Anyone have a few thousand dollars just laying around?

If you do, you can fund my company. I'm so official - I even have a logo!

Sometimes you just need fresh flowers...

The past couple of weeks have been quite diffcult for me. The unknown can be so scary and with the economic troubles our country is experiencing it makes it even more stressful. To make myself feel better I bought myself some flowers at my local grocery store - a dozen each of roses and tulips - and a few limes. This is what sat on my dresser for a week reminding me to just sit back and relax and realize it can't get much worse than already is.

Finley Kate

My niece finally arrived after 10 1/2 hours of waiting at the hospital on Friday. My parents called me at 3am letting me know they would be picking me up at 4am. My sister usually goes through labor very quickly but I guess she decided to change it up a bit this time. Finley finally arrive at 12:31pm on April 11th. She weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces and is 19 inches long...and looks just like her big sister did. I call her a little elf baby...of course a very cute little elf baby!

Little Pirate baby...

The girl already has a tan...I'm not kidding

Busy little bee...

My life has never been busier than it is right now...well I was pretty busy when my sister got married last year. Anyway...my sister is due to give birth any day now, my boyfriend turns 25 (oh to be 25 again) on Wednesday, I have appointments coming out of my nose this week and I have to finish the wedding invitations in the next few weeks...3 weeks if I end up going to San Francisco on May 3rd. I have most of the printing done...just need to do the RSVP cards and I have a bag of unassembled wedding invitations sitting by my door ready to take to the hospital so I can work on them when my niece is born. I am a little behind on my posts because I have completed more work than is shown in the following pictures.



Here's a close-up of the finished invitation. I blurred out info to protect the innocent ;o) I love the combo of the burgundy and gold inks!

This was probably the most tedious step of the entire process. I had to print the burgundy F first. In order to do this I had to mask off the scroll frame so the ink didn't bleed through as I needed that part to be completely gold. One I finished that step I had to clean the screen and mask off the F so the gold ink didn't bleed through on that! I think I only had to try about 3 or 4 times before I found the perfect technique. I love the way they turned out and they add a very special touch to the invitations.

I did all the printing (except for the gold scrolls on the invitation) in one day with an Angel game thrown in. My parents have season tickets and my Dad had to work so I went with my Mom. My sister and brother in law have seats right in front of us so it was a lot of fun. Although I did stay up until almost 2am finishing everything. Once you ink a screen there is no going back and you must finish what you started.

*Next post will show the printing of the return addresses on the outer envelopes and the mailing address on the RSVP envelopes.

How I do what I do...

I have a bit of an organization problem...that being I have to be organized at all times. I think I might even have a little OCD problem. For example...I had to have matching storage boxes for my closets so everything looked nice when I opened my closet doors just to get my clothes out for the day. I wasn't like this when I was younger so I guess it came with age. Once I started making a lot of cards and invitations I knew I needed a better way to organize my craft supplies. Luckily I have a Dad that is capable of anything. I came up with a plan and a few short days later my Dad had created my beloved CRAFT CENTER. It was orginally measured and designed to fit inside my closet which worked out so well since I was able to hide the clutter of all my projects...very important for us OCD types. Now that I am in a different room...thanks to my Mom's brilliant idea of going into the large master bedroom...the shelving works just as well outside of the closet. BUT I have to keep things a lot neater now. I can't even start to explain how functional this craft center is now that I am working every day on wedding invitations. I can't imagine what I would do without it! Without further ado...my ultra fabulous CRAFT CENTER made expertly by The Dad.

My craft table fits perfectly under the bottom shelf so I can tuck it under and get it out of the way when I'm not using it. I bought some matching storage boxes and some smaller containers to keep all the small stuff in one place.

A close up of my organization! You can see some of the wedding invitation paper on the bottom shelf.

This is what it looks like when I pull my desk...a bargain on sale at Aaron's Brothers that my parents and I found a few years ago...out from under the shelves. It's still within reach of all the supplies I might need. Since it's on wheels I can angle it for perfect viewing of the TV! Very important to be entertained when cutting mounds of paper. My parents had the idea to back the shelves with beadboard and I found the perfect paint color to add some character. I was obsessed with the paint chips when I went to Home Depot to pick it out.

My desk and awesome paper cutter. And what would I do without my bargain lamp and barstool I got at Ikea. The barstool is the perfect height for my table. My mom spotted it and knew it would be perfect.

So...that's a big part of how I do what I do when it comes to crafting. Thanks Mom and Dad for all their involvement in this!

A big step out of the way...

I finally have some time to post pictures of the first big step in my journey of completing a big wedding invitation project.

While catching up on my favorite TV shows (love Tivo) I cut 110 pieces of the cream paper which will be the first layer of the invitation with the wording on it.

The next big step was getting the artwork burned to the Gocco screen. I took a photo copy of the design and after taking a few short steps I was ready to print.

The picture below shows the lamp housing, the Gocco, blue filter and the artwork.

I very carefully lined up the artwork to make sure it was straight.

I closed the Gocco and burned the image.

After the bulbs flash and the image is burned the artwork is transferred to the screen.

After removing the paper you can see the images on the screen.

I applied the gold ink and blocking material (the grey strips) to contain the ink so it didn't bleed into the other design I burned on this screen.

I inserted the screen into the Gocco to begin printing! You can see how the blocking material does a great job at containing the ink.

After pressing the machine down I got the first image. Success! I used scraps from the wine background paper I had already cut to form a guide so the paper was placed perfectly each time. Not only did it line up everything but it saved a lot of time when placing the paper on the Gocco.

Then I turned the paper around to do the second image.

And voila! One down...109 to go!

I used the handy dandy drying rack to hold the prints.

Once that was full I laid them out on my floor to finish drying. They were everywhere! Luckily I have a big room!

The next step will be tracing and cutting the lining for the inner envelopes. After pressing the Gocco down 220 times my forearms needed a rest!

The Big One

The first big...OK it's kinda huge...project I am going to post will be wedding invitations for a friend's sister. I was given some direction from the bride and off I went designing a Victorian inspired invitation suite that includes the invite, RSVP card, lined inner envelope and printed return addresses. I've been very busy cutting all the paper (pictures to come) for about 110 invitations...making a few extra just incase. So far it's been fun cutting paper while catching up on all my shows saved on the trusty Tivo. I hope to be able to post pictures as I progress along so the bride can watch her invitations take life and also to keep a record of the outcome.