Wedding Bells!!!

No, not for me - I'm very happily married already!! But I feel like ringing all the bells I can get my hands on to celebrate that I have managed to finish the Wedding Invitations I have been commissioned to make!!! I have had my ups and downs with this project which I will explain as we go, but I am really chuffed to have it complete.

To give you a little background, I was asked by a friend if I would make the invites for her son's wedding. Having agreed, I spent a lovely evening with her, her son and his fiancee, where we discussed what they would like in terms of design (whilst eating a scrummy tuna pasta bake). They decided on a simple design with yellow ribbon and daisies, on white pearlescent card. The final details they left to me.

So, I went away and spent some time finalising what I wanted to do, sourcing the materials that I would need, and costing everything up. That was a exercise in itself, and I ended up setting up a spreadsheet to keep track of what I needed and from where!!

The design I came with up for the invitations uses the X Cut Rosa Border Die, wrapped firstly with yellow satin ribbon, and then with a thinner lemon organza ribbon. Three fabric daisies are then mounted onto the ribbon, and they in turn are topped with 4mm flatback lemon pearls. The silver foiled message was also decorated with the pearls.

Both the day and evening invitations were completed in landscape format, and each required a RSVP card with envelope. These are A7 (... I think ie they are half of A6),  and this time the foiled message is mounted on the border strip to allow room for the message.

The Order of the Day has not been completed yet, as the details have not been finalised, but the design is the same - just in portrait instead of landscape.

All sounds great - and it is - but goodness me, I now know what it must be like to work in a factory and do the same process over and over and over again. I decided that I should prep everything and then assemble it all at the end. Well, the daisies came as a long string, so I have had to trim hundreds of individual daisies. Then cutting the border strips - well, as there is a lovely punched out area, as each border was cut, I then had to clean all the bits out of the die. Over 100 of those and I was begininng to lose the will to live. Then fixing ribbon, then ribbon on top of ribbon, then sticking the tape to the back of the border ready to attach to the card.

My biggest faux pas happened only this morning, when I realised that I had prepped all the RSVP's for Wedding Invitations, when half of them were supposed to be for the Evening Reception!! Took a bit of time to remedy that one.

BUT, the invitations are all done now and ready for delivery tomorrow!! And I have to say I'm rather pleased with myself!!

Have lots of projects in the pipeline, now that I've broken the back of this, so hopefully will be blogging again soon.

Cxx

And now for something different!!

My recent blogs have all focused quite heavily on Paint Fusion, so I am pleased to let you know I have been doing the occasional other thing - including a new technique for me!!

So here it is ....

This is a commissioned 8" square boxed card, the base of which is made from Centura Pearl Snow White Card.

I was asked to make something elegant, with the main image being hearts. And the colour was (hopefully obviously) red!!

I felt this called for something quite different to anything I had done before, so decided it was time to try out something that I had been wanting to try for a while. Stencilling is quite an "old" tecnhnique, but incredibly effective. For this card, I have used the Heart Bouquet and Congratulations Dreamweaver stencils, and Glossy Red Dreamweaver embossing paste.

The paste was applied through the stencil onto Centura Pearl Snow White card, using a spatula, which gives a wonderful raised effect. The main image was then cut out using a scalloped circle die. I highlighted the red by using a plain circle cut from Bazzil Basics Dotted Swiss cardstock in Phoenix, then another scalloped circle cut from Papermania Special Vellum - Glitter Embossed Dots. The greeting was mounted in a similar way, using simple rectangles.

The larger two circles were cut from Centura Pearl Snow White card using the Craft Robo - it doesn't quite cut right through, but the back layer of the card peels away so you can still get the shape out. The larger scalloped circle was cut in the same way from Crafters Companion printable vellum, and the smaller from the Papermania Glittered Dots vellum.

To add a different texture the smaller of these Centura Pearl circles was run through the Cuttlebug with the Small Polka Dots mask from the "That Special Touch" range. (I've recently purchased a selection of these masks, so have some more new things to play with when I get a minute!!)

A few small round and heart shaped pearls that were rattling around the bottom of my gem box were attached with Glossy Accents, along with the beautiful pearl strands bought from my local craft shop (sorry don't know the make or name of them as I've had them a while and threw the packaging away!!). Finally, a card like this is not complete without ribbon - white organza from Celebrations, with a smaller width tied around the large bow.

I was pleased with the final effect. And am thinking I might get some more stencils on a Christmas theme!!! I know it seems early - but crafting for Christmas starts now!!! Otherwise it never gets done!!!

'til next time.

Cxxxxx