stampgasm!

i got a lot of work done on my wedding invitations this weekend.  i went from literally a box of paper just sitting there to a whole stack of things done and ready to go, word documents finalized, and plans aplenty.  i think it scared D a little; suddenly i seemed to know exactly what was going on and had a lot of stuff done.  which is just how i work. 

a lot of my plans for hand-drawn and written invitation elements kind of fell by the wayside once i started working.  for one thing, doing the conversion from doodle in my sketchbook to pdf file is a bigger undertaking than i can manage on my own (which is so sad considering that i worked at kinko's long enough to actually learn all of that shit!), and for another, the way i was writing everything looked great at one size, but was harder to read at the actual size we needed.  a lot of folks getting invitations are D's older relatives, and once i shrunk down my calligraphy work it was harder to read.  i'm also going to say this even though it sounds shitty and cynical, but not everyone is going to keep our wedding invitations.  making an elaborate piece of paper art that people are eventually going to throw away seemed kind of sad.  i'm happy with the compromise i made; i think my home-printed word documents come very close to the spirit of my curly handwriting, i like the paper i picked a lot, and the end result is simple, clean and easy to read.  there are pretty acorn touches, a little bit of yarn (of course!), and personal touches throughout.  yeah, if time and money and knowledge were infinite, my invitations would be a bit fancier.  as it stands, i think they're sweet and interesting and best of all, on their way to being all done. 

buying this paper cutter was one of those expenses i probably shouldn't have splurged on, but good goddamn, I LOVE IT.  i've been really digging on all kinds of paper work and letter and card making these day anyhow, and being able to work on my invitations any time at all has been awesome.  i know printing them myself is kind of cheap, but if i can't afford letterpress at least i can trim all my paper myself!  i admit, i've been enjoying working on the invitations, at night when the kids go to bed, watching tv with a beer, cutting and stamping and setting things up like my own little assembly-line.  it feels good to have such a big project to work on, and even better watching it all come together.