Paper Goodies: The Palm Tree Invitation Reveal!

I discussed how we set up our invitations in this post and now, without further adieu, I'm happy to share them with the Hive. Like I mentioned previously, these were a labor of love and I'm excited to be able to share the finished product (if anything, I see it as one more use and I am trying to get as much mileage out of these babies as I can. At least there is no garbage can on the Internets, right? ;) 

all photos personal unless otherwise noted * 

Where we left off - the mock-up invite, addressed to none another than Ms. Summers and  her soulmate ;)

Paper Goodies: Setting up the Invitations

Hive, I have to be honest with you. I still have a little bit of bitterness and/or resentment toward our invitations. They are GORGEOUS, don't get me wrong, but MOH Mem and I put so.much.time. into them. I swear on all that is sacred: I still have nerve damage in my thumb from holding the scissors for hours. 

We DIY'd these suckers, bottom to top. I know - Miss Palm Tree, the self-proclaimed DIY Sadim (Midas backwards), DIY'ing INVITES. All I can say is that I'm stubborn, determined, in a probably unhealthy relationship with all things paper and so grateful for MOH Mem (and also BM Tiny Dancer, who helped in intervals and on a smaller scale).

personal photo | Yeah. This happened. 

Advice from Miss Palm Tree: I love our invitations, but honestly, if you have room in your budget, buy them. Or at least source parts of them out - the printing, the assembly, whatever. Not only did I create/tweak a design and the wording, but I printed it onto cardstock. We cut the cardstock and used adhesives to stick it onto fancy backing paper (that we also cut to size). We cut the RSVP cards and put them in their envelope. We hole-punched hearts, we cut ribbon, we hole-punched info cards, we assembled the cards on the ribbon, MOH Mem tied the ribbon (the one time I tried I ripped the sides of the invite. . .sigh), I addressed the invites, we stamped and sealed them. It's a lot, Hive, and it took us two sittings - one of which consisted of well over seven hours - to complete them. All I could think in the back of my head was, "these are going to end up in the garbage." I'm not even hating on that, I get it: paper, clutter, whatever. Of course you're going to recycle/throw away the invitation because why keep it? Granted, I keep the really nice ones, because I'm sentimental and goofy, but there are plenty that still make it into File 13, you know? That's fine. But to know that's the inevitable end of the result of our bruised thumbs and damaged nerves and chunks of time. . . siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. Pour one out for the homies, Hive. Invitations can be a bitch.

Enough misery. Let's get to the details.