Cheers to a New Year

Happy New Year!  We just took our tree and decor down today, so it definitely feels like a clean, fresh start.

Ahh, another year come and gone.  As usual, December flew by with getting the house ready for Christmas, buying gifts, baking, some very busy, but much needed days off from work.  And boom, before you know it, 2014 is upon us.  We have a bunch of things planned for this year, so it'll be interesting to see how it all turns out.

My highlights of the year include turning 30, a very cool trip to Iceland, taking on a new role at work, creating an outdoor space at home, another fabulous trip to our fave vaca spot, Hawaii, and trying new recipes in the kitchen and broadening my picky palette. 

One of my favorite dishes of all time is a good rigatoni alla vodka.  There is a local Italian place that makes one of the best vodka sauces, and that is the only thing I'll order from there.  Recently I've been able to recreate that sauce at home, so who needs to go there anymore?  ;)  Unfortunately I keep forgetting to take a picture, so I'll hold off on sharing the recipe. 

Instead, here's another recipe that I just came up with in the new year.  For NYE, hubs and I went to a Thai restaurant we're really fond of, which unfortunately isn't too close by.  Not all Thai restaurants offer "Chicken Noodle Soup," so when I tasted it, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the flavor profile of the cilantro, ground chicken, and scallions.  While in the market, I was looking at produce, and saw cilantro and scallions, I figured why not try and make it at home?  I figured it would take very few ingredients and voila, it's now a recipe I plan to make often.  (I could not seem to find a recipe online for it.)  Very comforting especially in this cold weather! 

Thai Chicken Noodle Soup
(2 servings)

• 3 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 cup of roughly cut cilantro
• 1/4 cup diced scallion
• 1 small bundle of vermicelli
• 1/8 tsp white pepper (more to taste if needed)
• 6 ground 1" chicken balls (actually have not added these yet, since none at hand)

1.  Heat chicken broth in a pot until it starts to steam
2.  Add chicken balls and cook thoroughly through
3.  Add vermicelli until loose/softened
4.  Add cilantro and mix, to let flavor seep into soup
5.  Add white pepper, mix, and then scallions
6.  Let soup sit for 2 minutes, take off heat, and serve.

 

Monogram Napkin Holders

In a previous entry, I shared what my table centerpieces will be.  Ideally my venue would offer some type of aqua/teal linens to incorporate the theme color more, but really the only viable color is ivory tablecloths with blush pink napkins.  However, my MOH came up with a great idea after reading the latest issues of Martha Stewart Weddings - monogram napkin holders.  We made them with some of the ribbon I had left over from some other projects, rather than the wide ribbon used in the picture.

Using Powerpoint, I created the monogram template,
putting four 4x4 squares on one sheet of 8.5 x 11" card stock.

Fonts used are English for "L" and our names, GeoSansLight for the date.

Trusty paper cutter to slice and dice the monograms.




Next I used a rounded corner paper punch to round the four corners of the monogram.


For me this adds a more polished touch.


All four corners rounded.


Next I used a razor to cut two 1.5" slits above and below the "L."


Next I cut 3 12" inch pieces of ribbon, two blue and one brown.


Each ribbon is stranded through under and above the slits,
making sure to crisscross the two blues.


The finished monogram on a pseudo mock up plate and "napkin."


My MOH and I worked on these for a few hours one Sunday,
and only managed to get these 50 done - still another 150 to go. 
Should be faster to finish the rest though, since all the paper cutting is done.
     

And there we go - now some blue on the table!

Table Numbers

I knew that if I didn't get the guestbook that I wanted (I'll get to that in another post) I'd go with a photobook of our engagement photos and leave blank spaces throughout for guests to sign.  But since I did manage to find the guestbook, I knew that I somehow wanted to incorporate our photos somehow into the table numbers.  I thought about photoshopping the numbers into each of the photos and framing them, but with our photos not having much empty sky or wall space in them, it'd be hard to squeeze the numbers into the picture.  Why not have 2 frames for each table then?  One with the number, incorporating the cherry blossom theme, and another with just the engagement photo, a different photo at each table of course.

With about twenty tables and two frames per table, I wanted a cost-effective frame that also looked nice and kept with our modern theme.  So I first thought of using these clips frames, which I've seen at IKEA in passing. 

I wasn't sure if they'd stand up well on their own, so I thought about combining them with little plastic easel stands, which I thought would prop nicely.  (Unfortunately getting 40+ would be too expensive considering the price doesn't include the frames.)

 

But then I saw these 4 x 6 Euro Box Clear Photo frames on ebay, and knew I had found my table number frames.  At 62 cents a piece (includes shipping) these were a steal!  I think it's kind of cool how there is no actual "frame" per se - and it seems like the table number and photo appear to be free-standing.  I printed out all the numbers and selected engagement photos, and here is what guests will see on their tables:

I created the 4 x 6 table numbers in MS Powerpoint, 3 to a page, using the same fonts
as I'd used in the invitation.  The same clipart was used for the cherry blossoms as well. 
I also added the paper flowers again to give the 3D effect.

Here's the back of the frame.  When vertical, the cardboard pops out to create a stand.

Unfortunately that cardboard stand didn't hold for the horizontal photos,
so I took a piece of cardstock, folded it 3 times into a tent,
and attached it to the back of the frame.

Here are all the photos in their frames ready for the reception.

 

DIY Wedding Invites Part III

Was all the work I put into the invites and money saved worth it?  Most definitely.  A friend who had gotten married last year told me that had we gone with her professional invitation person, we would have been charged per piece added, so it would cost $15 per invite!  (I rounded up and ordered about 125 of each paper piece, with extra response envelopes which I used to send our save-the-dates.)  Here's the breakdown of what we paid for ours (paper via Cards & Pockets): 

Subtotal $308.25 + S/H $18.65 = $326.90
Prima Flowers = $10.00
Zots = $4.00
Ribbon = $6.00
Printer Ink:  $32.00
round to $380.00
/115 invites
=$3.30 each

Paper & Supplies - $380
Bride's Labor - "Free"
Creating your dream invitation and having it turn out great - priceless.

What made the invitations an enjoyable DIY project for me was that I gave myself plenty of time to get them all done.  With a strategic 7 per week goal since the new year, I never found myself getting sick of having to make them.  I have no regrets that I undertook this project on my own because I'm thrilled with the results (and savings).

DIY Invites Part II

To continue from my last post, next I'll show you how I did the right side of the invite.  But first, I glued the matted invite to the left side of the pocket fold envelope, using the same technique with the white paper to press down. 

The right side of the invite consists of the inserts, of course.  For these I wanted to save paper, and not have to hand feed 350 pieces through the printer.  So I used PowerPoint, which enabled me to fit all inserts on one page.  I've used Powerpoint for most of my DIY projects, and it's pretty much become my new favorite program (after Photoshop of course.)  Using the shape tool, I was able to create the outline for each of the inserts, and later added text and the cherry blossom clip art.  Here are the sizes for each insert below, so that when placed one on top of the other, would be tiered correctly (in terms of header being visible, and text below invisible).  Also note that I rotated the "Directions" insert to fit on the page and achieve the right height.

Here is my 2nd trusty printer, the HP Photosmart C4200, printing out the sheet of inserts. 

Saving on card stock also meant more cutting on my part.  Here I used my Fiskars paper cutter, which has been my trusty sidekick throughout the DIY process.  I carefully lined up the light blue lines that had been printed to the ruler, and sliced away, making sure that no blue lines showed on the finished product.

All done with cutting the inserts.

The inserts are ready to be placed into the pocket fold, but not before adding the pre-stamped rsvp envelope.

I also added some more inserts regarding booking the hotels and directions to the hotels (not shown).  So here's the finished invite (notice the tiering of the inserts that I had mentioned earlier), that ended up being sealed with a cherry blossom paper punch (see first pic from last post) and placed in a rose pink envelope.  

 

Coming up, the breakdown of supplies and cost.

DIY Invites Part I

After months of crafting (about 7 a week since January), the invites were finally completed about a month ago, and they went out Friday.  As crazy as it might sound to spend about half an hour or more per invite, for 115 invites, I found it oddly soothing as I made them.  It was almost bittersweet bringing them to the post office and mailing them away.  And now since they're out the door, it's time to unveil them here on the blog:

I knew from the beginning that I wanted a pocket fold invite, but I knew that it would eat up a decent amount of our budget if we got them done professionally.  Dare I undertake them myself?  With enough time, planning, and discipline, I was up for the challenge.  At the same time, I wanted to call this project my very own, so I didn't reach out for assistance.  (I also wanted them to be perfect, and lack of perfection I could only blame myself!)  I ordered all the necessary paper and things that I'd need for the invites from Cards & Pockets.  The ribbon I picked up from Joann's , and the little paper flowers I got off ebay. 

I'm going to cover the left side of the invite in this post, to be followed by the right side in the next post.  I designed the invite in Adobe Photoshop, using Plantagenet Cherokee font (in chocolate brown) for the main text of the invite, and Scriptina in a Tiffany blue for our names.  The cherry blossom image is clipart I found online that I mirrored, re-angled, and retouched.  The great thing about Cards & Pockets is that its main panel card is sized perfectly, so no cutting necessary.  I just handfed it into my HP Deskjet 5550 and out it came. 

Next, I took a piece of scotch tape, and placed 3 pieces of blue ribbon equi-distant from one another, leaving a small amount of tape left to adhere to the back of the cardstock. 

I brought the ends of the ribbon to the back of the card and secured, making sure that the ribbon was smooth and even on the front.

I like the slightly raised position the ribbon has, adding more to the 3D effect of the invite.

Next I strategically added glue to the back of the card, and then using a clean sheet of white paper, smoothed it onto the chocolate brown mat.  I did this to avoid getting prints or smudges from my fingers on the invite. 

Here are the adhesive products I used during the process.  The tacky glue is used for the gluing of the invite to the mat board, and next I'll use the zots to attach the little flowers. 

Here's a closeup of the flowers - I tried using the deeper colored flowers to add pop to the invite.

Next I take a flower and press it onto the zot (which is still on the roll.)

Then I carefully lift the flower and zot off the roll, and place it exactly on 3 of the printed flowers.

I tried to use either 3 different color pinks for the flowers, or two of the same on the top and bottom, and a contrasting one in the middle.

Next up - the right side of the invite (aka the inserts!)  
To be continued...

Blast from the Past...

...With some posts from my old blog regarding wedding planning, for a friend who just got engaged.  :)  I'll be reblogging some of my fave posts from xanga, which unfortunately now requires an annual paid subscription.