Weddingbee Blog

I have to admit, I’ve read all the stories of bees having troubles during the DIY process, and there was a part of me (before having tried a single DIY wedding project) that thought, “Oh…it can’t be all that bad!” Ummmm….it was that bad. It’s not like it was the most terrible thing ever, but it definitely took WAY more time and many, many more failed attempts than I ever imagined.

So, here are the DIY details behind these babies:

Our first issue came during the printing process.

While some of them printed out perfectly, others looked kinda smudgy, and there was no rhyme or reason why one would print fine and the next would look less-than-stellar. So. Frustrating. But at some point, I had to let the ones that were 92% good pass quality control and keep in mind that most of our guests aren’t going to spend more than a few seconds looking at them anyway, so wasting paper, and time, and energy to make them PERFECT was counterproductive. King Hippo didn’t necessarily agree. In fact, I learned a few things about King Hippo during the whole DIY process. I really thought that I was the type A one in the relationship, but turns out King Hippo has a stricter perfection scale than I do!

King H: “This one’s not good.”

Me: “It’s FINE!”

King H: “Look at the blue. It looks terrible.”

Me: “It’s not that bad! I’ll send it to one of our good friends. They totally won’t care!”

King H (with a skeptical look): “If that’s what you want to do.”

Repeat.

We ended up reprinting many of them. But I digress…

I first designed the STD card in Microsoft Publisher on a tabloid size (11″ x 17″) sheet. Let me just say, I am a big fan of Microsoft Publisher. While I have Photoshop and Illustrator, I think Publisher is so much easier to use and gets the job done without all the crazy bells and whistles. I designed the card to fit perfectly width-wise in the envelopes (3 7/8″ wide), and used the full length of the paper. I printed the pages back to back so that when folded, the hotel information showed on the bottom.

My paper cutter is miniature, so I planned to simply use the paper cutter at Kinko’s to cut apart the cards, since they have wide enough paper cutters to make a clean cut along the 17″ length in one pass. Uh…no. Apparently Kinko’s replaces their paper cutter blades once every…uh…never…or so… ’cause when I tried to use their paper cutter, it was a disaster. I think I could have chewed through the cardstock and gotten a cleaner edge. So, after ruining a couple of sheets (argh!) I ended up having to purchase a rotary cutter and self-healing mat to do the trick. Thank goodness King Hippo helped with this part, ’cause I pretty much sucked at the whole cutter, ruler, keeping straight thing.

Doggie Hippo (a.k.a. Deacon) wanted to get in on the action, too!

After all the strips were cut, I used Martha Stewart’s scoring board to create a clean crease for folding. OK… so, yes, I definitely could have gotten away with just using the bone folder and a ruler, but I think the scoring board made it so much easier. And honestly, I got wrapped up in all the fun crafting supplies when I made my 15th trip to Michaels. Oh, c’mon bees…I know you know! The bone folder and scoring board were super easy to use and created a really clean folding line, which was a huge help, particularly since it was really important that the cards fold at exactly the right place.

After creasing and folding, it was time to attach the pencils. After much trial and error, we decided to go with removable Glue Dots, which is like that clear sticky stuff you see in magazines where a product sample is attached to the page. You know the ones…where you can peel off the product and rub the clear sticky stuff off into a ball and it doesn’t leave any residue behind. It looks kinda like snot. Yes. That’s it.

Source

So, with the STD cards assembled, we moved onto the envelopes. I created the envelope mailing label in Microsoft Word, using our wedding logo, return address and “Save the Date” banner, and then made 1 1/2″ round stickers to close the envelopes also using MS Word. Just in case you forgot…here are the labels:

King Hippo (and Deacon) helped with the assembly. I love this picture ’cause you can see King Hippo lining up the envelope perfectly using my sample as a guide and Deacon supervising. Awwww…my boys!

Before sealing the deal (or sealing all the envelopes), I sent a STD to Mama Hippo and to myself as a test… just in case there were any postal issues. This, my friends, was the best idea I had of the whole thing. Oh, don’t worry. That story’s coming up next.

Based on this whole experience, I am definitely going to start working on our invitations way earlier. As in… immediately.

Anyone else underestimate the amount of time your STDs would take?