Labor of Love #1 - Save the Dates

KJ and I put our save the dates in the mail Saturday! Thanks to the post office being closed yesterday for Presidents Day (hello... did they not realize I was very antsy and wanted my save the dates to be arriving at mail boxes on Monday), the majority of them should be delivered today with some of the out of state addresses arriving later this week.

I'm pretty excited because I can "sort of" call these my first DIY project. I know I technically DIY "cheated" because I ordered the majority of the stuff and just assembled, so instead I'll call them a "labor of love". Here is a look at how these wonderfully cheerful magnets came to be...

KJ took the lead and talked to Best Man K - who just so happens to be a graphic designer. (Of course, this conversation happened after I tried politely to squash KJ's ideas of funny save the dates that included (but not limited to) pictures of me throwing a pie in his face, a boxing themed save the date with the quote "two last names enter, one leaves", and a comic book type magnet depicting "all of our dreams coming true" where KJ has Wolverine claws coming out of his hands....)

So yes, KJ talked to Best Man K who so graciously helped KJs "approved" concept come to life with his mad design skills.

thats KJ and BM K at a Nadafinga show in 2007(ish)

I'm really impressed by the design because even thought its not exactly what KJ was hoping for, they are sweet, incorporate our pink & navy color scheme, and are pretty "fun" ... a theme that's becoming prominent in our wedding. So once we had the design I took care of ordering the magnets and envelopes, and after about 2 weeks of thinking how are we going to send these bad boys in the mail, MOH S stepped in to help assemble.

You would think these were pretty easy to assemble... and you'd be right. The hard part was actually thinking out the process of how they would all go together.

Step 1 - Address envelopes (check! MOH S has super clean handwriting so this was the easy part) The hard part was the 2 months prior spent acquiring everyones addresses and making sure our guest list was right at the number we wanted.

Hard at work

Step 2 - Attach magnet to navy card stock with glue dots. Pretty easy once MOH S got the hand of these little suckers. The card stock I got cut at Kinkos - but of course it wasn't that easy. You would think that you could just cut a piece of paper in four and use it as the backing for the magnet, except that the way the envelopes are glued, a quarter piece of paper is about an eighth of an inch too big to fit in the envelope. So after the original cut job, I had to have them re cut to fit correctly.

Experimenting with glue dots

Step 3 - Affix message about "you have a magnet in your hands... please don't throw it away" to corner. Between KJ, MOH S, and myself I think we had about 7 different ideas of how to draw attention to the fact that yes, in fact that is a magnet you are holding in your hands. Idea #1, write a message on each of the pieces of navy card stock... it sounded like it would work, so MOH S and I sent KJ off to the craft store to get the proper paint pens! 45 minutes later (and a pizza) later, KJ returned victorious and we started writing on each of the papers. I think we got about 3 pieces in before we started spelling the word "magnet" wrong, or forgetting a "the", or just getting too frustrated. So idea #1 died pretty quickly. Idea #2, attach a little message about the fact there is a magnet in your hands to the paper. Perfect, that would work... except then we spent the next 20 minutes discussing the placement of the piece of paper. Over the magnet? In the corner? On the back? Hmm.. maybe we should revisit Idea #1. Or move to idea number #5?

Someone (I can't really remember who) made the executive decision to affix saying to corner and that's that. MOH S and I sent KJ off, again, this time to Kinko's to get the sayings printed and cut while we went back to more glue dots! Another 45 minutes and KJ returned victorious... this time complaining that the Kinko's smelled of awful lingering farts.

We stuck the sayings on and ta-da! We had assembled save the dates!

Step 4 - Stuff, Seal, Stamp
Easy, Breezy, Beautiful!
Step 5 - Deliver to Post Office!

and today... we get to enjoy Step 6. Which is, as our friends and family find our save the date envelopes among their pile of junk mail and bills, we can finally start sharing the excitement we've been feeling for so many months!

Thanks again to BM K & MOH S - you guys rock!