you'll have to check them out over there!

When people ask me what our color scheme is and I tell them, “lots of colors!” they usually give me the same doubtful look. Sometimes the look is followed by a statement like, “usually we recommend that you stick with one or two main colors…” I generally shrug and say, “yeah, that’s okay. I’m not doing that.”

On Friday, Momma Puff and I met with the coordinator through our caterer, Thomas John Events. Dana (our coordinator) is totally awesome. I love her. She has been on maternity leave for the last few months, so I hadn’t seen her since July. Obviously a lot has happened since then. Like, our entire wedding has (more or less) come together. In July, I had no color scheme, no theme, no nothing. So when Dana asked me what our color scheme was and I told her, she gave me that same look that everyone gives me. But when I started pulling out our favor boxes and our table markers, she started to get what I was going for (I think).

The point of our meeting was to figure out our tablescape and rentals. My goal was simple: as cheap as possible.

Originally, I wanted our napkins to look like this (from the knot real wedding of Aristea and Enzo):

But the table was looking kind of crowded with the favor boxes, napkins and place cards. We also had a hard time deciding on a napkin color. I was opposed to anything cream-colored–I thought it looked too bland. My mom thought that there would be too many ribbons with the favor box and the napkins as above. After working with our table, Dana came up with this genius idea:

As you can see, we went with an upscale linen (I blame Mama Puff’s bad influence for that one) and a napkin that matched the ribbon on this favor box. We’re actually going with six different napkin colors, and Dana has generously taken it upon herself to make sure that all the napkins alternate in colors and look totally fantastic on the day of.

Here are our other colors:

The remaining napkin colors with boxes:

I am so excited!! The whole thing is starting to come together! By the end of it, Dana totally got excited. I said, “you gave me a funny look when I told you our color scheme was ‘lots of colors.’” She said, “that’s because it’s never really been done before!” It was really exciting to have her so enthusiastic about the final look. Whoohooo! Things are coming together!

I Love Me a Sammich.

March 13, 2008 in Wedding (also on Weddingbee) • DIY Projects

This post was originally featured on Weddingbee.  To see all of the comments, you'll have to check them out over there!

When I first started planning this wedding, I knew one thing for sure about our tables–they would have names, not numbers. Originally, I really loved the idea of having each table named after a neighborhood in San Francisco. Then I realized (after being on the knot for like, 3 seconds) that this idea isn’t exactly original. I also really liked the idea of having photos of our pets, or postcards from places we’d visited. When I came up with the idea to do a drawing for each table, I was then forced to figure out how the heck to display them. I went through many different ideas (some of them pictured below), but was really satisfied with myself when I came up with my final idea. That’s how I knew it was the final idea.

When I told my manager at Paper Source what my plans were, she told me I was insane. I guess she thought they’d be a lot of work. I’ll admit, these were one of my more involved projects. But they really weren’t that bad! Probably about 4 or 5 episodes of Law and Order. So without further adieu, here they are (please excuse the laundry basket–I had other things going on, haha):

There’s 15 of those suckers, darlings (two extra, just in case we DO end up with 150 guests–I don’t want to be making more of these two weeks before the wedding). They’re multi-colored sandwich boards made with bookboard, text weight paper and bookcloth (that’s the light blue stuff on the top). The bottom parts are held together with ribbon to keep them from falling flat. They obviously don’t have the drawings on them yet, but I’m going to hold off on those for awhile. I wanted to show you guys what I’d done, because this project will probably look like this for a few months to come. :)

Before I settled on the sandwich board idea, I rejected several FAR easier ideas. They included (but were not limited to):

1) These table tents from Paper Source, which were rejected for not being colorful enough:

2) The drawings, printed on plain cardstock and presented in something like this (I’m a schmuck, I don’t remember where I got this!):

These were rejected because I want the drawings to be big enough to see, and I was afraid they’d fall over if they were any bigger than this little card shown here.

3) These awesome 3-sided lantern things, from knottie abattyref:

These were rejected because I didn’t know what else to put on them! I’m not doing a menu. Also, I was concerned that they would be too bulky on the tables. In reality, I think my sandwich boards will be pretty bulky themselves. Oh well. The flowers will have to move over to make room for them, I guess. ;)

Anybody else got some creative table number ideas?

STINKERPANTS GONE WILD!

March 8, 2008 in Wedding (also on Weddingbee) • DIY Projects • Favors

This post was originally featured on Weddingbee.  To see all of the comments, you'll have to check them out over there!

WHOOHOOO!!!!!

Oh yes, I just had the BEST fun thus far in the wedding planning. I just bought out Rite Aid’s entire supply of mini eggs. What a rush!!

This is my cart, approaching the supply of mini eggs:

Me, clearly high from the wonderful, sugary fumes:

The supply in the back of my car (note how I took the boxes, too!!):

Oh lord, the joy, I kid you not. The total, unadulterated joy.

I made friends with the lady at Rite Aid the other day, when I bought my initial 9 pounds. At first she thought I was nuts, but when I explained what I was doing, she was very helpful. She told me that the mini eggs would not be on sale for long. She also told me that they would likely NOT be getting more in. Which means I must now take a tour of bay area Rite Aids. I am absolutely LOVING this task, I am not going to lie.

34 pounds down, 26 pounds to go. WHOOHOOO!!!!

My first DIY project: Photo Reminder Cards

March 6, 2008 in Wedding (also on Weddingbee) • Celebrating Memories • DIY Projects • Drawings • Stationery

This post was originally featured on Weddingbee.  To see all of the comments, you'll have to check them out over there!

After our engagement, the first thing I did was set up our website and a flickr photo page so that our friends and family could upload their pictures from the proposal. I sent out thank you cards to the people who attended and included a link to the flickr photo page, hoping people would use the password I provided and upload their stuff. Sadly, I didn’t get any takers. Not to be discouraged, I kept the flickr page and decided to create cards to put on people’s plates at the reception with instructions on how to upload their photos. I am really hoping it works! Here are the cards I made:

I will have these babies printed as postcards through Vistaprint, but I’m waiting until about a month and a half before the wedding–I’m paranoid that Yahoo! will change their uploading methods and then my instructions (which will be printed on the back) will be useless.

I feel like a super big jerk, though, because I got my inspiration from a girl on the knot, but I cannot for the life of me remember what her bio name was! Please, someone remind me and I will post it. This was her card:

For those of you who are looking to do something similar, here’s the text I wrote on the back, with the upload instructions:

“To Upload Your Photos:

1. Go to http://www.flickr.com (don’t forget, there’s no “e” in flickr!). Click “Sign In” on the top right.
2. For Yahoo! ID, enter “USERNAME” and the password is “PASSWORD”
3, Click “Upload Photos” at the top of the right column.
4. Click “Choose Photos” and browse your computer for your images. Upload as many as you are willing by clicking the “Add More” link.
5. Click the “Upload Photos” button. You can describe the photos if you’d like to, but if you don’t have time, don’t worry about it!

Thank you!

To check out everyone else’s photos from the proposal, rehearsal and wedding, visit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/USERNAME”

Sometimes it can take awhile to get your pro photos–hopefully this will make the wait a little easier!

My favorite DIY products

March 3, 2008 in Wedding (also on Weddingbee) • DIY Projects • My Tips

This post was originally featured on Weddingbee.  To see all of the comments, you'll have to check them out over there!

How could I give advice about DIY projects without mentioning my favorite DIY products? Obviously, I couldn’t–I’m too obsessed. I’ve been a crafter for as long as I can remember, and since I’ve been working at Paper Source, I’ve learned even more about different products.

Here are my favorites:

image from Fiskars.com

Paper Trimmer. This has been my favorite product for a long time. I actually have two–one big one and one small one. I recommend the rotary cutter over the guillotine–a lot of the time, paper slips on the guillotine and doesn’t give you a straight cut. In addition, the bottom of the paper often doesn’t get a clean cut with a guillotine. You can either go cheap or heavy duty (I consider the one pictured above heavy duty). Either one works great, but the heavy duty ones can cut more paper and have more rulers, which can be useful.

image from paper-source.com

Teflon Bone Folder. I had never heard of a bone folder before working at Paper Source, I’ll admit it. But if you need to do a lot of folding (like if you’re making invitations or envelopes), this thing is indispensable. Basically you rub it along a fold and it makes a really nice, clean crease. You can also use it to jam things into small spaces (for example, I once made a box and used it for that purpose). I recommend teflon over the recycled bone for two reasons:
1) the recycled bone can leave a shiny residue behind (this is calcium from the bone), whereas the teflon does not.
2) if you drop the recycled bone, it can break or chip.
The teflon bone folder is more expensive, but it’s worth it.

image from paper-source.com

Zots. At first, I was a lover of Super Tape. That stuff will stick anything together, I swear. However, it also took off a layer of skin every time I tried to use it. That’s when I discovered Zots. These suckers are just as sticky as Super Tape, but they’re much more user friendly. Zots are little adhesive dots, which come on a roll of parchment paper-like stuff. If you rip off the parchment paper in little pieces, you can stick your zot directly from the parchment paper onto your surface, so you never have to touch the actual adhesive. After using about 800 of them, you’ll appreciate that. :)

image from walgreens.com

Glue Dots Removable Adhesive Dots. Why Zots doesn’t make a removable version, I do not know. However, these things are GREAT for attaching things you don’t want to be stuck together forever. For example, I used them to attach my RSVP postcards to my invitations. They don’t leave any residue behind. Believe it or not, I found these at Walgreens, of all places.

A metal ruler and an x-acto knife. There are no pictures of these because you can buy any brand you like–I have no preference. These are great for cutting book board or long pieces of paper that won’t fit in your paper trimmer. Apply firm pressure to the ruler and use it as a guide for your x-acto to get a very nice, clean cut. A tip: if you get the kind of metal ruler that has cork on the bottom, flip it over so the cork is facing up before you use it as a guide to cut with your x-acto knife. Otherwise, your x-acto can slip into the space between the cork and your paper, and you won’t get a clean cut.

So those are my top 5 (well, 6, if you want to get technical) DIY products. Have I missed anything? What are your favorites?