Silhouette Play

More fun for my engaged sister.

Such cute heart cards (by Paper & Type)

Oh stitched cards. I love you so much. These are the adorable work of Paper & Type. Those hearts and stitching. Seriously. *sigh*
Via: Mint Design Blog

Save the Date (by me)

No we have not changed the date to, um, Monday. I'm just playing around with Illustrator.

Save the Dates (Dauphine Press)

These are the lovely save the date cards by Dauphine Press for a wedding of one of their own, Erin

I love the feminine loveliness of it. The colors. The flowers. I love how one side has the floral design but the back is solid pattern. So. Great.

To see the rest of their paper suite go here.

Via: Oh So Beautifu Paper

Save the Date download (from The Inspired Bride)

This is the incredibly cute work of Maddy over at The Inspired Bride. She has it there for a free download along with a pink option. I may have to do something similar to this as an invitation to a dessert party. It'd also be perfect for a bridal shower. Who says you can't send Save the Dates to other, non wedding things! Everyone likes cute!

Almost There (Save the Dates)

I am spending my gym break (and lunch break) today photographing Save the Dates. Last night I finished writing in the, "SAVE the DATE." Each and every time, I glanced over at the date terrified that it would be wrong. I still look at the image and get nervous.

**Update**
I was worried about the date, but what I should have been worried about is names. Names. Hmmm. That's funny, there are no names on here. Probably b/c the person designing them KNEW the names. Haha! Looks like I'm carving a stamp tonight! (A tiny square one that will go on the very back...you know, where names go for Save the Dates :)

Stitched Invite (by Alan)

Oh stitched paper you tease! If only I didn't have a history of sewing machine anarchy. *sigh* Some Christmas party is going to have invites with so much stitching you're going to think a sewing machine is inviting you to drink.

These are the awesome Save the Dates of Alan and Jill.

Alan is a designer who has a cool blog. Alan clearly knows how to use his damn bobbin!

Double *sigh*

Also, you think the SaveTheDates are cool? There is more. Go check out his blog. No really.

Brilliance (by Cathe Holden of Just Something Made)

Oh my god BRILLIANT!!!! Watch out envelopes!!! Thank you thank you Cathe Holden!

(Blog Trail: Fffound, Handmade Charlotte, Lobo Likes Lonely Pie, Just Something Made)

Festive Vellum Save the Dates (from Lisa Rupp)

These are from awhile ago but a good thing that can't go bad. Love vellum. Love. Or why the sale table at one of the TWO PaperSources w/in bus distance from our house sitting was wonderful! Vellum envelopes a-plenty.

This wonderfully imaginative work is from Lisa Rupp and her guest blogging on Creature Comforts.

An Oregon Night In SanFran

So here we are in SanFran and after a full day of museums and good food we settled into a night just like any we'd have in Oregon. Zach made us dinner and then went in for some evening work while I set up and worked on Save the Dates. I have to say it was incredibly relaxing. There is something about rocking out to music through my cheap-ass headphones and gluing down tiny flags. Therapeutic. Totally.

However, one wonders: Will I ever finish these?

Wash Your Stamps

One of the final Aug 14th stamp sheets.

Craft Explosion

This is last night circa 6pm.

The Key
1. Paper Source rolls. I'll be back for you later!
2. Teal Hoody. I love you and no one else does. Also I should really wash you.
3. The purse where my driver's license and credit card weren't when I realized I needed them pre crafts.
4. Desk
5. B/c why *wouldn't* you have a family-sized pancake griddle still in the box in the middle of your studio?
6. An owl! (This could be like a where's waldo only it's owls...or carpet. Which ever.)
7. Future fabric flowers.
8. You!

The Play by Play (or Longest Poster EVER!)

6pm- It's 6pm on the dot and I just got home. I'm where I wanted to be at 4:30. But no, I didn't have my credit card or my driver's license on me so even though I left work early, I still had to come back to the apartment. That added 30 minutes. Getting suckered into going to Micheal's in addition to our local craft store added another 45. So here it is. Six pm and my craft table looks like it may have been the epicenter of something bad.

But I'm getting these monsters (said lovingly) done. I'm giving myself 30 minutes to clean my space. At thirty I'll check in again. Go!

6:30 Good enough. Time to assess where I'm at:
Finished-10
All but flags-26
All but flags, flags loosely chosen (this will probably totally change)-42
math math math 36+42= 78
Owl and front but no inside Aug 14, 2010-25
8- insides stamped

6:40 Finished my veggie puffs, opened diet rockstar (should have gotten 2)
I'm starting with stamping out the 25 insides.

7:00- talk. Dealing with stupid work stuff. Grrrr...

7:15-OK stamp, why aren't you working?!? You worked fine before!

7:21: Standing in the bathroom with a hair dryer...b/c I'm vain. No, b/c I'm trying to dry out my damn stamp. Isn't there good tv on Wednesdays?

7:23: For the love of god, finally.
I always assumed people said you needed to clean your stamps so that your colors stay true or something to the aesthetic effect. But no. You clean your stamp so some weird chemical reaction doesn't occur between your Platinum Planet and your Pearlescent Chocolate
(later) Woohoo! 12 successfully stamped of brown on polkadot green

7:35- Zach stabbed his foot while making the bed (I hope it wasn't something in my bed pile!) Quick break to find neosporm.

7:44 Immediately don't follow my own advice and change colors b/c I'm too lazy to wash the damn stamp again.
-can't find ink I'm sure I bought.

7:45 oooh think ink isn't going to work. Where is that stuff I bought?

7:54: Found it. Great. *sigh* At least Zach is no longer bleeding.

8:04 - Stamped! Now they need to dry and be traced and cut. Bring back the hair dryer!

8:07 Holy crap! You know what's magical? A HAIRDRYER!
(Note to self-Blog entitled: My parents are idiots.)

8:30- all traced and cut out. Time to clean up and move to gluing them in. I'm in serene "I can get everything done phase." The phase where the caffeine is coursing. I haven't over eaten and I'm making progress. This is inevitably followed by the "Holy crap I'm tired and I'll never get this done" feeling a few hours later. Moving on.

8:34 Break for a snack! Rhubarb upside down cake!
9pm- back from cake break and watching an episode of The IT crowd with Zach. Table is clean. Let's go.

9:20 Best impulse buy ever!!! It's a dot glue applicator. (Also learned a Fordian Way to put on tape. Tape tape rotate 90, tape tape<---This is for my own notes.) 9:30- 21 insides finished and adhered inside. Wait, I'm missing 4. How did I miscount again?!?! Gah! Why can't I do basic math?!?!

9:32- Wooohoo! Found a pile on the floor!! I can do basic math! I just can't locate things in piles.

9:48 Glad I got one of the glue dot re-fillers. 29 Insides taped and secured!!! Time to clean up the space and prep the next step. *Lesson learned: Do everything in stages. Get caught up with a stage and then move on. Between each set take 5 minutes to clean up the previous stage and prep the next. Makes that next step go infinitely quicker. (tiny bit later) Hmmm...just noticed that I kicked over my cards with the tiny flags inside. I guess I knew I was redoing that section anyways. I need to 1. Stop misplacing things and 2. Stop kicking things. 3. Learn to count. 10:09 Damn hippy music on kink. I hate their lights out program. It's the NPR equivalent of the classical music shows. Gugh.

10:30 Sigh. I've glued 6. This is going to be reeeeeeeally slow. Kink Acoustic isn't doing it for me. I need music! I also need a change of tactic. I'm going to time myself.

10:44 Three done. THREE?!?! I'm averaging 3 every 15 minutes or 1 every 5. W.O.W. Must change tactics. I told Z how long it took for each and he said, "So it'll take 500 minutes?" I didn't like his use of math so I went instead in search of snacks.

11:21 I'm cruising! Changed tactics so that I'm just coordinating the flags. I'll glue them in later. I'm realizing however that dark green is a really hard color to match with flags. And I'm beginning to seriously second guess my decisions. Aesthetic not ethics. Aesthetics not ethics. And repeat.

12:31 It's October and I'm faaaar from finished. Zach's going to bed and that always feels strange. I'm working until 2am and then I'm going to sleep. I'm bored numb of matching flags. I'm switching back to glue activities. I need to work a different muscle.

1:00 OK, my wrists are starting to complain. Kind of like me.

1:40am- Time to call it quits. Quits I say. I think I finished an additional grand total of 16, but I'm probably just another night away so that isn't *so* bad, right? Hmmm...craft table again looks like it was the epicenter of some disaster...but it's also kind of pretty. :)

One Last Night

Will I make it? Will the SaveTheDates be finished* in September? Only time (like tonight) will tell.

Last night I got sucked into a bunch of Greek episodes and while I made my hands busy cutting out little flags, it's never efficient to do projects with the TV on. It's good if you have a monotonous task you don't want to do, but otherwise, stick to the auditory only stuff. (And no that doesn't count Hulu hidden behind a pillow.)

Also my studio has hit some serious level of disarray. I thought this wasn't a problem until last night when I was trying to find flag-worthy paper I unearthed about 20 owls I'd already stamped and cut and the paper I wanted to go with them. This explains why I was 20 short. So basically on a project of a 100, I'm at 20% inefficiency right off the bat. Hmmm...Lesson learned? Ha!

Tonight is going to be a long one, but I got to work an hour and a half early so that I can leave accordingly on the other end. Time to go buy more glue b/c well, I'm killing that stuff!

*Finished means insides only.

Botanical Play (by me)

I'm just playing around. We're not even going with something like this at all. I just needed something to do with my brain.

The image is from Dover. I have no idea which it's from but something like
Plants & Flowers as Ornament CD-ROM and Book or
Besler's Book of Flowers and Plants: 73 Full-Color Plates from Hortus Eystettensis, 1613

Save the Date inspiration (by Alvin Diec)

The side rectangle is in style right now for envelopes. I like it on all sorts of things.

This is the very classy work of graphic designer Alvin Diec.

Save the Date concept (by Decoder Ring)

I love the simple design of this business card done by the Decoder Ring design group. Could translate really well into a Save the Date or something inside an invitation. Maybe the front of a program? All sorts of things.

(Via Ffffound, DesignWorkLife)

Hmmm.....

Tomorrow, we leave for the weekend straight from work. This morning when I counted the number of Save the Dates I'd gotten to the 3/5ths stage the number was a not-so-whopping 64. I have 73 that are at the 2/5ths stage. I'm starting from scratch on 27. So tonight my goal is to get to the 3/5ths stage on the final 27. I'm not sure I can make it. Oh September, I may have let you down.

Who's not leaving the house next Monday through Wednesday? This girl!

Bird and Banner 3

Stitiching doesn't have to be complex to be beautiful. This is another great example of why Bird and Banner rocks.

(Found via InspiredByThis)

Save the Date Update

I love pigment ink b/c it's, well, pigmenty. It's juicy. It gives a good stamp. What's annoying as hell about it? It takes fooorever to dry. Tonight I had a little set back. Nothing major but I realized that a whole set of Aug14, 2010 stamps I'd done looked terrible with the card stock of the actual card. I used a yellow that in my mind looked less baby pukey than it did in reality. So that means I probably need to stamp (and cut) another 30 or so. That said, the green with silver ink looks fantastic. I don't know how much my stamp has left in it. It's starting to wear. It also really didn't like having to switch between the silver I used for the green and the eggplant I switched back to. Pigment inks are tricky especially when, like me, you are too lazy to clean the stamp between ink changes.

Phew! Enough craft nerd speak! Time for bed.

Oh! But I'm officially half finished with 27 Save the Dates. (Woohoo!) Only 73 more to go!