Skullified calendar

Dear Shayne,

I bought a few calendars on Etsy this past December and I've had one to spare that I wasn't sure where to put. I realized we did not have one in the skull-themed bathroom.

But the calender I had was not skull-y. Remedy? Rubber stamp!

I bought this lovely calendar from Etsy seller rightleftstudio (who I am hoping will not be offended by my modifying her work!)

Today, I skullified it:


I couldn't decide how to hang it up, so I dug around and found a plain clipboard and I skullified that too (with decoupage glue + skull-y paper):


Here is this month's page, clipped to the holder:


When I took that photo, I thought the Double Skull action might have been overkill until I pulled back a bit.

I think I like overkill:

Whee!

love,
kelly

Crafty weekend

Dear Shayne,

As you know, I spent last weekend making our over-achieving "Save the Date+" cards (they get a "+" because we couldn't simply leave them as "Save the Dates" -- we've already been getting sooo many questions about our wedding, we knew we had to put way more info out there now.)

I used red pocket folders from Paper Source and I Gocco'd our wedding date on the back (I know I already showed you this, but I love it so much that I'm showing you again):


On the other side, I used a seal that's pretty cool -- it's perforated in the middle, so it's easy to break (this ended up backfiring, because most of them got ripped open in the mail. Oops.) I used a heart-shape punch to give it a little somethin' somethin':


Inside the folder was a boat-load of information about our wedding (this is a photo of the prototype -- we did include information under that header on that first page when we sent them out):


Then, since I'm crazy (but you knew that), I cut all of the envelopes out of vellum and, of course, ran them through the sewing machine:


When I put the envelopes together, there was a bit of a gap...


... which I bridged with electrical tape! It's one of my crafts (sewing) + one of Bill's crafts (electrical). Hee.

On the front, I used a round label from Paper Source and address labels printed with my beloved Dymo LabelWriter (love that thing!)

I like the fact that you can see the heart-punched label through the envelope and that the sewing went right through it:


The sewing probably wasn't the best idea, because the one that I sent myself (I always send myself one copy of any big mailings I do) got totally butchered by the Post Office.

When I went to send them, I kept asking the postal worker if I could pay the extra 20 cents for "non-machinable" mail, but he kept insisting it was "machinable." He was wrong. Ugh. I probably shouldn't have gotten so nuts with the embellishments.

But I just can't help myself!

love,
kelly

Candy + buttons = AWESOME.

Dear Shayne,

When I saw these beautiful candy buttons from Bake It Pretty, I actually said, "Oh!"

Right. Out. Loud.

Shayne. Duuude. Those are candy. Candy buttons. Yes, I say! Yes! Yes!

So all I need is some chocolate, these molds from Bake It Pretty, and time. That last item has been eluding me lately, but perhaps if I bought the molds, I could carve out an afternoon to make candy buttons?

Wow. I sure hope so!

love,
kelly

PS - Photo is, of course, from Bake It Pretty. (A very sweet blog that you should absolutely check out.)

These crack me up.

Dear Kelly,

I very randomly happened upon this the other day on www.runnerduck.com:



Get it? It's a groundhog popping out of his den to predict the weather. I don't really like Nutter Butters, but they're just so goofy I might have to make some next year.

Love,
Shayne

P.S. Photo from www.runnerduck.com.

Gocco: Size does matter.

Dear Shayne,

Just as you were making your Yudu post, I was busting out my trusty Gocco to print our Save the Dates (Wedding = definitely Gocco-worthy!) I feel like I am always pushing the limit with my Gocco aaaand... usually failing.

For instance, the little pad that you are supposed to put your paper on when you print is just shy of 4x6 inches. My design is less than 4x6, but the envelopes I wanted to print on are 5x7.

How did that work? Yeah. Not great.

Here are my printed envelopes:


The one in front of that photo actually printed fairly well, compared to the others. Many of them turned out far worse.

For comparison, here is one of my envelopes (5x7), then a "correct sized" (4x6) index card, then the very next envelope that I did (click to see the details):


You can see that I am losing the definition at the tops of the 07 and most of the 09 on my envelopes, but everything looks great on the index card, which is the size of the pad.

According to my copy of The New Gocco Guide (great resource, by the way), I should be able to use a piece of cardboard on the 4x6 pad that is larger to support my 5x7 envelopes. I tried this and, well. Fail.

So I decided to go ahead and embrace the "distressed" look, but I was wondering if you have experience with this? Or do you always use the correct sized material? And why can't I just do that? Oh, who knows.

love,
kelly

PS -- I'll post more photos of my Save the Date Crazy Craft Weekend (oh, I am totally nuts) after they have actually arrived... we mailed them out today. Whee!