The long-awaited invite post....

Our invitations are pretty. I like them very very much.

They were also a gigantic pain in the arse.

This post is basically an excuse to a) demonstrate what a gigantic pain in the arse they were and b) post some glamour shots of the finished product, which I am almost deliriously (read: delusionally) proud of.








So here we go:
The basic design is an accordion-folded interior leaf with two covers made of a heavier material. Design-wise, we had several things we were drawing from.


The cover is a riff on the art nouveau posters that Ross and I like so much--especially the designs of
Mackintosh.

I wish that I had pictures of us making these covers. A local print shop, Hollander's, will create a letterpress plate from your image, and let you use their equipment to print the image. It was perfect for us. We had a grand time.

The insides of the invite are based around the profile of Little Costilla, the mountain where Ross proposed to me. We had them printed at Partner's Press, a local independent printer, who charged us less than half of what Kinkos would have charged us.


The assembly was...ahem...trying. But in photographic form, it becomes fairly simple.

Step 1: 4 glue dots and 2 glue lines (intended for scrap booking) on the front and back of the accordion.













Step 2: Stick two ribbons to each side.













Step 3: Attach the back cover...flip...attach the front cover.















Step 4: Tie 'em up.















And done!






This is the map of the Arb on the back (you have to untie the ribbons to find it). We hadn't intended it to be a puzzle, but we're not sure what fraction of people will find it. Too bad! I'm pretty proud of it...

If that didn't seem so bad, consider that we did about 90 of these...which meant cutting 360 pieces of ribbon, sticking down over 1000 glue dots, and tying 180 bows. But I think it was worth it (at least now that it's over).