Bonjourno! Jeff and I are in Florence, Italy right now! We spent the first part of the week in Cinque Terre on the coast and now we are happily spending our days viewing Renaissance art and gorging on gelato. (Florence is known for it’s gelaterias and Jeff mapped out his own “gelato walking tour”- we’ve already had 8 cups of this creamy mouth-watering goodness today!) Even though I am on vacation, I’m not taking a break from my blog! I am in the middle of a blog series about my wedding! Read on to hear about my first DIY project:
The first thing I ever made for our wedding was our “Save the Date” postcards! I really wanted to send “Save the Dates” to our guests because most of them would be traveling from out of town. A surprising 85% of our guests had to travel to come! Including us! It was almost like a destination wedding! We were so touched that so many people went great lengths (literally! we had relatives flew from across the world!) to celebrate with us. Because most of our guests were coming from out of town, I wanted to give them a heads up so that they could make travel plans. We sent these out in January – seven months before the wedding date!
“Save the Date” cards give our guests their first impression of the wedding, so I knew these would set the tone for the event. I wanted something colorful and casual that evokes summery fun. I came up with this design:
The postcards listed all our favorite elements of the summer and some of the things that would be incorporated into our wedding, giving guests a sneak peak of what was to come. The WHITE TIGERS made it on the list!
Of course I had to make this project more complicated than it really had to be. I could not be content with just printing them out with my ink jet printer, I was adamant that the design needed to have white text. To print white ink onto colored paper, I used a Gocco machine! A Gocco machine is a simple Japanese screen printing system that allows you to print your own custom designs onto paper and fabric. (Read more about it here) Unfortunately, the company Riso that makes this awesome crafting device stopped making them years ago so its hard to buy the machines or find the ink and screens that you need to use with it. (Sometimes you can buy them off of etsy or ebay) Lucky for me, my sister had one!! It’s one of my favorite crafting machines! The Gocco requires you to screen print each individual card one by one, sort of like a giant rubber stamp. It takes a few days for the ink to dry completely so my entire living room floor was filled with 160 of these babies as they dried. After I printed the front side and let them dry, I screen printed the backside of the postcards:
As if that was not labor intensive enough, believe it or not, we actually hand wrote personal messages on the back of the postcards to each of our guests, inviting them to come our wedding. Jeff thought I was crazy when I proposed this (as with most of my ideas!) but I really wanted each guest to know how much I really wanted them there and send them a heartfelt note.
We also made a bunch of the cards in bright blue, too!
I cut out 4×6″ postcards out of 12×12″ thick scrapbook paper. Each sheet fits 4 cards each. The scrapbook paper is thick and textured like a heavy weight cardstock, not the regular paper weight. It had to be extra thick so that it didn’t get beat up in the mail. I got each sheet of 12×12″ paper for 50 cents each on sale at Michaels, which means I bought 40 sheets of paper to cut into 160 postcards for $20 total. Add the Gocco ink and screens (about $15), I churned out 160 of these postcards for $35 (not including postage stamps). Not bad for making my own custom made postcards!! I loved how they turned out!
Hi! And welcome to my site! I hope you find something that inspires you while you are here. 
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Those are incredible!
They are lovely! I wish I did more DIY for my wedding.
You have to go to this Trattoria, it is sooooo delicious. Lots of famous faces turn up there, it is very casual, and very good. They have a salad with avocado, pines nuts, emmentaler cheese and rucola that is quite tasty. It is walking distance over the Ponte Vecchio.
http://www.4leoni.com/index.php
The Trattoria Quattro Leoni (4 Lions) was founded in 1550: located in Piazza della Passera, a part of the old Florence that you can’t find on the maps.
Only the true Florentines know this crossroads that is situated between via dello Sprone, via de’ Vellutini, via de’ Sapiti and via Toscanella, where many years ago there was a brothel that contributed to give the name to the square.
Thanks for the rec, Sarah, i just looked it up, sounds delicious! We just left for Venice but we are returning back to Florence for our flight in a few days. i hope to check it out then!