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Monday, March 10, 2008

Embossing Queen

I have officially started the monstrous task of stamping and embossing our invitations. The invitation portion is the only thing we have printed and cut so far, so I started those on Thursday night. I only did about 36 of them before I called it quits and headed to bed.

On Friday night, I finished them. I don't know what got into me, but I got into a rhythm and it really wasn't that bad. I actually had a little bit of--dare I say it--fun.


Early last week, I ordered a custom return address stamp from rubberstamps.net. I'm very impressed with their service. I wanted to use the font (Californian) that we have been using on our invitations and inserts, so I "designed" the stamp in Microsoft Publisher, saved it as a JPEG, and then uploaded it to rubberstamps.net. The stamp cost $11.95 + shipping (only a couple of bucks), and it was waiting for me in my mailbox in only a few days. The turnaround time was great.

Last night, I decided I wanted to give the address stamp a try, so I sat down to start stamping/embossing our RSVP envelopes. Well, once I started, I just couldn't stop. I finished all of them, too.

I'm feeling really good about my progress right now. I feel like every day, I'm accomplishing something else and getting myself one step closer to completion. Thank God.

For the invitations, I still have to do the following:

- Finalize design of inserts and RSVP card

- Print inserts and RSVP cards, have them cut

- Stamp/emboss all inserts and RSVP cards

- Stamp/emboss return address on invitation envelopes

- Print, cut, and glue all of the squares for the belly bands

- Cut ribbon for belly bands

- Address invitations

- Buy postage (for invitations and RSVPs), affix postage

- Assemble, stuff, and seal!

As the list above shows, I still have quite a way to go. But the important thing is that I'm getting there. Ideally, I want to send the invitations out the Monday before my bridal shower, which is on Saturday, April 19. Five weeks to go!

6 comments:

Lauren @ten23designs said...

I do not have MS Publisher anymore. What other programs do you think may be a good choice?




By the way... I have been loving your posts... thanks for posting them.

I am having a wedding in June & just began to plan & get things together. I hope you don't mind but you have been my inspiration on my invitation packages (and other projects). This weekend I am going to try to get the stamp done (wish me luck, I'm not as talented as you).

Heather said...

Sorry, the only program I work with is Publisher.

I know other ladies work with Powerpoint and with Word sometimes, but I can't imagine trying to do it that way.

Anonymous said...

the flower designs that are on your actual invitations and the inserts were those embossed on or did you stamp those on? and did you design the designs for those yourself or??

Anonymous said...

ha sorry i know your article talks about embossing but then you mentioned a stamp for the return labels so I wasn't sure if you got a stamp for the flowers as well..ha

Heather said...

Hi Ashley--

You should google stamping and embossing to help give you an idea of what I'm doing. When I talk about embossing, I'm talking about embossing the stamp... so it is essentially the same thing.

The flowers and the return addresses are both stamps. I use a stamp pad, stamp the image onto the paper, sprinkle embossing powder onto the wet ink, and then use a heat tool to emboss them.

It's a cool effect, but it is super time consuming. I just finished the last of my stamping/embossing last night, and I was ready to throw my stamp pad and heat tool out the window.

Hope that helps!

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I have to start off my saying that you are truly an inspiration, thanks for all the advice you provide. The whole idea of making my own invitations came from looking at your page.
There's one thing that is driving me absolutely crazy: the heat embossing of the return address. I just cant get it right, it looks to messy. I ordered my custom stamp, the powder, ink pad, and heat gun but the envelope gets stained with the excess powder. I dont know what to do. any advice would be greatly appreciated.