Strollin’ on in…
So, over the weekend, my dearest cousin and I threw a shower for one of our greatest friends.
Her name is Danielle.
Just a few months ago I planned her wedding.
Now, we’re settling her in to welcome her new baby boy.
Naturally, I hand crafted the invitations for our little celebration.
For once, I didn’t allow for any person’s opinion outside my own (although I did ask my cousin–the other hostess–what she thought of the graphic before designing the whole thing). I decided that I wanted it to have a fun feel with a vintage flare.
I’m pretty positive that I accomplished that.
The color of the green paper is “limeade” and the invitation is printed on text-weight crystal stardream paper. It was a really, really fun combo.
I also got creative with the envelopes (do I ever skip that part?!) and added the same graphic in the same location.
Overall, I’m more than thrilled with how these came out!
If you’re planning a baby shower or want baby announcements, please contact us at SpillTheBeansInvites@gmail.com to discuss pricing, quantity, and design!!
All colors, combos, and papers are available!
The Paisley Saga: Invitation
Lately, things have been chaotic for the Bean team. But that hasn’t stopped us from doing some invitation work whenever we get the chance!
The paisley saga began as a request from a bride to create an invitation suite for her wedding that included a paisley design.
Here’s the final product:
Overall, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I plan on seeing if I can use the same graphic and turning it into something that we can sell in our shop. However, I just don’t feel like there would be a lot of demand for this specific design.
Coming up: The map and the additional info card!
Crooked no more: the end of the saga!
I only wasted about 50 sheets of cardstock and half an ink cartridge (oops!), but I figured out a way around my printer’s crooked habits.
See, I was printing a 5″x7″ invitation in a hurry (read: I had 5″x7″ envelopes, so that’s what size won!), so I cut up the paper to 5″x7″ and laid them in the printer tray. Well, every. single. image. printed crooked. WHAT?! All that cutting, all that image manipulation for what? Oh, yeah, a crooked result. Not cool, yo!
I decided that I needed to try a few other things. None of those things worked. I couldn’t change a single setting to make it print properly. So I gave in and opted to let my printer think about its actions for another evening.
With a new ream of cardstock and new envelopes (there’s a reason for this) I gave it another shot the next day.
But not before talking with Shivam. Oh what a waste that was!
Anyhow, here’s how I solved the problem….
I bought new envelopes. You might be thinking, “cool, new envelopes, but how does that make your printer pull the paper in straight?”
The answer is that it doesn’t. But it allowed me to reformat a few things so that I could easily print two invites per page prior to cutting them and not have to do much math. Normally I’d go to the ends of the earth to make sure the measurements were perfect, but with a sickly grandpa, a thesis to finish, a baby shower cake to complete, and a husband to hug, I just didn’t have the time to spend–and my cousin needed these invites this week!
So, I eyeballed the design, crossed my fingers, and prayed that my ink cartridge would last long enough for me to print 36 of these invitations.
Luckily, the ink cartridge survived and I only ended up with ONE sheet of crooked printing!! In my book, this is serious success after the previous day’s mountain of misprinted sheets!
So, if ever you are fighting your printer, you may not have the best answer, but with a little thinking-outside-the-box, you can trick it into submission just about every time! Unless it’s out of ink–then you just need to hit up the office supply store.
**After this event is over, I will upload screen shots of how I edited the files, but in the event that the special person these invites are for hasn’t seen the invites yet, I’d like to respect that until I know for sure she has!
Dear Shivam:
This is a letter to the Kodak Support Specialist I chatted with today about my malfunctioning printer.
Dear Shivam:
I can assure you that Microsoft Word is not the reason why my printer is pulling paper in crooked and therefore printing a crooked image. I can also assure you that changing the orientation of the paper only means that the image will print ‘landscape’ while the paper is fed through ‘portrait’–I tried that (as I mentioned).
You’ve done a stellar job of not helping me fix this problem. When you told me that Microsoft Word was the issue I decided that your ability to help me amounted to just about zero.
At least you have a fun name to try to pronounce.
Sincerely,
Still-printing-crooked-invitations
Don’t you just love throwing 30 minutes of time away on something like that?! Sheesh!
Stay tuned for the next episode of: Printing Invitations: the crooked saga!
OMG. We are making invites.
OMG! It has been forever since I posted on here, but that’s not really what this post is about…
My sister recently got married, and I was in charge of her bachelorette party. As I was perusing the stores and internet for invitations, I decided that all the ones I kept seeing just didn’t have enough pizazz. Which led to this…
The front side: The back/inside:
The design went fine and dandy, but then things hit a bit of a snag. I designed this to be a flip open card (like your regular old run-of-the-mill Hallmark card), but when it came to printing all 10 of them that I needed, the only way to get that done and not spend a fortune was to send Kari the files and have her print them. So, for the sake of sanity and just ease of printing, we’ll be making these front and back invites from now on!
Do you have a special someone who will be celebrating the passing of their single days? Let us know! This design is super fun and we can even change the colors for you. Hopefully you like the font, because that has to stay the same, but we do have a matching graphic to go on the envelopes, too!!
* if you want some OMG invites of your very own, please e-mail us at spillthebeansinvites@gmail.com
**need a closer look before you decide? just click the images!
A different kind of ‘paper’
Hang on a minute, I’m caught up in some cobwebs over here…
Sheesh, it’s been quiet around these parts, no?!
Well, there’s a good excuse (if you ask me)….
Despite life and its goings-on, I’ve been working on a different kind of paper.
This specific paper is the conclusion to my higher education career (I hope). This paper brings every ounce of research I’ve done in the last two years (on this topic) to a centralized location and spills it out in highly grammatically-correct APA formatting.
This paper also counts as the longest piece of academic writing I’ve ever done. While I’m completely uncomfortable posting it as it is still in rough draft format (and honestly, I don’t expect anyone to care much about the topic*), I will post a few screen shots of the title page and table of contents just to prove that this girl can write a page or 31.
There’s some editted content, yeah, and it won’t be italicized in the final paper, but you get it.
Now, here’s the table of contents…
and page two of the table of contents:
Yeah, it’s not a long paper in terms of thesis projects, but the point is that it’s time consuming. It’s brain consuming.
If you head back up to the title page you’ll see the date “August 25, 2010”. That’s D-day, ya’ll. That’s the day I turn this project in and kiss higher education goodbye.
So, until then, I’ll try to keep the cobwebs to a minimum, but no promises. Many days of editting and presentation prep await me!
*If you ARE interested in the topic, let me know and I will be happy to send you a .PDF file of the final product AFTER August 25.
HLS: Nine!
Good morning, loves!
It’s another Friday!! That means it’s time for another hook, line, and sinker!
I’m a big fan of cohesion. Not necessarily matchy, matchy, but cohesion (do I sound like a broken record yet?!). This invite is just that…cohesive. It throws in all kinds of modern and vintage elements and spices it up with some fun colors. The best part is that it all works together to create a vision.
Plus, it kind of reminds me of a carnival and who doesn’t want their wedding to feel as light and fun as a carnival?!?
Go here to see more!
On other news, the bean crew has a REALLY busy weekend ahead! We both have weddings to attend and corral! Hopefully that means some fun, exciting upcoming posts!!
HLS: Eight!
It’s no surprise that I enjoy simple lines, fun fonts, textured paper, and earthy elements. However, did you know that I also really love a good brocade pattern or two?!
Like this:
I like the combination of the monogram+graphic laid over the brocade/damask pattern! It really breaks it up!
I also like when there’s a sense of cohesion..
See? There’s some serious cohesion here. But it’s not all matchy, matchy which can tend to be a little boring.
The whole suite is pretty!
And, not to leave anything out, the RSVP still carries on the theme of the rest of the suite!
For more information about this design and it’s maker, click here!
Sometimes I Forget..
Last Friday I forgot the HLS…oops! SO, today you get two posts….one HLS, one “what I’ve been doin”.
This is the “what I’ve been doin” post.
My mom instant messaged me a few days ago and requested an ALL black invitation for my aunt’s surprise 50th birthday party (note: family, if you’re reading this, pay special attention to the SURPRISE part). After explaining to my mom what the result of an all-black invitation would be (I don’t print with opaque ink, so basically it’d be black and that’s it–no text), I came up with this and she’s pretty happy with it…
Sorry for blocking out some of the info…I promise I’m better at formatting that this appears! I just don’t want random bloggies to show up at my mommy’s house expecting grub and cake–you understand 🙂
These will be tucked into black envelopes that we’ll write addresses on with gold ink. Also, I’m making a map and I’ll post images of that once I have it done!
Happy Friday!! HLS coming in a bit!
Regular Posting to Hault.
Ok, folks, here’s some reality.
I’m in the process of redesigning my home office (complete with 32″ monitor for invitation designing–drool!) to better accommodate my business ventures. Also, as soon as that concludes, I intend to draw up our first line of professional invitations! With the help of my husband, the cable guy, and most importantly The Beez, I’ll be hard at work greasing the wheels of this venture.
Until I complete this project (expect posts with pretty pictures!), I intend to continue with the HLS feature on the blog and make as many behind the scenes upgrades and transitions that I can before we launch a full on line of invitations!
So, check back later today for an HLS post (btw, readers, whenever you find your own invitation suite that you absolutely fawn over, send it my way and I just might feature YOUR pick on the HLS of the week!!)
For now, here’s a picture or three of what my home office already looks like….
There have already been some BIG changes (the afore-mentioned 32″ monitor is already hanging on the wall!), but it’s not quite ready just yet!!
P.S. The overall look of the room will not change–just the functionality!
Spill the Beans! 