Tis the Season!

The holidays are well upon us. Thanksgiving has come and gone and we're a mere 3 weeks away from Christmas! My oh my how time flies when you're older and planning a wedding and have friends and family and things to do!! :) It's a wonderful place to be.

So my mother was always the chic woman with enough vision and control to make sure the family presents were wrapped in coordinating paper to match the tree they were placed under. If you wrapped your presents in a non-coordinating scheme they were very sweetly and prettily stacked in a different area of the room. The "pretty" tree remained picture-perfect however (we had a "fun" tree in another part of the house that held all the kids ornaments and was where we spent the most time). It's a small tradition that's stayed with me, even during the years of no tree.

This year I do not have a tree. Coach and I are traveling a lot this season (3 of the 5 weekends before Christmas were out of town). Not to mention my apartment is too small for a tree and I really don't want to lug all my decorations to his house. Not until we've done a proper sorting and moving over of things and everything will have a place. So no tree this year. But I still have a wrapping scheme. Coach is a little over(under?)whelmed that he also has to wrap according to the scheme. This way everyone knows which gifts are from us!

This year I chose white, tan, and gold. I've got white paper with gold swirls, plain brown craft paper, and gold foil paper. Then the ribbon is either white or gold or a combo depending on the paper. I'm still debating on tags but I may do the letterpress again this year. It worked pretty well last year and added a ritzy sort of touch to things.

Here is a sort of inspiration photo. I'll provide pictures of the finished product once I actually get things wrapped :)

Invitations

I love paper crafting. I am an old-school scrapbooker, nothing digital for this girl (except strategic red-eye fixes, teeth whitening, and skin clearing before I print the photos). Ever since I started scrapbooking, I've dreamed about my wedding invitations. While I know it will be a massive undertaking and I might regret it in the end, I can. not. wait. to make my wedding invitations all by myself.

I've picked a pocket system from Cards and Pockets. I ordered color samples right away (even before setting the date). I have since ordered and am anxiously awaiting my first sample kit. I can't wait to actually see how the pieces will fit together, how I will need to format my printer, what tools I'll need, what details I can add. It's seriously one of the most exciting pieces for me!

Here's something like I'm going for:

Our colors are blush/pale pink, champagne, and ivory/white. I want everything to be light, bright, and classically wedding.

I am also obsessed with having a bow-tied invitation like this one. So cute!


I'll let you know how the pieces come together!

Name Plates

Here are some name plates I made for a friend. She wanted the pieces to go inside some books she was giving her granddaughters. She provided the paper and left the rest up to me. I used my Cricut to cut the shapes and names. Then I ran them through my Cuttlebug for some texture. The only error I made was when I stuck adhesive on the back with my tape gun- forgot about the cut-out parts where the tape would show. I got most of it scraped away though so there shouldn't be major issues.

All the shapes came from the Sophisticated cartridge as well as Avery and Nora. Elissa was cut from the Designer's Calendar cartridge. I used Cricut Craft Room to design it all and tried to keep the plates in the 3x5 inch range (Elissa had to be a little bigger to her her name to fit).  Here's some closer shots: