overload

It is hard to believe it is already Thursday and a new weekend is staring me in the face. I am still recovering from last weekend’s bender.

Not that kind of bender unfortunately.

It was a full-on jam-packed weekend starting with a rager of a baby shower. Balloons hanging from the rafters. Diaper cakes. Banners. Cookies. Games. Music. Like I said, a real rager!

Although baby showers are not in my wedding jurisdiction, I am really spending a lot of time at them. I think I am almost ready to take on the DIY diaper cake. From what I am told, you just need a ton of diapers and rubber bands. Roll ‘em up, group ‘em together and hide all of your mechanics with some ribbon. I think I can handle it.

I aspire to make one this stunning...

The shower was a display shower as all the trendy ones are these days. It makes sense for baby showers, right? Either the boxes are so big that wrapping them is a total waste of paper or the little outfits and things are so cute that you just want them out on display for everyone to peruse. Plus, everybody wants to be green. This particular display shower looked like Christmas for the kid’s first 3 years. They cleaned up!

The theme was “Celebrate the Peanut”. The whole peanut thing is picking up in the baby shower world. It ran full swing in every detail. I provided the centerpieces which were a traditional vase arrangement of cut flowers in the shower’s color scheme. But look closer. I told you peanuts were everywhere so I subtly incorporated actual shelled peanuts into the arrangements. Hopefully people noticed them and you can find them in this picture. I ate some too while arranging.  Maybe next time I will make arrangements full of chocolate...

Having not seen most of my relatives since Christmas, we kept the momentum going. I spent the majority of the weekend with various family members. We covered everything from who’s walking to who walked out and absurd Facebook statuses - one of our favorite topics. Come on, you know you do it too. I suppose I’m good until spring.

Or at least until the next shower anyway.

The weekend also included one of my Nearly-Famous DIY wedding invitation parties. Yes, I just dubbed it that. Does it have a nice ring to it?

One of my 2011 brides got her bridesmaids together so we could hand make the soon-to-be-released invitations. Sorry, no teasers here. I can tell that all 120 are finished, return-addressed and even have coordinating thank you’s. We only ran into one minor (nearly major) hiccup. All was solved and completed by sundown just in time for the super bowl. Let’s just say “the eagle has landed” and leave it at that.

Oh!  And I just might have found the local and inexpensive tailor that I have been searching for thanks to a referral from one mf my SILs.  Stay tuned!

Did Christina Aguilera really mess up the national anthem? I was too busy eating and rounding out the gossip. I found out on Monday who won.

-The perennial bridesmaid

do or diy

What have I been up to? Hmm, well there were 100 invitations & 100 thank yous last week for 2 separate weddings. That about sums it up. But if you want more deets, read on…

Day 1: 100 wedding invitations
Vintage looking, horizontal pocket fold #10 (legal size)
Team of 5 assembly line style. (always good to recruit your bridesmaids for DIY projects)

• Fold pre cut 8"x9.25" blue cardstock in half.
• Adhere pocket on bottom.
• Adhere accent cardstock on top.
• Stamp pocket.
• Stamp front of invitation.
• Save text piece for another day as details need to be ironed and laid out.

Time: 3 hours

Day 2: 100 wedding TYs
Simple but stunning 4.25"x5.5" card. We'll call it simply stunning.
Team of 2

• Fold pre cut 8.5"x5.5" yellow cardstock in half.
• Stamp base cardstock with background stamp.
• Stamp thank you sentiment on ivory cardstock.
• Punch sentiment out.
• Adhere sentiment to stamped cardstock.

Time: 2 hours

Tip I learned the hard way:  Kinko's and Staples will cut your cardstock for you.  They can cut up to about 100 sheets for approximately $1.50 per cut.  1 cut = 2 minutes, so easy.  I learned this AFTER cutting 100 invitations by hand.  Each piece of cardstock invidually. Ouch.

I promise to post pictures some day soon to keep things interesting for ya. Yes, I am for hire as I do really enjoy designing & creating these custom invitations and thank yous.

-The perennial bridesmaid

no, thank you

Ah, writing the dreaded wedding thank you notes. This task can seem endless and overwhelming. Only 200 thank you cards to go... Why not just send out a canned thank you? Select your favorite wedding photo and print ‘thank you. xo’ on it.

Wait! How about reconsidering and just writing the personal thank you cards?  (Feel free to still include the photo.)

I have noticed an increasing trend in these canned wedding thank yous. Have you seen them? They tend to look like the holiday photo cards that everyone is sending with a snapshot of their family and a 2 line message. That is fine for Christmas since it is just meant to be a greeting but in the case of acknowledging your wedding gifts, it seems a bit impersonal. I am speaking from the perspective of guest/gift giver. I am sure that many newlyweds would argue with me that it is a tedious task to write a personal message for 200 guests.  Bring it on.

I consider myself to be a modern gal. I love technology and the ability it has to make life simple and easy at times. Unfortunately, I do not feel that this is one of those times. I am old school when it comes to etiquette and I believe that a personal thank you is much better received, no matter how brief it may be. It is important for me, the gift giver, to know that you actually received and acknowledged my specific gift. I am pretty sure that I am not the only one that feels this way but if you don’t, please tell me if I am being completely old fashioned with this expectation.

I should wrap up my rant by remembering that a canned thank you is better than no thank you.

-The perennial bridesmaid/ Emily Post fan club president

invitation appreciation

I am totally entrenched in invitations at the moment…weddings, showers, rehearsal dinners. You name it and we’re hand making invitations for it! I love paper crafting so I am happy to help out in this area. Multiple questions have come up around standard envelope sizes and postage. I’ve been learning so much and have decided to answer all of these questions at once with an easy reference guide detailing standard invitation envelope sizes & current USPS rates. I hope you find this helpful!

• Minimum envelope size you can mail is 3 1/2 x 5 1/2
• Square envelopes cost more to mail than rectangular
• If you address your envelope vertically instead of the normal horizontal way, you will be charged more
• If you're making your own invitations, you should always cut your cardstock about an 1/8” less than the envelope size
• If you choose postcards for the save the dates or response cards, they may take longer to get to the recipient than if put in an envelope. Postcards are considered 2nd class mail
• For standard envelopes, the maximum thickness that the envelope can be is 1/4" & weigh up to 1 oz. $.17 for each additional oz

Invitation        Postage       Response card      Postage      
envelope size                      envelope size
3 7/8 x 8 7/8      $.44             3 5/8 x 5 1/8            $.44        
4 1/8 x 9 1/2        .44             4 1/4 x 5 1/2              .44         
5 1/4 x 7 1/4        .44             4 3/4 x 6 1/2              .44                     
5 1/2 x 8 1/8        .44
6 x 9 1/2              .44
6x6                      .64
7x7                      .64

Postcard       Postage
3 1/2 x 5        $.28
4 1/4 x 6          .28


-The perennial bridesmaid