Eco-Vintage Weddings

Showcase Wednesday: Our (Finished) Save the Dates!

Happy Wednesday, readers! I always love it when the middle of the week arrives … it means we’re all closer to the weekend, which means that I’m closer to seeing Jordan! We’re living and working in separate cities right now, so I’m always grateful whenever Jordan comes home on the weekend.

Today I am pleased to bring you the fruits of our labor – our DIY bingo-inspired Save the Date cards!

Aren’t they cute!?

Jordan and I worked closely together on these cards, which proved to be a valuable lesson in Marriage 101: Patience is an absolutely necessary part of taking on any project, from DIY stationery to life itself.

As you may recall from this post, crafting the bingo card design came easily. It was the steps thereafter that proved to be more of a challenge.

First was the question of how to design the wrap-around vellum band. Jordan and I began concepting an asymmetrical design, but we quickly decided that we wanted to mirror the symmetry of the bingo card design on the vellum band. So, after a few long hours full of meticulous edits, we finally came to a consensus – we loved the design featuring our engagement pictures, courtesy of Creative Kindling!

After finalizing the design, I set out to find yellow vellum paper. Well, yellow vellum paper wasn’t in my future, I soon found out, which actually ended up for the better; my resourceful mother took a yellow crayon and colored on top of the clear vellum paper we found, and when she placed the vellum over the bingo card, it looked HIDEOUS! I feel very fortunate that I didn’t waste any money on yellow vellum paper.

Once the bingo cards and the vellum wraps were printed and trimmed, I spent one evening seated at my kitchen table with my Mom and two of my best gal pals (my maid of honor Kristen and my bridesmaid Serena), and we folded and glued, folded and glued. Kristen, whose super-fun handwriting is making its debut on the envelopes holding these Save the Date lovelies, spent a good portion of the evening addressing envelopes for us.

Here’s a glimpse of the front of the card:

There were two final parts to the design, the first of which is one of my favorites. The vellum paper wrapped around the back of the bingo card design, and where the two edges of the vellum paper met, my bridesmaid and gluer-extraordinaire Serena attached a button.

One note about the buttons, however:  I didn’t know this prior to crafting our Save the Date cards, but the buttons cost us an extra $0.20 cents each in postage, since they needed to be hand-stamped instead of running through a postage machine. I’m sure glad that none of our other stationery projects will utilize buttons, but at the same time, I love this feature on our Save the Date cards.

The second (and final) design element involved stamping a circle shape around the “July 17″ square on the front of the bingo card. While this should have been one of the easiest parts of the entire process, the company from which we ordered the stamp happened to be experiencing a high order volume, which therefore delayed the order significantly. However, all was well in the end, as the stamp arrived just in the knick of time!

Overall, I’m more than satisfied with our Save the Date cards. I would like to make one recommendation for you readers:  when Jordan and I were stuffing and sealing the envelopes that I had lined with decorative paper, we had trouble securing a proper seal, due to the fact that the decorative paper had covered up the waxy seal (the part of an envelope that you lick to seal it shut). So, we stuck a piece of double-stick tape to secure the envelope shut, and added a sticker seal on top of that. In the future, I will try to be more creative when lining envelopes, so that I don’t cover up the waxy seal.

I estimate the total cost of this project, including postage, to be right around $60.00. Most of the cost stems from purchasing the vellum paper.

What do you think of our Save the Date cards?

Green Monday: Green Printing Facts

Have you ever considered the environmental impact of the inks you use in your printer? If you haven’t, you certainly will after hearing statistics like this:

- Conservatree suggests that one ton of office and printing paper may require up to 24 trees.

- According to the Forest Stewardship Council, the U.S. is the largest market for paper products in the world, producing 90 million tons of paper and consuming about 100 million tons each year; about 25% of timber cut annually in the U.S. is used to make paper.

To combat the displacement of trees to make paper, many printing companies today are using as much recycled content as possible, or are utilizing paper made from sustainably harvested forests.

Here’s how the recycling process works, according to GreenerPrinter:

In the recycling process, paper is washed and deinked before being made into pulp. This pulp goes through a bleaching process (ideally processed chlorine free) and is formed into paper by removing the water, drying the paper, and cutting it into rolls or sheets for use. An important measure to look for in recycled paper is the post-consumer waste content. The difference between recycled and post-consumer waste (PCW) is that PCW refers to paper that has already been used by consumers – basically, it’s the paper that we toss into our recycle bins – whereas recycled paper might include materials that never reached the consumer, such as magazines that were printed but never sold.

Printing companies are also utilizing soy-based inks (ink that is derived from soybeans) instead of petroleum-based inks, which are made using a non-renewable resource (petroleum) and also release volatile chemicals into the environment called VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds).

For more information on green printing, or to purchase products that have been printed utilizing soy-based ink or recycled papers, click here.

NOTE: This post is not sponsored by the above company, individual, service or product line.

Showcase Wednesday: Bachelorette Party Invites!

Happy Wednesday, readers! It’s finally the middle of the week. I’ve been battling sickness early this week, but am feeling a bit better today.

I wanted to share with you the invitations I created for my bachelorette party that’s coming up this June. I know, I know, it’s usually the job of the women throwing the party to make the invitations, but A) I know how absolutely busy my girls are, and B) I love being crafty! Planning this wedding has done wonders for me in terms of providing a creative outlet, so I couldn’t resist just one more project.

My ideal bachelorette party is a good old-fashioned slumber party! I want to play Mall Madness, test my luck with a Ouija board, and put on make-up, paint my nails and style my hair. I want to play Truth or Dare, talk about boys, eat pizza and drink wine. Sounds fun, doesn’t it!?

So, in the spirit of all things slumber party, I crafted these little “sleeping bags” out of double-sided decorative paper and glue.

MATERIALS NEEDED:

Double-sided paper (I used paper that I purchased from Hobby Lobby)
Cardboard for a pattern (I again used the back of a notebook)
A6 envelopes (or any size)
Glue sticks
Bone folder (optional)

Steps:

1. Cut a pattern that is twice the width of your desired width. It’s important to approximate two times the width you need, because to achieve the sleeping bag look, you’ll later fold the paper in half. To identify the size, I measured the width of the A6 envelope and decided on an approximate size to fit inside the envelope. I cut my pattern to 8.25 inches long by 7 inches wide.

2. Hold the pattern up to one sheet of decorative paper and cut around it with scissors.

3. Fold the decorative paper in half.

4. To make the sleeping bag appear “folded down,” fold a crease into one of the edges. A bone tool works very well to accomplish a crisp fold.

5. Using a glue stick, glue along the bottom edge of the sleeping bag (opposite the folded flap). Also, glue along the unfolded edge of the bag (opposite the fold).

6. Glue under the flap to secure the bottom of the flap to the body of the sleeping bag. Let dry overnight.

7. Stick the pull-0ut invite inside the sleeping bag, and you’re ready to mail your invitations! If you’re using A6 envelopes with the above measurements, the final size of your pull-out invite should be 4.5 inches long by 3 inches wide.

[Photos: All taken by me]

Our Wedding: DIY Projects Update!

Happy Tuesday, readers! I hope today is happy for you – Tuesdays are usually happy for me: any day is better than Monday in my book!

With approximately five months until the wedding, I wanted to give you all a glimpse into what I’ve accomplished these past few weeks. I’ve hit the wedding planning hard, and I’m very proud of what projects I’ve started and finished! Many thanks to my wonderful friends and family for their help, as well as my future husband – I couldn’t do any of this without you!

- I’ve lined envelopes for our Save the Date cards and for the invitations for my bachelorette party (which will most likely be in June).
- I’ve made invitations for my bachelorette party, which I’ll be showcasing for you all tomorrow!
- Our Save the Date cards are nearly complete; I am VERY happy with the finished product, and I can’t wait to show the fruits of our efforts to you all next week!
- We’ve downloaded templates for our rehearsal dinner invitations and for our gift opening invitations; all we need are the details, and they’ll be ready to print!
- I’ve made little “favors” of sorts for our wedding; I’m anxious to show these to you near the end of February!
- We’ve taken profile photos of our entire wedding party, and I’m almost ready to talk with Jordan about what I’m concepting for our wedding ceremony programs.
- I’ve purchased large rectangles of styrofoam, which I will adorn with moss and turn into monograms that will hang by ribbon on the church doors!
- I’ve purchased two large bags of fabric pom poms; I am currently researching making DIY paper cones full of pom poms that our ushers will pass out to guests after our ceremony. I love these little pom poms!
- I purchased my flower fascinator from Etsy, and I can’t wait until it arrives!
- I purchased lace trim to use when making my throw-away garter.
- I’m in the beginning stages of making a few special items for my bridesmaids, including a very exciting purchase of gifts from Etsy! No more for now, can’t take the chance that I’d ruin the surprise!
- I’m in talks with a wonderful Etsy artist about making dresses for our flower girls; I’m a few decisions away from nailing down exactly what we’re looking for!
- My mother and I made a trip to a few area fabric stores last week, and I think we’ve found the fabric that we’ll use to make napkins for our wedding reception. I can’t wait to get this fabric purchased and get started on making these eco-friendly goodies!
- I have added a base coat of cream paint to 15 wooden letter “G’s” (these will be part of our centerpieces); they look great, and I can’t wait to add more treatments to these letters!
- J and I have FINALLY nailed down a design for our wedding invitations; now, all we need to do is add the text to the invitation, and then we can begin working on the supplemental materials for our invitations!

Whew! Looking at this list, I feel SO proud of all of the work we’ve started and finished.

What projects are YOU currently working on for your wedding?

Our Wedding: DIY Paper-Lined Envelopes

Good morning, readers! I’m excited to share Eco-Vintage Weddings‘ FIRST-ever DIY project tutorial with you!

Over the weekend, I finally had a chance to get started on preparing our Save the Date cards for their voyage into the mailboxes of our families and friends.

Ever since I saw this great Martha idea, I knew that I wanted to line the inside flaps of our envelopes. I plan to do this in some form for every piece of stationery we send out (from Save the Date cards to thank-you notes), so it was GREAT to get started!

I needed to make approximately 60 envelopes, and it took me roughly 3 hours to complete this craft.

MATERIALS NEEDED:

-A6 size envelopes (mine had a rectangle flap, not a diamond like European-style envelopes)
-Decorative paper (I used a 48-sheet collection of one-sided papers entitled “Paris Nights” by GCD Studios; purchased from Hobby Lobby)
-Glue stick
-Scratch piece of paper
-Scissors
-To make the pattern: Heavy cardstock or a lightweight piece of cardboard (I used the back of an old notebook)
-Bone folder (optional)

STEPS:

1. Cut your scratch piece of paper down to the approximate size of the envelope. Stick the paper inside the envelope, and adjust the size of the paper as necessary with your scissors. The paper should fit inside the envelope so that it stretches from the top of the flap (when the envelope is open) to past the opening of the envelope.

2. Place the paper atop your cardboard, and cut around the paper to make a cardboard pattern.

3. Place the cardboard pattern atop one sheet of decorative paper. Cut around the pattern with your scissors.

4. With the envelope flap open, stick the piece of decorative paper inside the envelope, making sure that the paper stretches from the top of the flap past the opening of the envelope (see picture below). Trim the edges of the paper as necessary; the pattern is meant to be a guideline and does not guarantee a perfect cut.

5. With the decorative paper lined up inside the envelope, lift up the top of the paper (where the seal of the envelope is), and use your glue stick to liberally add glue ONLY to the inside flap of the envelope. Do NOT glue the decorative paper; this will bend the paper and make it difficult to stick to the flap of the envelope.

6. Flip the envelope over like the picture above. Look for and trim any overlapping edges with your scissors.

7. Flip the envelope back over, and with your fingers at the bottom of the inside flap, bend the flap of the envelope, as if you are ready to seal it. Press firmly across the crease where the flap and the body of the envelope meet. You could also use a bone folder to help make a crisp crease.

8. You’re done! Here’s the finished product (above) and my collection of envelopes (below):

What DIY projects are YOU doing for your wedding?

Do you have a tutorial to share?

Send me photos and step-by-step instructions at sara.eiesland@gmail.com, and I may feature it
on Eco-Vintage Weddings!

Green Monday: Botanical Paperworks

Happy Monday, all! I apologize for the utter drought in posting last week – I came down with a killer cold that literally knocked me out on Tuesday and Friday morning, and I also started a new part-time job at a local kid’s clothing store in the mall (student loans sure don’t pay for themselves!), so needless to say, it was a crazy week.

For today’s Green Post, I wanted to share a great resource for brides who don’t want to sacrifice paper goods at their wedding, but are looking to cut down the footprint of such goods. Look no further than Botanical Paperworks, which provides paper that literally can be planted post-use!

From holiday cards to invitations to journals to paper in bulk, Botanical Paperworks has it all. I’m thinking about utilizing plantable paper for our wedding menus, because while I have a creative idea for our menus (I’ll share that with you sometime!), I don’t like the idea of creating yet another paper good for our guests to discard.

By simply making guests take notice of the paper you’re using and asking them to plant the paper in your honor after the wedding, you’re dramatically reducing the environmental footprint of your wedding by reducing waste.

How do you plan to reduce your wedding’s environmental impact?

[Image taken from Botanical Paperworks, www.botanicalpaperworks.com]

Our Wedding Tuesday: Save The Date!

Happy Tuesday, readers! I hope you all made it through your Monday relatively unscathed; I know I struggle to get out of bed after a wonderful weekend!

Today’s a big day for EVW – we’re finally ready to show all of you our Save-the-Date cards!

The inspiration for our cards came from Etsy seller Golden Silhouette, who had bingo card Save-the-Dates for sale in her shop. I loved the ingenuity of the cards, and I felt that they fit in so well with our vintage-inspired theme! I showed this template to Jordan, and he agreed that while the bingo card was a wonderfully creative idea, we needed to make it our own to make it work.

So, after much deliberation as to how to make this template our own, here’s a mock-up of what our Save-the-Date bingo card looks like!

I apologize if this image is rather difficult to see (click the image to view it larger); our colors are a dark slate grey, ivory and yellow, and we plan to print the card on heavy grey cardstock. Instead of using the word “Bingo,” we wanted to use a love-inspired word. I love the word “Bliss,” and I think it looks so fun at the top of our bingo card! As you can see, near the bottom, the number ‘17′ is circled in a faint yellow color, with the word “July” written atop it. In the free space we’ve placed a Photoshop brush of a beautiful vintage chandelier, which is one part of a larger graphic we’re planning to include throughout our invitation suite.

There’s one more part to our Save-the-Date card that we have left to do. This idea was inspired by an engagement card I received from my cousin Amber. The front of the card was affixed with a vellum wrap-around belly band that said, “You’re Engaged!” I loved the way this looked, and since we needed to inform our guests of our wedding date and location (and this web site!) I wanted to include a belly band on our Save-the-Date.

Here’s what the belly band will say:

Birds of a feather, please save the date
to witness the marriage of
Sara Eiesland & Jordan Gillis
July seventeenth, two thousand and ten
Sioux Falls, South Dakota

For more information on our wedding plans,
visit www.ecovintageweddings.com.

Formal invitation to follow.

The text above will be right-aligned, and on the left side of the belly band, we’ll have a picture of us from our engagement photography session (which is coming up in a few weeks!). I love how the Save-the-Date begins with “Birds of a feather” … this text was taken from the wedding invitation of a fellow kindred blogger and her partner, Sara & Matt of A $2000 Wedding.

Here’s one of my favorite parts:  the two edges/sides of the belly band will meet on the back of the bingo card and be sealed with a button! My maid of honor and I went to the flea market a few weekends ago, and we found a whole mason jar full of buttons for only $5.00! I’m so excited for this part of the Save-the-Date process; actually putting together the separate pieces!

It’s our goal to send out our Save-the-Date cards in mid-January, so we still have some time to finish up the process. But, the bingo cards themselves are ready to print, and we plan to send them to my father’s company for printing any day now! We’ve already begun collecting addresses, and after that, we’ll be on the hunt for yellow or ivory envelopes and wrap-around address labels. It’s so exciting!

I’d love to hear your feedback!
What do you think of our Save-the-Dates?!

Invitation Inspiration!

Good Friday morning to everyone!

I apologize for not posting yesterday; one of my very good friends from high school was in town, and we spent the evening chatting about boys, playing games and reminiscing about our days at Brandon Valley High School. It was a blast!

Today’s post is a lot of fun – I’m beginning to hone in on what I envision for our wedding invitations! As you all are aware, I’m in love with all things vintage-inspired, and I desperately want to incorporate this love of old things and of tradition into my wedding while still keeping some elements new. I am starting to realize that J and my wedding will be a blend of “Something Old” with “Something New,” and I love that!

As of now, J and I are planning on a mid-July 2010 wedding, so instead of the deep browns and crimson reds and olive greens that I was imagining for a fall wedding, I’m now thinking bright and bold colors! Lately, I’m loving the idea of bright, fuschia pink flowers and cobalt blue dresses, ties, and linens. How fun does that sound!

If we indeed go that route, I found this WONDERFUL and (get this: FREE) invitation suite on IDIY awhile back, and I just love the simplicity of it! All we would need to do is change the wording to fit our needs, add our own personal touches to make it our own, and print away! These invites have an old-world feel to them that I love!

However, I’m also So. In. Love. with the invitation below, and I think I can tap the graphic design skills of a few friends and family members to get something like this done. It’s a new twist on a wedding invitation; get ready to scroll, people!

Hope you have a wonderful, restful weekend!

[Photo credits: IDIY]