And they're off!

Okay! We're going to skip ahead to real time for a minute because I finished my first big DIY project - our Save the Dates! J and I had the idea to commission an image of us drawn by a mega talented illustrator who's known for her video game renderings. At the end of February, she provided us with an awesome picture, and I tweaked the colors a bit to match our needs. I already had a design in mind, so I put it all together in Illustrator and was so excited with the outcome!

Ahh!! so cute! That's us, by the way; our e-pics will get a proper post at some point. As I was comparing printer prices, I ended up landing a groupon to a local printer, which brought my costs down. I chose some delicious heavy cardstock and picked them up a few days later, just as perfect as can be!

I ordered some razzleberry envelopes from envelopemall after reading all the good reviews on the 'Bee. They came in super quick but were waaaay more pink than I expected! Oh well, no biggie, I am planning on having a good amount of pink at the wedding.

So with everything else ready, I decided what these bright pink envelopes is a bitchin' wraparound label! So I went back to Illustrator and created a template that incorporated our logo, and double happiness fake seal, stripes (!!!), and some of my favourite fonts. I then converted it to a pdf and printed them en mas onto some surprisingly cheap & perfect giant shipping labels (see below! much cheaper than the other ones!)

I watched about 90 minutes of a movie while cutting them out with the shown... giant slide cutter thingy... not too shabby! Then I simply took the backing off and adhered them to the envelopes... ANDTHEYLOOKEDAWESOME!!!

Stuffed some envelopes... stuffed some envelopes... and then I used a wet paper towel to seal 'em all! I went to my local crappy USPS (YEAH I SAID IT) and those lame-o's didn't have +70 of any one kind of stamp! Seriously?? So after hemming and hawing (and Bee-polling!) over which stamp to get, I ended up ordering from the USPS website. I got the slightly phallic Lunar New Year ones to go with the Chinese theme, and stuck 'em all on. I returned to said crappy USPS determined to hand cancel my babies:

shoebox of stamped awesomeness + paperclip someone dropped

After waiting for 20 minutes with only 2 people in front of me (not including the pregnant lady who cut then awkwardly asked if she did) it was finally my turn. I got my international stamps (which incidentally totally matched the envelopes!) and asked if I could hand cancel them myself. Well, the crotchety guy didn't want to let me, saying they'd get put through the sorter anyway, but I was not going to take no for an answer! He begrudgingly handed me the canceler and pushed me to the side. MUAHAHA! In less than 10 minutes I was done (though Mr. Crotchety did tell me to hurry up once - whatever dude!). Done with all of my tasks on this project, I couldn't put it off any longer *gulp* and handed my stack off to Mr. Crotchety.
So I come home from work today and what do I have? The STD (hurhurhur) I sent to myself WITHOUT a barcode!

BAM! Take that, Mr. Crotchety!