The biggest problem we encountered was the lack of symmetry on the design. To start off the project, we took my image, multiplied it, and printed out an image for burning with the Gocco. We knew that we would need to stamp our Save the Date twice, since the Gocco screen was not big enough to cover the actual postcard size paper in one stamp. We did not think ahead about symmetry, though, and totally made lining up our two stamps impossible.
Ms. Tortolita stamped one side, then flipped over the card, stamped the other side.... and of course our talavera tile design did not match up. Instead of having full closed circles at the boundary line where both our stamps meet, we ended up with a snake like design. weah! So, we decide to burn another screen (using the same image, but now mirrored) and finally got our circles to close but in a very awkward way. Our half circles overlapped most of the time and stamp alignment was eyeballed everytime. Double weah!
We decided to line up what we could and ended up with these samples (shown all the way at the bottom). This left us with a blank strip right down the middle. So what can we put there that would look alright and blend in with the card? Ribbon! Good job, you figured it out! Haha, we biked to Moscatel's in Downtown L.A., and bought some burgundy ribbon (wide enough for that space). Went back home, cut strips the length of the card's width and realized the ribbon was too transparent. So we doubled up and used two strips per STD! We used spray adhesive (which is completely messy and leaves your fingers sticky for hours!) to attach the ribbon without ugly blobs of glue leaving completely smooth... and ta-da! Our upgraded STDS:
Sweet! With the back side complete... we worked on the front side (the stuff that really matters). We decided to go conservative... simple text and a picture of us. We actually went on an engagement-moon over a year ago to the beautiful Mexican state of Guanajuato and decided to take engagement pictures (I did not know such things existed back in the day) in the picturesque city of San Miguel de Allende. We opened our favorite picture in Adobe Photoshop, fit as many wallet-sized pictures as we could in an 8x11 sheet of paper, went to Kinko's and printed them out on photo paper (they charge per sheet, so fill up your sheet to its max! And save as a jpeg, or else they have to do it for you, and of course this service isn't free!).
We used Adobe Illustrator to design the text, Gocco'd it and bam! Done! We did have to do bilingual sets since most of our family members speak Spanish. Hence, our "Reserva la Fecha" posts (i.e., "Save the Date"). Here, is what our invitees found in their respective mailboxes:
Y en español!
They turned out pretty sweet I suppose. We attached the pictures with double-sided mounting tape (au contraire to the original picture corner mount). But oh well, this was easier, and by this time, we were exhausted.
Oh yeah, so of course Ms. Tortolita will not put printed stickers on her beautiful envelopes. Each one had to be addressed individually in calligraphy.... all of them! And who is the local calligrapher we know? Me! Haha, I've never done calligraphy in my life but Ms. Tortolita thinks since I took 1 (ONE!) art class in college, I'm like Van Gogh or El Greco, or I don't know who. So, we bought a set of calligraphy markers (not the needle ones, those looked too hard to try to handle in such a short notice), typed all the addresses on screen using a handwritten font, and I copied from the screen to our envelopes by hand. Here is what the end result looks like...
Do-it yourself projects are definitely a lot of work, but the fiancee and I appreciated the opportunity to once again work as a team to get cool stuff done. Go Team Claudia y Felipe! Haha. corny I know...
1 comment:
Simply beautiful! Congrats to you both :)
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