Im having a nerdy book shower.

So instead of having a normal shower.. We decided something a bit alternate and have a book shower. I didn't know about this until the 5th hour when Mum said that I had to do the invite design. I found out I had to do this last Sunday and my mum wanted these by the Tuesday. I found the design as a template on a blog somewhere. Just literally typed "Library themed wedding" in google and it lead me straight to a template.

I used photoshop and put the typewriter font in with details. Not bad?

I don't know if I could have done a book theme for a wedding but I'm glad it was just for invites for the shower!

Anyway, mum wouldn't let me put names on them, but I think she was going to write on the back of them the persons name in a calligraphy font. My mum has mad skills in this area but she wouldn't calligraphy my wedding invitations, wish she did! but I understand.

Are you doing something alternate for your shower?

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Rehearsal Dinner Invitations

So I finished my rehearsal invitations about a week ago but I just keep on forgetting to blog about them!! and a whole heap of other stuff.

Had to blank out stuff for Internet.. But they turned out okies (well.. I like them)

Anyway another thing off the list! We will have 22 people invited to the rehearsal BBQ. Ill post some clearer pictures soon. It looks a little blurry here.

What are you doing for your rehearsal?

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Its the freebie template post!

Sorry ladies... Kinda been MIA recently with my blogging. But that's just been pure laziness!.

So its been awhile since I posted a freebie, but I stumbled upon free invitations and talk about SCORE!!!

So these are some of the invitations you can download at. http://www.loveandlavender.com/

How cute! I think also if you already have your invitation design how bout you use them for bridal shower invites? hens night?

Awww anyway if you want the downloads.. head to there website cause there's more and its free!! (how am i doing on the sales pitch here?) in all seriousness its just worth your while just dropping by!

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

My inviations are gone! I...

So I posted all the out of town invitations today and will try to do alot of running around tonight and post some of the local ones, well hand deliver.

Whats been happening this last week? We had relationship counselling this week, my videographer and DJ both cancelled on me... and umm well I needed a break. So I need to find a new DJ. Videographer I can do without!

That's it for now!!

I'm going to try get better pictures of the wedding programs in the next week. The pic I uploaded before is pretty dodgy.

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Freebie: Wedding Invitation

Found these super cute invites they are printable textured garland wedding invitations, RSVPs, and table settings by Kristen Ketola of Dear Clementine Invitations.

If you would like the link for these to download go to:

http://www.nonpareilmag.com/downloads/issue-02-diy-printable-textured-garland-suite/


:) I love freebies!

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Vintage Paper Templates- freebie!

E.M Papers have provided this black and white printable Wedding Invitation Kit and it contains an editable PDF template for every piece of stationery you will need for your wedding. This free, downloadable wedding kit includes a templates for: a wedding invitation, a save the date card, a response card, a wedding program, a menu, place cards/escort cards, table numbers, a seating list and a thank you card.

Here's the link:
http://www.empapers.com/wedding/free-black-white-printable-wedding-invitation-kit-bike

Pretty cute :) I really like the whole set, makes me want a vintage wedding just to use these!
Enjoy!

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Invitations,favors and bridesmaids!

So this weekend I finished assembling invitations, all that is missing however is the accommodation card, we haven't quite put that together yet as we haven't blocked off hotel rooms (I know, 5 months till the wedding and I haven't done it, oh dear!) its on the to do list for next week.

I also started work on our favors with the packaging, as you may have gathered from previous posts that we organised to have our favors for guests as playing cards...Well they arrived!
My next task is to package them. I thought about just wrapping them in plain ribbon without doing anything with the box but that Idea just did not sit well. I also thought about wrapping them and putting a sticker on them. Well I didn't have the motivation or the creativity to even think of what to do for a sticker. So I took an easy option. I wrapped and tied it with ribbon.

The end result looking cute! So far 20 done... 160 more to go. its actually not a bad project, a little fiddly but I have been out in the lounge room with FH talking away and having a good laugh so its been enjoyable. Hoping to have this done by the end of the next week.

Also this weekend my BMs and I are catching up for a bit of a day shopping for accessories and shoes to go with their dresses also they are helping me out with a few DIY things and flower choosing.... I haven't shown you pics of their dresses yet but I promise to do that next week.

So its an exciting week coming up. I feel alot better than last week but still quite crook so I'm hoping to have the energy for when the girls come round next Saturday.

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

I have been taken over... by my invites

or they have at least taken over my study anyway... 110 down... 60 more to go! least they are getting done! even tho they are a pain in the butt to step around!


Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Cuttlebugging my heart out!

Just a quick post; My friend Sue let me borrow her cuttlebug today and Ive been cuttlebugging our invitations and putting them together. Been a busy week with these invites and glad to see them on there way to completion. I LOVE the cuttlebug effect. The paper is actually gold but in the pics its looking a little brown, and the invite is orange not red. The lighting in my study isn't that good!

I haven't been making many posts as I'm struggling a little health wise and its been a rough two weeks at work with deadlines. Hopefully I will be on track soon!

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Invitations - take forever!

So the last few days, I have been tweaking and creating our invitations, and I'm happy to report all is done on the way of printing side except the map.

Here's were we are at now!

The Invitation:

The RSVP Card

The Reception Card

So its all coming together after my disaster of my last invitations. The idea from here is to create the map, and then create the paper band that I'm going to use to keep these together. A friend of mine is letting me use her cuttlebug machine, so there could be some fancy embossing going on.

But I'm keen to have a play on the cuttlebug machine as I don't have one.... yet... :P

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Photoshop Problem SOLVED

It really pays to blog!!

I posted my problem and received and email this morning from a girl called brittany who could help me with my problem. She took the time out and fixed it for me, I received the email of the end result and squealed (and I'm not the type of girl that squeals normally). It has seriously made my day!! Thanks Brittany!! YOU ARE OFFICIALLY A LEGEND!!

Now that I have the template Ill be able be stepping in the right direction.. (or in today's case.. skipping!).

Thanks!

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Photoshop Help

So im posting this everywhere I blog, wedding forum, technical help and it can only help to post here too!

I downloaded a free invitation that FH and I really like and we are allowed to alter it. It came in photoshop format to make our own.

My problem is, I CAN get the background and the wording to change color, but I CANNOT get all of the flower to go orange. I have mucked around and seriously there has got to be some shortcut part from match color to get the whole flower to go orange?

My end goal is to make the background white, the font orange and all of the flower orange.

If anyone has any tips? or advice or a how to that would be great. I have photoshop CS3, indesign and illustrator so any instructions will do!

Thanking you! Much appreciated!

Coastal City Bride- Charis xx

March To do list

• Just posting up my March to do list - just for my reference so I can keep on track!
  
  
  •Bridal Registry
  •Pay deposit on music entertainment
  •Wedding cake still looking for inspiration
  •booking transportation
  •Book time off work for wedding and honeymoon
  •pay deposit on honeymoon
  •Visit florist
  •Book Hotel Accommodation
  •Get passport for honeymoon.
  
  DIY projects:
  
  
  •Wedding invitation, design and print
  •Button Balls
  •Ribbon Wands
  •Wedding sign
  •Completion of Wishing board.
  
  That's it, bit more on this month. Last month was just flaming ridiculous.
  
  Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

not my weekend. Invitation epic failure..

The word of the moment:

Failure: The condition or fact of not achieving the desired end or ends;

So usually I post about what DIY projects Ive done and mainly just the successes and never the failure, because.. well who likes to fail??

Well today, I failed, I failed epic.

I thought I would handle the never wanting to do stuff. i.e. ribbon pomanders and the maps and accommodation cards for my invitations.

So I had finished my invitations awhile ago, well RSVP cards and background pretty much completed as below.

looking pretty suave right? for my first DIY attempt on things wedding, I was really stoked with my effort.

I opened up the invitations today to work out the maps sizing and stuff and to my dismay, when I opened it, some of the double sided tape had started to peel causing the wraps to FALL OFF! I opened the next one, the ribbon was starting to come off on that one. I opened all 150 base invitations and 55 of them were useless.. I nearly fainted actually (you know how you get that head spin sometimes when things aren't just going right?).

According to FH my face went white as a sheet.. and took about 5 minutes for it to get color again.

WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO!! is my immediate reaction, I could re glue them? but then I figured by the time I re glue them, I will have to fix the others, as some when the ribbon was falling off, well.. it didn't exactly look fab.

So after a 30 min discussion and series of trials and errors with trying to fix it we decided it would be best if we made new invitations. With 6 months to go, I can do it. We also decided.. NO gluing.. I'm not gluing a thing on my new invitations or try to avoid it!

Well after a further half hour of discussion all 150 invites, went in the bin and 55 smaller invitations. I cried, in fact I wont lie... I BAWLED my eyes out. I hate failing, (prob just like everyone else) absolutely hate it with a passion. Seeing something you work really hard at fall to pieces. Mind you not the end of the world its only invitations FH keeps reminding me and hes right, its just paper.. He was just as disappointed as me and been in a glum mood as he helped create them.

So the hunt has begin for new ones and FH has joined in on this and boy are there some beauties!

So seeing paper creations for the last 4hrs on the internet has kinda perked my mood up, so all is not lost and I am brimming with ideas.

If anyone actually has a template or post were they got there invitations from I really would appreciate it, would love to see what others are doing!

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Best invitation freebie site ever.. I promise!

So tonight.. I stumbled in the Internet world on this absolutely friggen awesome website called Non Pareil Mag:
I am about to give you the link to what I think are some of the coolest DIY invitation sets out there.. I'm talking about invitation, envelope liner, escort cards, table number cards, RSVP cards out there today... So on today's showcase...


If you like any of these, or just love a new website click http://www.nonpareilmag.com/category/downloads/ to start downloading :)

Enjoy!

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Invitations - 75% complete and many redbulls later..

My own DIY invitations are nearly done!!

Warning: my instructions aren't that great, but you can get the idea!

I thought since I stress out easy to get my stationary underway- 6 months before they need to be sent! (how is that for organisation!)

Find an inspiration, with mine it was envelopes. (They say you should always choose your envelope size before you create anything, as their is no point in producing something and then having to search high and low to find an envelope to fit your pretty creation).

Choose paper that reflects your theme, you should have one main colour, a contrast colour and then if optional a print pattern that you can be coordinated throughout your wedding.

I chose my main paper to Burgundy Stardream Mars and the contrast colour to be a light gold in the Stardream selection.

My print came from a download of my fave wedding websites Styleguide.com.au http://styleguide.com.au/pdfdocs/WSGIssue3ModernSpicePatterns.pdf it was originally an inspiration on there to be used for wrap for candles, but I decided that instead of paying $2.10 a sheet from a paper store for a patterned paper was a little bit rich and that I could print this design on to gold paper and I could save a few dollars.

I found my gold paper at K-mart (similar to walmart?) for $4.00 AUD dollars for 25 sheets. I bought 7 packets.

Next step was to make a template of my design. (I went for a simple DL size with an angular cut at the front, to create a little interest instead of it being a straight cut)

I cut my printed design to fit the middle section of my DL invite and secured it with double sided tape.

After looking at this FH decided, that was a little boring and that we needed a bit of "edge" to the invitation, his words. So we went to the local craft store - Spotlight (like Michaels) and I purchased 15 x 7m x 3mm ribbon in a terracotta colour and 20 x 7m 10mm ribbon in the same terracotta colour, like so. I placed the 3mm ribbon along vertically of the middle of the invitation and the 10 mm along the edge on both sides from the middle to the angular fold as seen below. I sealed the edges of the ribbon with a lighter to stop the fraying.

We decided that having a blank front was boring and we would need a monogram wrap! The wrap was simple to create. I designed the monogram using Microsoft publisher and it simple square as this would be easier to cut than a round monogram, using my printed design and the burgundy as backing.

(I had to sharpen the image to put it on here as it didn't show to well on original photo)

(150 of them later)

(ta da!)

I have just finished the rsvp cards that go in the invitation, but that will be another post. I have also yet to do accomodation info, the actual wording for the invitation and map. I'm putting them on hold for another month or so!

Coastal City Bride - Charis