Happy Valentine's Day

I hope that whatever today brings you, that you are shown love and are able to share it with others.

Thank you!

Not too terribly long ago my mom gave me her Cricut machine (why yes I am spoiled by her!)

I haven't had much of a chance to use it. When we first got it the girls and I played around and they made a few things - my 10 year old is actually pretty good at using it!

Anyway, with the 8yo's birthday recently, we decided we should whip up some thank you cards and this is what we decided on

Cute isn't? Well, we thought so! Anyway, last night I stayed up getting all the parts ready for her to make them herself.

And so this afternoon she worked on them (and also, loved it and felt so special to get to use the tape LOL!)

I gave her the pieces and even though we had the one card we made, I told her to feel free to make some changes if she wanted to. Here are all her finished cards - each one is a little (and sometimes a lot) different and I LOVE them all!

Just for fun, I'll share how we made them in case you want to whip a few up too!

Materials:

1 sheet 8 1/2x 11" each of purple, blue, and light blue cardstock

1 - 8 1/2" x 5 1/2 white cardstck (folded in half to make a card)

1 - 5 1/8" x 3 7/8 pink cardstock

1 - 5 1/8" x 1/2" stripped paper (I think ribbon would be very lovely too, but we didn't have any to use!)

Sweethearts Cricut cartridge

Simply Sweet Cricut cartridge (or a circle cutter!)

scissors and/or paper trimmer

adhesive

1. Using Sweethearts cartridge - cut out 1 - 2 1/4" Thank You on the blue cardstock (this is the shift of the honeymoon image.

2. Again with the sweethearts cartridge - cut out 1 - 2 1/4" shadow thank you from the light blue cardstock. (So you need to hit shift, shadow, to get this!)

3. Using Simple Sweet cartridge - cut out 1 - 2 1/2" shadow circle on the purple cardstock (to get this you hit shift, shadow, ). If you don't have this cartridge you can cut out a circle any way. I measured, the diameter is about 2 7/8. 

Okay, now all the pieces are ready to go - you just have to assemble! At this point I ran both thank's and you's through my xyron machine because it just seemed the easiest way! I then put the thank you on top of the shadow pieces and set that aside (*note I did all of this for my daughter because I thought that might be a bit tougher for her to do!)

Then I put the striped paper (or ribbon if you are using that) on the pink cardstock. Then the circle followed by the thank and you. Then I taped all of that to card. 

I hope that made sense - it's so much easier for me to do it then try to type up directions! So if something doesn't make sense, please let me know and I'll try to clarify it!

Why I'm planning ahead ...

aka I'm going to whine about my evening!

So my goal is get 175 wedding invitations (and I think I'm doing everything from scratch except the envelopes) done, finished, ready to give to the bride October 31. Which I think is good, since the wedding is mid-February.
Last night I measured the sample, figured out how much paper I will need to get and estimated the amount of tape, ribbon, ink, embossing powder, etc, etc to buy. I'm going to a craft night on Thursday and thought it would be the perfect time to begin cutting paper, so ideally I want to start printing tomorrow.
The best laid plans ... there was not enough paper - in either color that I need. I don't think I have enough ribbon either, but I bought what they had. I bought all the red paper they had that I needed - which was a whole 20 sheets and I need 100. No one there could tell me if they'd even get more in or not which is bad, because if more doens't get in stock soon, well, I don't want to start and have to switch 20% of the way through. I didn't buy any white because they only had small packs (50 packs) when I need to buy roughly 800-1000 pieces of cardstock. Someone told me hobby lobby will let me order a large quantity and discount the price me - I sure hope so, because tonight it was 4.00 for 50 pages of white paper. Which means it would be approximately $80 just for the white paper.

[FTR I would pay that much if there is no alternative because I so want to make everything perfect for the bride, but if I can get it cheaper, I'm going to definitely try!]

The good news is that I have time to make all of this come together. So even though I won't get started tomorrow and will bring knitting with me on Thursday, I'm glad that I went shopping for materials tonight instead of waiting! Because in general, I procrastinate as much as possible. But I knew I could not screw this up. These are wedding invitations! And I'm not going to be the person who pisses off the bride and sends her into a fit of hysteria for not having them ready on time! No, I want to be the person who she loves and adores and is happy with thank you very much!!

So, I'm glad that I didn't go my usual route (which would have had me buying supplies approximately Oct. 30) and that I planned ahead. Also, in an effort to be more organized - something I struggle with way too much, I bought a pocket calendar/planner to go into my purse. And the only thing to be said about that is about time!

Cards!

I have had cards on my mind a lot this week! =)

First, I made some (what I think are) cute thank you notes to send out for the lovely birthday presents I recently received!



I wish I could say the idea was original, but alas it was not and I found them here. What a great idea and I'm so glad I stumbled upon it! She has two sets for sale in her etsy shop, so if you want them but can't make them yourself, go buy!

Then the bride to be came over (from when I made these invites) and we have the details for the invitation she would like to send out. They will look beautiful I think and I can now start to work on them sooner rather than later - which will be good for all of us (because what bride wants to worry whether her invites will be done on time or not).

In other wedding news - a different wedding but still a cousin of mine - I whipped up some rehearsal dinner invitations tonight!


Seriously, aren't they a cute couple? And she's like super-model gorgeous. Of course I met her for the first time when I was, I don't know, 29 months pregnant (okay, I was really 8 months but it felt like a lot more!). But she is so sweet and I just know the wedding will be wonderful. The inside just has the info printed straight on the paper. Of course, they haven't seen them yet so I have to hope they like them as much as I do! LOL

Project Spectrum: May

So for May I decided to join the postcard swap.
I was paired with Paula (which every go over there and wish her congrats on her very quickly approaching wedding!)

Instead of doing a postcard I did a whole card ...




Flowers: my favorite part

It was a lot of fun! I'm glad I did it =)
I'm sitting out June's swap, but may jump in for July ... depends on how crazy things are around here =)