Wedding Guest Book, Invitations, and Thank You Cards

Today is going to be a simple blog. I seem to have torqued my left arm which is my main arm. I can't lift much more than a thin magazine without pain so I sat down and started putting together my guest book for my wedding.

I didn't want a book that only got the first page filled with rushed signatures. I figured it'd be nice if I could set little cards down at the tables and let people fill them out at their leisure. I hope it works.

Tools:

Ink stamps I cut myself

Gold ink

Scissors

Paper

The left and bottom stamps I cut myself. They make little cutting tools and flat blanks for cutting your own stamps at most stamp places. THis was a scary procedure because the image I printed didn't want to iron on to the stamp. I had to use a bright light to see the fine imprint it left and cut carefully. Also cut deeper than you think you need too. If it's shallow it won't leave a good stamp impression. 

This is my ink pad. Joann's sells these and so does just about any craft supply.. It runs out fast though.

My guestbook card blanks that will go into the little envelopes. And the little envelopes before stamping.

THe guestbook. We decided we didn't want a plan white book. We wanted something with meaning and came across this book. It has tons of shakespear sayings on each page of the book and is really fun to read. I'm also writing little letters to my future husband in them. 

Items to be worked on:

Guestbook

Envelopes for guests notes

Invitations

Thank you letters

Here is where the main body of work began and why this post is so late. The book is sent to the page where the envelopes would begin to be glued in. 

 I had to stamp each envelope with either a feather or an inkwell then glue them into the book. Stamping is one of those things that is easy but also take precision. I had to make sure the stamp was set within the borders of the paper or it would get on the table, and a lot of this sis done blind in a way because the stamp with a backing makes it hard to see where the actual stamp is going. I messed up a few cards this way.

These are my inkwell ones. THey came out pretty good at least i liked them.

 This is a picture of the envelopes glued into the book. Some of my envelopes puckered cuz the glue was thick. I had to use what i had on hand because my glue stick had dried up. I was not happy about that.

 These are the cards from above with the stamping on them. This was the hard one because i couldn't see the stamps placement due to the block it was attached too and it was attached in an offset placement so it took quite a while to do this right.

Next up on my list of paper works to get finished are my thank you cards. I'm trying to get this all done at the same time so it can be set and ready to fill out then mail. These I wanted something on the envelope as well as the cards.

The ink well went on the envelopes. I began to run out of ink here and had to supplement in gold paint. I don't recommend this. Paint is a fickle medium for stamping with. It's goopy and messy and takes a bit of work to use. I ended up with some blotchy inkwells but overall they looked fine. The benefit to paint over ink is that once the paint dries it won't smear. The ink needs to be sealed, but I'll go into more on that near the end.

These are the inner cards, the Thank You's themselves. They are a very light blue. Originally these were supposed to be my guestbook cards and envelopes, but they were way to big so I decided to use them for the Thanks yous. They work out well that way.


Finally we got our invitations and rsvp cards printed. The middle is our card, the blue will get glued inside and the card on the left is the rsvp which has a madlibs on the back for them to reply with.

Feel free to ask questions, leave comments, etc. I"m always up for a chat!

Dragons!

I dabble in a lot of various crafts. You'll see a lot of different things from me over time on here. It all depends on my moods, my interests, what's needed from me, what's wanted, who's asking for something, etc.

At this moment I've had a request for mini dragons out of clay. Now if you do any sort of searching on etsy, deviant art, or any crafting site, various types of dragon statues will show up.

Some amazing creators are http://dragonsandbeasties.deviantart.com/, http://angeniac.deviantart.com/, and http://ninafimocreations.deviantart.com/ to name a few.

Furthermore, with a little patience, and some help from tutorials on deviantart you can make anything. For the dragons I'll be making I used this tutorial. http://www.deviantart.com/art/HTTYD-Toothless-Clay-Tutorial-238606963

In my attempt to have fun and learn to make a few of these for friends I may have...gone a  bit over board! :)

Since I linked the tutorial above this will be less of a tutorial in it self and more of a I just had fun post. When I make these I generally work on the heads first. In this round I figured out different styles of eyes. While i was using dots before, here I used slits.

 After the eyes I work on the horn designs. There are so many different ways to do these it's really up to your imagination. Dragons and Beasties linked above has tons of different ways she does horns, but I don't recomment copying styles. Lookign to learn is good but coming up with your own horns and spots can be fun too.

 After heads were done with horns and eyes the heads got put on the bodyies. Then I began exploring different styles of designs on the bodies.

 This one got little purple stripes and the bottom one got black stripes.

In this pic I show these little guys after firing. It doesn't change much in looks, but they are fairly solid now. I put them in at 275 degrees for about 30 minutes.

This last pick is after they've been glazed and I let them sit overnight to dry. I think I might need to reglaze them or something. I'm not very sure one coat is enough? maybe it is.



Overall, there's many different styles that can be done and this is really easy, with a little patience, to build.
Feel free to ask questions, leave comments, etc. I"m always up for a chat!

Armor Fallout

I wore the armor to Dystopia Rising last week. While it worked out fairly well and it got me an additional 12 hp, it had some down sides which I will list here.

What worked: My overall requirements for this armor was that it was comfortable and soft enough to sleep in. I think that succeeded fairly well.
The second requirement was that it was light and easy to ware. Again, it was success.

What didn't work: A lot of the various edges on the armor got caught on things, so I need to find a way to fix that. Mostly the metal panels caught on other peoples armor, and whenever I need to put on my backpack for traveling it got caught on my arm bow.
The sealer I used on my armor was sticky around the neckline. My hair was stuck to it that morning. it made for a very un-fun morning. I'll be tacking a piece of fur around those areas I think.
The belt piece for the panels wouldn't hold together. I ended up tieing them on. Honestly, I probably stick with the ties too.
Finally, the leg bracers of bamboo didn't hold with their original straps.  I ended up taping them on. I plan to wrap elastic around the outer most sticks and just using them that way, or using some sort of ties that wrap around to keep them up and on.
The pouch I had attached ot the plates fell off, but the pockets I had on the vest worked to hold small things like my bullets and cards.

Overall, it worked out well. I do need to figure out a helmet, and some sort of cover for my theighs though in the future.

Feel free to ask questions, leave comments, etc. I"m always up for a chat!