I think I am done with vacationing for a very long while. I was on a travel buzz these past few months, and I am happy to say I will no longer be MIA. My next and somewhat final (for WT, that is) big "vacation" will be in August as I pack my bags to Massachusetts!

What's been going on? Ever since I got off the fabulous Norwegian Pearl cruise ship, although still feeling a bit of motion sickness, I have dived into all the work I need to complete for this summer. I'm refreshed, and hopefully can keep my whimsical juices running. I think I hit a designer's block last month. I felt creatively exhausted and drained. Something I've learned: it is really difficult to constantly keep creatively inspired.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I took on a new client who found me through the blog of newlywed Bethany. Her name is Tertia and she is from Chicago, Illinois. She is a lovely woman and ever since she acquired her Blackberry, we have been sending emails back and forth like fire!

I'm currently working on her daughter's birthday invitations and wedding stamp, but before I left for Alaska, we finished and finalized her Save the Dates.





Tertia's new last name will be "Minter" and she thought of a creative phrase: "Mint to Be," which will ring as a theme in her wedding paper items.










Throughout high school and college, there were only a few things that I would doodle in my notes while in class. These include: flowers, crosses, and RIBBONS. I love drawing ribbons, and coincidentally, Tertia wanted flowy curvy text on her Save the Date. So yes, I had lots of fun with this!

One thing I really did wish I get to attend while I was in Alaska was Kathy's bridal shower! She is a big Pride and Prejudice fanatic, and her shower was themed as an English Tea Party. However, I'm still glad I was able to contribute. Before I left, I created tiny labels for her homemade jam favors and place cards for her food items.





Still sad I wasn't there for the actual event. Does anyone have pictures? Do share!



COMING UP: Kathy's invitations, Sally's invitations

These days, I live and breathe wedding invitations. A few months ago, a lady from Chicago contacted me and asked me to design her wedding invitations and daughter's birthday invitations. Her kind words made it easy to accept the offer, and this past week I've been working on her Save the Dates.

Today, Sally, her fiancee Andy, and I got together and made the final design decisions to their invitations. Andy is the most meticulous groom I've met yet--our spending half an hour trying to get the right shade and tint of purple proves it!

On to what this post is really about... Yesterday, Kathy came over at 12:30 pm to work on her invitations, and she left at 7:30 pm. Talk about labor intensive! On Sunday, we printed and cut all of her invitations.

Side note about Kinko's
IT. IS. WORTH. THE. MONEY.
I highly recommend getting paper goods cut at Kinko's because not only is the cutting precise, it's really affordable. Kathy, her fiancee Will, and I stopped by the Kinko's on Shattuck in Berkeley (oh boo, why do they only have 2 stars?), and while we were expecting a $30 charge for cutting the invitations (it required 10 cuts total), the employee (who was really friendly and goofy) gave us a random discount and it came out to be $17! The Chinese inside of me was a-screamin' with joy!

So yesterday was 7 hours of punching, cutting, folding, taping, and gluing.





Here's our little work station. I later realized that we were surrounded by orange. Even in the unintentional things like the paper cutter and glue sticks.





This punch is by Fiskars, the king of all cutting items. It's a 1.5 inch by 1.5 inch scalloped square, and it was really easy to use. Every punch was addictive.





I think we had too much fun.





Here's Kathy using our secret weapon--double sided tape. We didn't want to bother with wet messy Elmer's glue. She discovered that using double sided tape made assembling extremely quick and neat.





Another vital component to these invitations was ribbon. Beautiful, or what we kept referring to them as--luxurious, ribbon! Kathy bought about 10 rolls at JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts.





Ahh! Can't reveal too much, but these invitations rock my socks, and are so so so pretty.


A summary of our labor
1. Print invitations onto cardstock paper
2. Cut invitations (Thank you Kinko's!)
3. Cut papaya matte squares
4. Cut pocketfold envelopes
5. Score and fold pocketfolds (I tried a new method! Running an unclicked ballpoint pen down a ruler)
6. Punch matte scalloped squares
7. Punch main scalloped squares
8. Tape invite to matte square
9. Tape invite&matte square to pocketfold
10. Tape scalloped square to matte scalloped square
11. Cut ribbon to measured length
12. Wrap ribbon around pocketfold and attach scalloped paper with hot glue
13. Get rid of stringy hot glue

Yes, it's been a glorious week.