Photos of the Invitation Making Process

Because I'm a photo dork, I played ~photographer~ while other people helped us out making the invitations (yeah I know taking pictures while other people work, I'm such a slave driver). For some of you this might be a first look, for others you already know all the goodness that's inside them! Anyway PICTURES!

Maggie tells me, "This better not end up on your blog. . ." She never said which one. She's helping me glue the main invitation sheet to the inside of the cards. We went through quite a bit of glue that night!

". . .and then you just smooth it out, like this!" Maggie shows me her epic graphic-designer-mounting-paper skills. Maggie got just about all of the invitations mounted in nearly 2 hours of work! I wasn't even there for most of it because I was in a meeting, which makes me lame :/
She kept working until she ran out of glue. The next morning I woke up to find Alan had bought me more glue to finish up with. It was like getting a visit from the glue-fairy~

Once everything was glued down, we stuffed everything inside of them and broke out the hemp and scissors.

So you just tie it in a pretty knot, like Alan's doing here. . .

No, that's no where NEAR all of them. . .

. . .and you keep tying until you have followed these steps of invitation crafting acceptance:

1. Denial - Of course we have enough string, and the cat's so passive there's no way she'll pounce after this stuff, it's too stiff for her to play with anyway. I mean she wasn't even interested in a laser pointer, why would she go crazy for this stuff?

2. Anger - The cat has tangled up all the string you've spent the past hour cutting. You don't have enough string either. Thumbs are now pink from 'string-burn'.

3. Bargaining - "If you get more string on the way home, I won't kill the cat."

4. Depression - There's no way we'll get these things done in time. If we don't have enough string whose to say we have enough of the other supplies? It's all too much to do in too little time!! *BAW*

5. Acceptance - It'll get done when it gets done. Oh Look! Last one!

And now it's time to play with fire and hot wax!

Brian (otherwise known among friends as 'Dimitri') is showing Shelley, his wife, proper wax dripping technique. Drip the wax in a circle pattern and then fill it in. You want a good dime or penny sized puddle-o-wax.

And then you stamp! Alan and I found a ring with a fler-de-lis on it for our stamper. A tip of the hat to part of Alan's family line, and the fact I took French for three years in High School and can only remember how to say "I am the cheese!"

"Je suis la fromage!"

So you wait about 30 seconds and then slowly rock your seal off the now cooled wax. Voila! A wax seal!

Once a few of them were done I played around making a layout which showed all the components of what our invitations are made out of. This is a layout I've found helpful in putting together a graphic design portfolio. Now if only I could get a better shot. . .

That's a bit better.

Hope you guys will get a smile out of the invites!

- Carrie