Oh, the love!

The lovely Jessica Lynn of Tying the Knot recently featured my save-the-dates on the blog for her lovely little shop, Penned and Pretty!


And the oh-so-inspiring Kelley of My Island Wedding also did a little post about them!


Thanks, ladies!!

As promised.

Our Save-the-Dates!

It feels so good to check this project off the list. It took a lot of work, making these from scratch...but it was SO worth it. Here's a play-by-play...


I bought the lace trim from Jo-Ann's. It was 50% off... SCORE! I got 10 yards for $10.

I didn't like the the edging on the lace, and I wanted to make sure it would lay flat on the cardboard, so I spent about 30 minutes (slowly, carefully) cutting it off.

Yup, it's just plain cardboard! Curt's dad has this really nice table saw so it was super easy to cut. I checked with the post office before we started this whole project, and they said as long as we cut the rectangles in standard postcard-size dimensions (4" x 6"), we could mail them without envelopes! And the stamps for postcards are only 27 cents each! Talk about serious savings! The cardboard was a little too thick to comply with the maximum dimensions so we flattened each postcard by hand.

If you've visited our website, you've probably noticed how the heading on the main page has a piece of corrugated cardboard as the background. We really wanted to mimic the website with these Save-the-Dates, so we peeled the top layer off in a couple of sections to reveal the texture underneath. A simple touch that made a big difference!


The next step was to poke holes along the bottom of each postcard... I did the first few by hand with one of those kebab skewer things... but then we realized we could just stack them and use a hand drill. Frankly, I'm not so good with power tools, so my FMIL took over for me :)

The ribbon is also from Jo-Ann's, only 50 cents for a spool! We bought four spools, which was perfect. The labels are from Staples, I think it was about $13 for a pack. Curt designed the logo using a font called "Quicksand," which you can download here. If you're wondering, that funny looking thing on the left is a gingko leaf. We just picked it because it was a nice little touch, but then Curt pointed out that it's a subtle allusion to gingko biloba, which is supposed to help you remember things... like, for example, our wedding date (not that anyone's going to catch that reference, but hey...)

I cut the lace trim into 6" pieces, and we used glue sticks to attach the lace to the cardboard.



I love how they look when they're stacked together!

In order for these to be accepted by the post office, everything has to lie as flat as possible, so we decided to tie the ribbon in a simple knot rather than a bow. But I think it looks very cute and modern that way!

Action Shot!

My BFF/MOH came over today to help me finish these. We're obviously very proud of our handiwork.... apparently our photography skills could use some improvement though...

Here's the finished product! We just have to slap the address labels and postage stamps on the back, and we can get these in the mail. What do y'all think?

Has anyone else taken a completely DIY approach to their StheDs? Anyone planning on it?

Sneak Peek

Here's a tiny little glimpse at our very-DIY Save the Dates.



The full reveal, plus a step-by-step tutorial, is coming later today. I'm usually not a very crafty person but I'm excited about these!