Invitation Making Day!

December 20 was a VERY busy day!!! It was the day to make all our invitations!!!

I'd organized all the crafting gear we'd need; I had been making stops at Micheals about every few days for the past few weeks trying to gather all the paper and supplies.  I stayed extra late at work in order to use their handy-dandy high tech printers to get all the wording printed out.  I packed everything up the evening before and had it piled nicely at the door waiting to be transported to Steph's place in the evening.

I began the lists: I broke down all the how-to's to make the invites (sizes, and instructions for cricut cutouts); I planned out stations to help make putting the invitations together far easier and quicker;  I made lists of food & bev's I should gather up for the day; and I created my to-do list for that night and the next day.

Aaron and I went over to the Bradford's for dinner that night, and I brought the template over so Carmen could give me the last A-Okay.  We made some last minute changes which had me fighting with my printer a bit the next morning in order to get all the RSVP cards done (thank goodness for Jen and Reiko being there to help me figure out how to use my printer!).  But other than that, I was very happy with them and couldn't wait to have them all done.

The I-team consisted of:  Rhianna, Steph, Shawna, Alli, Reiko, Jen, and Vanessa (honourable mention to Kristy who had to back out due to the flu). 

Agenda for the day:

8:15am - wake up, get ready and make sure everything is packed and ready to go; need to go back home in order to do RSVP cards, so pile things nicely by the door so it's easy to load into the car once I've picked up some helpers

9:30am - pick up Reiko, give HUUUGGEEE hug and wish Happy Birthday!

9:45am - stop at my "craft lady's" place in order to pick up some essential cricut tool items for the day

10am - stop at Starbucks, refuel

10:45am - pick up Jen from Tswassen Ferries; give HUUUUGGGGEEE hug

~ Now that my two early morning helpers have been shoved into my mini mazda, time to get some more errands done before heading to Steph's ~

11:30am - make it back to my place, fight with printer, get RSVP cards done, shove food into Costco bag, grab the many bags of crafting supplies, and head out the door

12:00pm - stop at Safeway and buy added food items required

12:20pm - stop at liquor store to buy even more important items required - wine - and lots of it

12:30pm - off to Steph's place

1:00 pm - arrive at Steph's and start organizing all the supplies

1:30 pm - Steph heads out to help grab some more food items while Jen & Reiko start helping cut the hundreds of pieces of paper I had brought over into the appropriate sizes - THANK GOD FOR THE CRICUT!!!! I would have never been able to do the same invitation without that machine - even Aaron tells me "It's all ready paid for itself" <-- the more he tells me this, the happier I am!!! How could I not be thrilled that he's actually happy I bought a $200 machine for my scrapbooking purposes! (not to mention all the added cricut cartridges ;) )

Takes a couple hours, but we eventually have all the cut outs done and ready to go. Steph's made us an awesome lunch of quesadillas and a salad for Jen, and we break a bit before heading back to the craft table.

4:00pm - I realize I've forgotten the sheet that I did breaking down all the stations

4:01pm - Have to create new station plans

4:30pm - All the stations are organized; Steph, Jen, Reiko and I sit down at the stations and start working.  Steph starts scouring the base of the invitations, Jen & Reiko begin merrily using the embosser (they weren't so merry about it by the end of the night, but none of us really were with our stations! haha!).  I sit at what I know will be the most aggravating station, and get to work.

4:33pm - First wine bottles are opened

5:00pm - Others start to arrive!! Everyone finds a place and starts working.  We had some lovely Christmas music going (of course that was until Jordan came down to watch the Toronto game) and chatted and gossiped away.

7:00pm - break for dinner... YAY!! BREAK!!!!! Open more wine!!! Syd realizes she's probably had too much now and shouldn't be driving home - Reiko thankfully accepts the task of DD that night.

7:45pm - we all reluctantly make our way back to our stations to continue with the invitations

8:00pm - Sydney has consumed even more wine.  The invitations, soon became the god-damn invitations, which became the stupid-invitations, which became the f**king-invatations ... and so-on and so-forth! Apparently, I've picked up Aaron's habit of becoming a potty-mouth the more I drink!

9:00pm - Invitations are finally done!!!! YAY!! Syd has a stupid moment when she decides to pour someone a glass of wine, OVER-TOP of a handful of finished invitations - not a bright moment.. thankfully no invitations were harmed in the process!

9:30pm - the last of the stragglers make their way homes (Golden stars go to Reiko and Jen for making it with me the ENTIREEEEEE DAY!!!! And of course Steph for opening our home to us!!)

10:00pm - Steph & Syd get wasted off the left over wine, and stay up until past 2am working on wedding things, and Steph's website!

2:30am - Steph falls asleep while sitting up doing the website... time to go to bed


NEXT DAY.


Thank you to all my beautiful ladies who came out to help me!! I know these weren't the easiest of invitations, and I appreciate all your help soooooo much! We may have a few that's pasted somewhat lopsided; stamped not quite right, burnt a little bit, with glue thumbprints, flowers and bows falling apart.......... BUT there's only a few - and they can go to those 25 year old males who won't give a crap anyways!

Love you all!