Wedding Wednesday Vendor Spotlight: Stamp World

I am cheating a bit with this week's Wedding Wednesday post and spotlighting a vendor instead. I am very excited to post about this particular vendor. They are a Colorado-based company that specializes in personalized items and laser engraving. Stamp World does it all, it seems! They sent me a few samples to take a gander at, and I was genuinely impressed. What caught my eye?

These laser engraved wood invites and reply cards rock! I could not believe how cool they are. They can even work with artwork you supply. How cool is that?! I am looking into having our table numbers made out of the wood veneer, similar to the reply cards. I'll definitely keep you in the know about how it goes! Check them out! They offer so many more products. Looking for custom napkins? They've got them. Stamps? They've got them. Lip Balm? Key chains? Ornaments? They've got them. Seriously. This vendor rocks.

Programs! Get Your Programs!

I wanted to let you all in on what I've been working on with the lovely Val of Custom Printables. We've been designing the programs! (Or should I say, SHE has been designing them??) Val was ah-mazing to work with and was patient through my indecision and my extremely last minute oops of leaving people off the wedding party list. She was an absolute doll, and I would strongly recommend you check her out. I am not graphically inclined, but I know my way around a printer. Custom Printables was a natural choice, as she designs the artwork and you print! Without further ado... here is our program (with names, dates and locations changed to protect the innocent!)
The first and last pages will be printed on blue paper, with the middle pages printed on Royal Fiber kraft paper. It's not quite as dark as true kraft paper, so we were able to use colored ink. I'm not sure how we're going to create the booklet yet. All of our ideas have them combined at the top... whether by twine, a sewn seam or ribbon. I'll post pics once the final product is done!

Fabulous Shoe Friday

I love summer.

*I have to admit that I have two pair of these below that I've had for years-- coral and khaki suede.


*This last pair would be perfect for my niece's 1st birthday. Awwww...
Found here x 2, here, here x 3

Tutorial Request

I've had a couple water bottle label tutorial requests. I plan to make more this weekend, so I will create a little mini tutorial to post next week. My labels are obviously not of designer quality, but I'm proud just the same. This project would be a cinch for you designers out there. Stay tuned!

More DIY Fun

After telling you on Wednesday that I didn't do any wedding related stuff until Monday, I realized I lied. Oops! I can't believe I forgot.

First, on Saturday, I took advantage of a gift certificate my parents got me for my birthday last August (yikes!) and got an hour and a half long massage. She focused on my back and arms because of the carpal tunnel issues. It was absolutely wonderful! I spoke to her about using yet another gift certificate that J got me for Valentine's Day for a wedding week massage. I always go to the same masseuse, so when she told me she was taking off that week for her birthday, I was a bit bummed. She did tell me that she will book me the Thursday afternoon prior to the wedding anyway. Yay! I carry my stress in my back, so I'm positive a massage will be a huge help the week of the wedding.

Afterward, I went over to BM Jen's house to try out cupcake recipes for the wedding. I was beyond excited to try out flavors and spent $70 on supplies (because I didn't want to use her stuff for my wedding trials, and the supplies will last until the wedding, too). We tried three different recipes from the 500 Cupcakes cookbook that Crate & Barrel is offering. The first was the Baked Cheesecake recipe. I was in love. J and I cannot get enough cheesecake, even though he is not a sweets person. I hate to say... that was the ONLY recipe that turned out! It was a fairly disappointing adventure. (A little shrimp curry cured my woes.) I'm wondering if the altitude caused the issues, so I'm going to do a bit of research. The other two recipes we tried were Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes and Devil's Food Cupcakes. Both of them fell in the middle and way overflowed. The brownie one looked normal on the outside, but there was no middle at all. Bizarre. Jen and I decided we should make it more of a dessert bar than a cupcake and cake display. I'm thinking mini key lime pies might be fun. We'll see!

Have you had any DIY fails?
*Nearly forgot again... we finally ordered my band! Yay. :)

Wedding Wednesday

The three day weekend was nice, but I have to admit that I did not do any wedding-related tasks until Monday. It rained all weekend, and I spent most of the time deep-cleaning the house. There's nothing better than doing a spring clean! What wedding things did I do?
I used this:
to make labels for these:
{I created three different label templates on Martha Stewart's faux bois paper... one in Goldrush font (featured in the second pic), another in Ma Sexy font, and another with Ma Sexy and Darling Monogram font mixed. The blur is intentional for the blog only.}
to put in these:
{This pic doesn't even show all of them! I stuffed them with bottles, chips and crackers so far. I'm going to pick up Emergen-C to throw in there when I go to Costco in three weeks. I also grabbed a bunch of Steamboat magazines to include. I still need to decide what paper to print the schedule of activities and directions on.}

Creating the water bottle stickers was amazingly easy. I literally applied 50 of them in less than an hour... when it was my first time using the machine! I'm going to create more in a few days. I may use the Goldrush ones for our rodeo rehearsal dinner because the font is just perfect for it! I haven't decided yet. I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to create a few for our ceremony, either, as it is being held on a July afternoon. They're so easy that I don't mind making a ton of them!

AND... Breathe.

Thanks for your support in my blogging hiatus this week. I've been a bit out of sorts over everything lately and needed to get my head back in order. J and I went to our friend's memorial service on Sunday and heard people speak from all over the country... telling wonderful stories of such an amazing life. We are so glad that we were able to hear the things that everyone said, as it will help us remember what he brought to everyone's lives.

My wonderful blogging friend, Cyndi of Southern Daze, sent me such an amazing gift recently. I left it sitting in its packaging until I finally decided to put it in a more proper setting after the service. (I apologize for the poor photography. I really should take a class!) Thanks Cyn for reminding me... XOXO.

Two Months?

Holy bejeezus. We only have two more months! Yikes. I promise I'll resume posting this week.

No Posts Today

For the first time since starting my weekly Wedding Wednesday posts, I'm taking a moment of silence. I debated whether to even mention it on the blog, but I felt like I needed to explain my absence. On Monday morning, a friend of mine, a local restaurant owner, lost his life in a horrible incident while back east on a trip visiting with his fiancee's parents. The details are just too gruesome to divulge, and I'm having such a hard time with the reality of it all. The whole ordeal has me thrown for a loop... questioning every detail. It is just too devastating. I hope that what I gain from it is the understanding that life is precious. Take a moment to tell those you love just that!

Send Me On My Way

I am ecstatic to tell you that I was able to salvage most of the envelopes after yesterday's realization. I came right home and went to work to rectify the situation. At first, I tried to steam the envelope open. It was a disastrous mess. Not only did it warp everything, but the brand-new steamer started leaking all over the place. Over Thanksgiving, I bought the hand-held steamer thinking it would come in handy for the wedding. I hadn't opened the box until last night, and I couldn't believe it was defective. Can you imagine the luck?! At that point, I felt like the situation couldn't get any worse, so I decided to try to hand open all of the envelopes. Thank goodness I did because it worked on most of them! So... without further ado, here are my horrible attempts at photography. Enjoy!

The invite:
The rehearsal dinner invite:

The insert for those not invited to the rehearsal dinner (just inviting them to the rodeo):

The RSVP envie (which was originally in ivory until I screwed up those, as well and then realized I had 80 of these green ones... ugh. Notice the stamps!):
We attached a little insert that had one of three different monograms with this on the back:
The set put together (tied with green and white bakers twine):

The envies with different vintage stamps:
(The next combo is my favorite.)
All of the stamps we used had to do with flowers (in reference to our venue), love and Colorado.
The return address:

An action shot:
The place looks like a tornado blew through! I nearly forgot to tell you. Our printer had survived longer than two digital cameras, so I knew we were playing with fire using it for the wedding print jobs. Of course, it decided to act up while printing our original ivory RSVP envies, hence the reprint on the (even better) green envies. We got a new scan/print/copy/fax/wi-fi printer because of it, although I would have preferred to wait to spend the money. It was amazing how much better and faster the printing was once the new printer was installed.

Anyway... I'm so excited to get these out today! I have more envelopes coming today, so I will finish them up tonight. WOO-HOO!!