Fabric, buttons, and wood-ware: I’m in love

This past weekend we finally finish one of my favorite projects! woodware sets :) Well basically is the wrapping of the napkins and our silverware (in this case bamboo-ware)

[ Photo by yours truly]

And event thought it looks like a “piece of cake” kind of project, we did had a lot of people involved to be able to finish.

On the beginning (About 4 months a go) Aunt J gave me a HUGE jar and a bag of buttons, from the minute I saw them I new I wanted to make something for the wedding with some of them, they are SO CUTE! So a week after I had Mr. Poodle and Groomsman Scott helping me separate all of the brown, purple and green buttons from the jar.

They complain after the first half hour, but there’s nothing that been can’t relieve for them LOL

I was a happy girl on an ocean of buttons :)

  So after a couple of hours we had this bag full of buttons, step one was completed.

Then I selected a few different colors of fabric, to make the ring napkins.

MOH made a soup with water flour and glue for more body and to prevent fraying 

We let them dry on the back yard

and cut little stripes.

I wanted to sew the buttons and make  button holes with the sewing machine but after sewing all of our invitation and labels, my enthusiasm for sewing little details started to fade, and at the end I choose to sew all the buttons by hand and just glue the fabric on the back, it might not look like what I imagine at first, BUT I’m still loving sewing, so it was for the best (I don't want to end up hating my sewing machine)

So this weekend with the help of Mimi (Mr Poodle’s grandma) and more family members at the ranch we sew all of the buttons to the little stripes of fabric.

210 of them! and after that we assemble the napkins and the awesome bamboo-ware!

[ Photo by yours truly]

The only catch is that we had to buy 1000 sets of bamboo-wear because that was the minimum, so now I have to find a way to use the 700 that we are not going to use for the wedding.


Do you have any ideas of what to do with all of them?

A little sewing for Mr. Poodle

Early in our planning I searched for inspiration so I could show Mr. Poodle my ideas for him, we both liked the idea of something really casual, and he decided he would like  to wear a vest instead of suspenders (our first choice), so he left the search in my hands but I couldn’t find anything I like 100%. That’s why I decided to make it myself!

I wanted to make something for the guys, since I’m making the dresses for all my bridesmaids :) So this was the perfect project, very simple and *hopefully* cute!

I found the exact fabric I wanted at Joann, and I used the online coupon so at the end the materials were really cheap ( about $30.00 for material to make 5 vest).

And as soon as we got home I started cutting, I used one of Mr. Poodle’s old vest as my pattern for the shape, because I didn’t like the pockets that one had. Ok, enough words, now let me show you!

 So first I cut all of the pieces, one for the back and two for the front.

  Here you can see the back and fronts
( I’m using a solid darker brown for the back, and in person it’s not as shiny as the pictures show, damn flash! :P )

Then I cut two stripes and I sew them to the back, I’m planning on putting 2 buttons one on each end of the back stripes.

The first fitting, to see how the back fit, no pockets yet, but I did mark with pins the exact place he wanted them.

After that I cut a straight line and sewed two pieces on each side of the cut.

Here you can see the two pieces already sewed on the front, after that I turn the fabric to the back through the hole and TADA! a pocket!

I sew the edges and close the pockets on the inside.

I though it look very nice but I wanted to add a little secret detail, so on the inside of the left side I stitch this! TE AMO = I love you

And since it look kind of lonely I decided to close everything on a heart.

Here the final result after sewing all the edges of the vest

Here the final fitting were we decided I’m going to put 4 buttons on the front
(it’s going to look better with the buttons )

And this is how the TE AMO looks in the inside :) Mr. Poodle really like it and he didn't see it until the very last fitting, so it was a cool surprise until then lol

Are you taking in your hands the look of your groom?

Poodles' budget friendly invitations: Finally Unveiled!

So I already gave you all a small sneak peek of our invitations (envelopes) and how we finally got to transform Uprinting Brochures to our booklet Invitations. I also shared how hard it was to let them go, because it was a TRUE labor of love, and LOTS of hours of work :)


And finally the time has come! Let me introduce to you: The Poodles' invitations ♥

(click on images to see them bigger)

 Here you can see the envelope and the front and back invitation (Each envelope only has one, I put both of them there just so I could show it together)

 Front of our envelopes, I blogged the process here

 The back with a close up of the back side of our wrap around labels

 This is how it will look like when our guest get them

 Invitation Front

 Invitation Back

 Now let's remove the belly band and check what's inside!!

 First page

 My favorite details of the first page, I love the heart between our last names

 Second page, on the left our map, on the right the front of the RSVP page

I love drawing maps :) so much fun!

Front of the RSVP detail

 Third page, on the left the back of our RSVP page, on the right our "Love Timeline"

 Back of the RSVP detail

 Time-line detail

 Want to read?

 The Back of the invitation

Back details

Well that's IT!


That's our booklet wedding invitation, but I also wanted to show the thank you cards we'll be sending out!

I totally love the texture I draw for the invitations, so you'll be seeing that on a lot of wedding related projects!

So our budget break down for them is:

• 120 Brochures                       : Free       (I won a giveaway from Uprinting)
• 200 Envelopes                       : $2.00     ( I bought them in Chile)
• 1 Pack of white cardboard      : $3.00     ( at Michael's using a discount coupon)
• Return Address stamp            : $10.00   ( I ordered without the clear block)
• Staz-On Inkpad in Purple        : $4.00     ( at Michael's using a discount coupon)
• Brow, Purple and white threat  : $6.00      ( at Michael's using a discount coupon)
• Brown Kraft paper bags          : $7.00      (at Costco, it's a big box that I'll be using for other wedding crafts too --- I made the belly bands out of that )
• Postage                                  : $58.20    ($48,40 for 110 National-$0.44 and $9,80 for 10 International-$0.98 )

TOTAL : $90.20 for 120 invitation --- and that gives us a 0,75 cents per invitation! Pretty cool huh?

( Thank you cards are not included on the break down)

There’s something JOYFUL in the air!

You know why?….

( loud drums!!!)

Because I finally open my OWN Etsy shop!!!

Goshhh! I’m so excited to write this post :) So this weekend I decided I was going to start with some basic stuff for the shop, since the wedding planning is taking over ALL my time, specially now that we are only 2 months away!! I started small, simple headbands and brooches is what you’ll find for now… but after April I have SO MANY new projects to work on for the shop! ( and bigger)

In case you didn't know, I also *just* started my new BLOG

 

[ Blog and Logo Design by yours truly]

 

And I already listed some cute little headbands, so go check it out! and if you have more ideas I’ll be SO happy to hear your comments and feedback :)

 

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I had so much fun, making the headbands and then taking pictures! I can’t wait to have some more free time to make some more :) I decided to name all of my products after flavors (mostly ice-cream)  because I’m a sucker for them LOL

I am SO EXITED! and stay tuned because in a few weeks I’ll be giving away headbands on my HowJoyful! blog.

So hard to say goodbye

Ok, so I can truly say that every time I read abut brides being so attached to their invitations I thought they were crazy. Until -- I became one of them!

When we sent our Save the Dates I was so relieve that the task was done and maybe just because they were not much work I had no feelings when we let them go. But now it’s totally different!!

Yesterday, MIL B and I went to the post office and ask about hand cancel them, because well, I did spend 2 WHOLE DAYS sewing those little Kraft envelopes. The Post Office Guy said that there was no difference with just sending them normally or doing hand cancel, so I believe and with lots of pain hand them to him.

The funny part was that I sent a Save the Date for on of my friends in Chile that never got it too, and when he saw it, he ask me “Are those yours?” I smiled and say YES! well they actually remember them and since we send them a month before Christmas they like them so much that they based the design of their Christmas postcards on our STD, that’s pretty cool!!

Anyway, back to the subject, and this is my face after letting them go!

Notice those empy containers, well this is how they looked like minutes before:

I wanted to get a lot of vintage stamps to go with our pretty wrap around labels, but all the ones I found have crazy colors or I needed like 10 of them to make the 44 cents, at the end I order the normal ring stamp (after all I’ll never use that particular stamp again :P ) and since I could only get them on sheets of 25, I got 100 ring stamps, pretty lighthouses for the other 12 and normal 98 cents for our internationals.

I selected all of the single men we had on our list and gave them the lighthouse, after all I know it was cooler for them that stamp than the classing wedding rings.

Did I mention I sew labels for 2 days? … Ok, just checking!

And the last little detail was the Return Address stamp I order from JLMould!

I totally loved it! even though I have to work on my stamp skills :P – Well actually since I order the stamp without the clear block it was a little harder to find something to put the stamp on.

So the final moment came and after working so hard on them (I’ll show the actual invitation on my next post!!) It was kind of sad to send them away, but at the same time I’m super excited for them to get to their destination soon!! and hopefully hear good reactions from our guest!

Did you had mix feeling when sending your invitations?