Challenge 75 - Anything But a Card

Good Top Tip Tuesday Morning :)

This week we have some wonderful ideas, tips and samples for you! Grab a cuppa, put the dog out, take the phone off the hook and start reading.....

Challenge

- Anything But a Card -

Hosted by Carol
Wedding Stationery Tips & Ideas

Our wonderful Sponsors for this challenge...




Stamp and Create.com




And an awesome prize of 

Stamp and Create is an on-line store based in the US. We ship worldwide with reasonable shipping prices.
We specialize in Rubber Stamps and Scrapbook supplies. Some of the companies we carry are: Wags 'n Whiskers Rubber Stamps, High Hopes Rubber Stamps, Whiff of Joy, The Greeting Farm, Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps, Stampavie, Whimsy Stamps, Emerald Faeries, Basic Grey, My Mind's Eye, Echo Park, Ribbon, Charms, embellishments, dies, and more!




and




Robyn's Fetish!





1 Lucky winner 4 stamps of their choice!

Robyn's Fetish Digital Stamps And More is proud to sponsor this challenge.
Robyn's Fetish Digital Stamps And More, a division of I Did It Creations, was created and is
owned by Robyn Weinrib. Robyn offers a wonderful variety of digital stamps and digital papers, designed to meet the needs of all digital paper crafting addicts for every occasion.

Please Note! Carol has Made a Guest Book and table plan and Post box!
as the Challenge is ANYTHING but a CARD!

Now over to our 'Tutorial'......

For a change I thought it would be nice to showcase our 'Anything but a Card' creations.
Over the past few weeks months I have been working on x2 Wedding Stationery orders so I thought this would fit in well. I had wanted to get my sewing machine out and have a play on that for this challenge, but all of my fabric and ideas for that will have to wait for another day ;)


Here's a taster of the the 2 Weddings I've just done....

My tutorial for this challenge is a little different - it's more of a Tips & Ideas section.
I am in no way claiming to be a top Wedding Stationery producer - this is only the 3rd 'full' wedding I've done, I have done about 10 where they just wanted me to do the Table Plan and Menu's or the Order of Service, Place Names, Menus, etc. There are some awesome Handmade Wedding Stationery makers out there, and I hope one day, to be as successful as many of them :)
This is just a little run-down of things I find help me when I'm planning an order...

1 - Invite the Bride & Groom to you for their consultation. I find this beneficial as they can see that their stationery will be made in a clean environment. You will also have all of your supplies and favorite web sites to hand.

NOTE - I do my Wedding Orders in 3 stages....

Save the Dates... acts as a little taster for the couple and builds their confidence in your knowledge and ability. As Save the Dates are usually very simplistic these can be done prior to a Mood Board or final design ideas for Invites being made.

Invites.... These take the most creativity and discussion.

Rest of order... Order of Service, Menu, Table Names, Place Names, Guest Book, Post Box, Table Plan, etc.

2 - I LOVE Mood Boards, as long as there's plenty of time and the couple don't have a set idea of what they want I send them away with a cork notice board and tell them to collect anything that they 'like'. I tell them it could be pictures of favorite places, pieces of fabric, texture, anything that inspires them. A lot of people have trouble envisaging what is expected of a Mood Board so I always have mine to show as an example. When they revisit you in a couple of months get them to explain why each item is on their Mood Board this will give you more of an idea about what they like and should inspire you with some ideas for their stationery.

3 - I feel it is my job, as the creative one, to bring together the couples thoughts and ideas into a set of stationery that will work. If a bride gives me an idea and I really think it wont work I will explain why - she may not be able to see past her ideas whereas I can picture the finished item. You may get a bride that really does want something you are not 100% about, but as long as she is happy with the samples you have made up for her, who's to tell her no!

4 - I'm usually chatting with the couple for about 2 hours at this first meeting and from what we have discussed I put together 4-5 samples with a few variations on the wording wanted in a few fonts. These are posted to the couple for them to look over.

5 - Couple re-visit me and we discuss samples. We come up with a final design, maybe using aspects used on some or all of the samples.

6 - I make up a Day Invite and Evening Invite in the final design. These are posted to be confirmed. At this stage ensure you have all names etc sent to you in the format they are to be used for the stationery. I always tell my brides to forgive my persistence but I will e-mail her to check spellings, even tho they are HER friends and she should know how to spell their names, if something looks wrong or different I will check with them - The amount that have been wrong in the brides FINAL list is hard to believe!

7 - After the Day and Evening Invites have been delivered we make a date for our next meeting to discuss the rest of the order. This can sometimes be quite close to the knuckle as final figures, menus and order of service can take a little while to get together. The Weddings I have done so far have been more than happy for me to design the rest of the stationery as they have been more than happy with the Invites produced. I still make up a mock of Order of Service and Menu inserts for the couple to agree and I also draft print the names for the Place Cards so as spellings can be finally confirmed.

8 - Take a deposit at each stage to ensure you get all of the ribbon, card etc in one hit. I explain that ribbon and card can be like wallpaper and needs to be purchased together to ensure continuity.

9 - Take some nice photographs of your work before they are collected and ask the bride if their is someone who could take a picture or 2 of the Stationery in situ, it's amazing how much this can bring your photographed Stationery to 'life'. The weddings I've not attended have asked their photographer to add this to their list.

Here are some of my pieces....

Day Invite (with Belly Band) - Evening Invite

Wedding Breakfast - Order of Service

Place Cards

Each has a love quote on the back.

Every guest on each table had a different quote!

Guest Book

More detail inside - see my blog

Table Plan

Post Box

For more pictures, including closer detail and inserts, see my blog.
Also the Cadbury Purple Wedding Stationery on my blog.


I hope you have found my Wedding Stationery Tip Tutorial helpful if you are maybe faced with your first Wedding Stationery order and just want some ideas of what someone else does.









On to our 'Anything But a Card' Samples
Look out for some gorgeous images from one of our sponsors Robyns Fetish.....

Guest Designers

Dawn using Bookworm from Robyns Fetish 

Top Tip: How to make digi images 'line free' for paper piecing patterns:

Print the image several times on plain printer paper and set one copy aside as your template. Using temporary adhesive (I really like E-Z Dots re-positional adhesive by Scrapbook Adhesives for this), adhere the various portions of the image onto desired colours of cardstock and fussy cut, allowing for overlap of pieces. For example, in the worm image, the base piece includes the worm, the neck piece and the glasses and the latter two are cut out a second time to layer on top of the base piece. Carefully remove the plain paper and ink the edges of the cardstock cut outs to give shade and dimension using your favorite ink or chalk. Use the template copy you set aside as a guide to reassemble the image. (ohhh great Tip Dawn!)

What a brilliant Layout! and this is Dawns cute little boy.

Dawn has also made this AWESOME clock! WOW girl you go!

COE Designer

Tracy using Robyns Fetish Forever Friends 

Top Tip: Use a marker to color the handle end of your blending stumps when coloring with pencils and OMS. It makes it super simple to find the right color stump.

Fabulous Tracy! Love this colouring on Kraft!

TTT Design team

Annette

Cupcake Box (for a Cupcake Bathsoap !!)
Top Tip: If I don't have enough fancy paper to create the shape I want, I usually cover up a paper join with ribbon, but in this case I've used 5 carefully aligned strips of embroidery thread.  I've lightly glued them down & folded over the edge before sticking the paper to my project.  You can't see the join, and the thread adds some texture & interest to the panel.

Bettina using Puppy Paws

Top Tip 1: When making this box make sure you use coordinating paper
Top Tip 2: Use a cropodile to make the holes and make them coordinate each other!!

Deneen
Top Tip: I didn't have a pink flower so I coloured my paper flower lightly with a Copic Marker - R83 - and added some drops of the Colorless Blender to soften the look.

Elaine

Top Tip: Making small gift boxes to go with cards are a great way to make a gift extra special.

Heike

Top Tip: Store your bottles of glue upside down - then they are ready to go without having to shake them upside down, etc. Just make sure the cap is on tightly!

Janette

Top Tip 1: Use pre-colored images to create a quick project. I have created all three tags in the time it would have taken me to color one image.

Top Tip 2: I do not have a hammer in my crafting space so used my Cuttlebug to flatten the prongs on the West Cal jean garmet (Left hand corner of first tag). Just fold the prongs in slightly and then flatten by running through the machine.
This was efficient and quiet :0)

Katrina


Top Tip: Remember to always keep those scraps of paper and ribbon, you never know when you may need them.  This SMASH* page was done about my hobby (crafting) and everything on the page was made from scraps!

Lisa

Top Tip: It's easy to "Bling Your Ring" in just a few simple minutes with your favorite stamps or digital images.  You can design them for any occasion with paper! 

Samantha

Top Tip: When you need to put your knitting down, don't worry about the stitches sliding off.....use an elastic band and strap the knitting pins together.

Top Tip Pic...

What a tantalisingly, inspirational gallery of crafty delights!

Don't forget we want to see YOUR Top Tips - YOU could win one of our prizes if we pick your Top Tip as the best (and as long as you've linked it properly and mentioned in your post it's for TTT)

Get out your sewing machines, knitting needles, crochet hooks, clay, beads... anything, and make us

Anything But A Card