Origami Envelopes: In Rainbows

After almost 5 months in the works, here are the wedding thank-you notes in their final form – signed, sealed and now in the hands of the Postal Service:

Since I can’t seem to manage to do anything simply (or in a timely fashion for that matter *ahem*), I decided I would make the thank-you notes from scratch, including envelopes, much like we did with our party invites.

When we sent our invitations out last autumn we also included an origami paper crane in each envelope:

to tie-in with the origami boxes we made to hold our favors:

As a means to bring this whole endeavor full-circle, now that the party is over, I also used origami paper to create the envelopes for the thank-you notes.

And it was pretty simple to do!

Watch… I’ll show you.

First, you’ll want to select a large (9 3/4″) square piece of paper (color side down):

Next, fold your paper into a triangle:

Take the top layer of the triangle and fold down to meet the center of the base:

Fold the right corner approximately 1/3 over to the left (it’s really hard to make them perfectly uniform so this part is somewhat inexact):

Then do the same with the left corner:

Fold the corner of your last fold (left flap) back onto itself so its edge continues the straight line made from the top right edge of the envelope:

Here’s where it gets a little tricky…

Now, take the point of the flap you just made and fold it toward the top corner of the flap:

Unfold this last fold, exposing the crease, as it is there to guide you through the next step:

Open the creased fold so it looks hollow inside and then “squash” the folds until you have a “sideways” square:

Fold the top point of the envelope down so that it meets about 3/4 of the way down your “sideways” square:

Then tuck that point into the sideways square; flatten the envelope by pressing gently on all the creased areas and PRESTO! – origami envelope:

I found that I needed to add some strategically placed tape around the bottom as well as over the tucked square in order to secure the envelope for USPS transit but if you just plan on using these for hand delivery or table cards or WHATEVER else, then your origami envelope is good to go!

Note to self:

These pictures would be great if they weren’t so terrible…

Make sure you spare no expense when purchasing otherwise inexpensive yet generally dependable disposable cameras for YOUR informal post-wedding celebratory event.

Otherwise your photos might end up like this*:

ah, yes... it looks like there could be a table there, and wait! some people AT that table, but for the most part... just blackness.

oh, and look... here's a charming shot of the bride and groom about to kiss! oh, wait maybe not. i mainly just see cupcakes.

oh, my. just... *wow*. this is a great one. this photo brings us just *this* much closer to solid proof that (due to unknown causes) a body CAN separate from it head, causing spontaneous floating head-itis**... specifically during informal post-wedding celebratory events.

**spontaneous floating head-itis can also cause momentary facial blurring which can be very useful if you plan on commiting any major crimes and wish to evade security cams or police survelliance.

 

and finally…

the very best and worst? photo of the bunch:

at least it had some color…

*it also helps to have significant sunlight. or some other kind of light. just light. in general.

The Union, Forever

This Sunday, (me) and the bee get married. 

We’re both incredibly excited and more than a little relieved, mainly because after Sunday we can finally take a deep breath and relax a bit before our celebratory marriage party, held 2 weeks after that. 

The other day we both confided in each other how we *kind of* couldn’t wait for it all to be over so things can go back to normal. I’ve never planned a wedding before and I’m sure it’s a different experience for everyone, but for me, aside from being a fun and exciting opportunity to flaunt my creative feathers, it has been EXHAUSTING. 

The last few months have been a blur of planning and scheduling and arranging and procuring. I can honestly say I will be very grateful when we can look back on this with a smile because all our hard work really paid off but even more so because I’ll be looking back. Hopefully from the comforts of my living room. With no future plans other than: What poor excuse for a meal will I be stuffing my face with this evening? 

I thought I’d share some photos we took back in April when we brought our lomo-cams out with us to the park we inevitably chose as our ceremony locale. We went back there this past weekend to scout out the perfect spot. Instead, we found MULTIPLE places we think we might want to use for such a momentous occasion. 

We figure it’ll all sort itself out that day. Plus, everything else about our wedding plans have been last-minute so why start doing things any differently now! 

a path through the park*

a view of the lake **

a lonely daffodil on the fence*

me, on a park bench overlooking a potential location for our vow exchange**

*taken by (me) with a Holga fitted w/ a fish eye lens 

**taken by the bee with a Diana F+ fitted w/ an instant back (comes out like a Polaroid, only smaller)

Pegs ‘R’ Us!

As you may already know, the bee and I are getting married in October. I have been full-on freaking out over most everything since both the ceremony and the family party/reception are on separate dates (yes, it’s like we’re doing DOUBLE the work) and both are almost 100% DIY but we’ve been trying to keep things level and sane by making the process as fun as possible. One of the BIGGEST elements of fun for us was getting ourselves PEG-I-FIED by Suzy at Naked Peggies! 

I was so totally impressed by the final product. I’m pretty sure she made us even cuter as wooden peg dolls then we ever could be in real life. Well, at least in my case… 

We first heard about Naked Peggies through Sending Postcards when they had their own peggies made in celebration of their nuptials. 

The peggies themselves can even be used as wedding cake or cupcake toppers! 

We decided to let ours live it up on our mantle where we intend to add peggies to the collection as our family grows. 

not a mouth, but a soul patch and a mole. respectively... (in case you just thought we have very specific and permanent dirt on our faces. because we dont. anymore.)

unprofessional diagnosis? life-sucking death-belly with a side of the runs.

The week following BlogHer I spent laid up, all fetal-like, writhing and moaning with an intestinal pain so intense I became convinced I must be afflicted with a late stage stomach cancer of which there is no cure. 

My unprofessional diagnosis? Life-sucking death-belly with a side of the runs. At least that’s what it felt like.

The best way I could describe my discomfort was that someone was giving my lower intestine one helluva indian burn, wringing their hands violently back and forth upon my delicate innards. Eating made it worse and my countless trips to the bathroom did nothing to save myself from the pain. On top of that my head was fuzzy, my footing poor (when I could even bear to walk) and there was a gray cloud of limitless funk hanging over my head due to my overall less than stellar condition.

On Tuesday I made it into work only to leave by 3:30 because I felt so shitty.

On Wednesday I called out after spending most of the night like this:

By Thursday I was lured into the false hope of a day without ailment and I decided I would go into work after the doctor’s appointment I had scheduled for that morning. Professional diagnosis? Gastroenteritis. Basically a bad case of heartburn and diarrhea. According to the doctor this could have been caused by either an infection or by stress.

I felt better just knowing the prognosis and having some medicine to quiet my symptoms but my doctor suggested that if I still felt bad on Monday to schedule an appointment with the diagnostic clinic and provide them with a stool sample. Since I wasn’t bowled over with the prospect of having to present my shit in a cup to a stranger I told myself I was on the road to recovery and I was basically as good as new!

Once mid-day hit I realized just how wrong I was. Here’s a peek of me at the office that day:

Not to say that scene is all that different from any normal day at the office:

And YES I do, in fact, give my work phone the finger in real life because I truly HATE that fucker with every fiber of my being and because I’m super mature like that.

Turns out I WASN’T better and the worst was yet to come.

But I survived (even though the same cannot be said for President Zachary Taylor) and I didn’t have to give any of my infected dumps away! Even worse than the crappy way I felt during that whole time, my week of ailment put a serious kink in our “things to get done for the wedding before the wedding which is ridiculously soon and we probably should have been on this stuff a while ago but who knew wedding planning was so hard?! WE DID but we just procrastinated the fuck out of it all anyway because apparently we like to do things the hard way and because of that it might have caused the life-sucking death-belly sickness by adding to the stress of trying to get it all done in the span of 2 months” list.

So yeah.

I’m kind of jealous of Zachary Taylor right now…

7 Ways to Successfully Avoid Planning a Wedding

maybe we could just get the cake...

1.  Think about topics for blog posts. 

2.  Write blog post which is nothing more than an arbitrary list of ways to further procrastinate on wedding plans only to realize that creating the list is ALSO an awesome element of avoidance of said topic! 

3.  Make plans to sit-down and figure out wedding plans but never actually follow through with those plans. 

4.  Map-out an extensive cross-country road trip itinerary that JUST HAPPENS to coincide with the proposed date of nuptials. 

5.  Think of new names for the cat (that already has, like, 3 too many): 

• Stinky
• Stinky Winkerbean
• Stinking Butt
• Mr. Pants
• Mr. Monkey Man
• Meep Meep
• Balki from Mypos
• Lil’ Lenny Lemur
• Ling Ling the Lion
• Carl (jk! only a lunatic would name their cat Carl…)

6.   Schedule yourself for non responsive sedation a few days prior to the event, with explicit instructions left for friends and family to “carry on without you” and another set for doctors to wake you the day after it’s all over. 

7.  Cling to the flimsy hope that on the day of the wedding you can just show up and someone will have taken care of everything complete with guests jumping out from behind shrubbery shouting “SURPRISE!!!” 

Wash, Rinse, & Repeat until you finally get your way and the bee and your joint army of step/half/thrice removed relations will have to accept that all the headaches and hysteria pomp & circumstance of a traditional wedding ceremony is just not for you so can’t we just head on down to the county courthouse, sign some papers and then come home and take a nap?