Recently, there have been some setbacks in the Save the Date process.
I’m trying my best to stay calm about this, but I’m kind of starting to lose my shit. OK, so this is my first big project, and it’s inevitable that things will go wrong. I learn from it and move on, right? Maybe I will—I’m sure I’ll feel much better when I reach the actual point where I can move on, but right now, I’m still looking at days of more work, and those are days I don’t have. I’m trying to step things up at work because I’ve been distracted all summer and fall and I think people are starting to notice, and I’m supposed to be participating in this crazy fitness challenge. What the ham sandwich was I thinking taking on all these things at once?!
Anyway. The setbacks.
First, I accidentally ordered 350 accommodations cards instead of 175. I had them printed two-to-a-page because the 9″x6″ was cheaper than a 4.5″x6″ piece, but I FORGOT I had them printed two-to-a-page, so I ordered twice as many as I needed. So much for saving money. Unfortunately, this was one of the portions that Mr. Panther paid for. He was not thrilled, but at least this didn’t hurt us time-wise—just cash-wise.
Then, this happened:
(Personal photo)
Out of the 175 copies I ordered of the main card, 25 of them have edges like that. I ordered a lot of extras, and have done a fairly good job cutting them out so far, so this ALMOST might have been a non-issue. Unfortunately, I need 155, and my Cricut ate one, so I’m SIX short. Six. Because of that, I can’t check the “Cut out Save the Date cards” item off my To Do list, which kills me, and I’ll be waiting until my free replacements arrive before I can put the damn Cricut away.
But as it turns out, I wouldn’t have been able to put the damn Cricut away, anyway. On Sunday and Monday nights, I spent hours upon hours cutting out photo borders.
(Personal photo. Please pardon the shitty photo quality—Mr. Panther brought his fancycam into work, so I’ve been using my iPhone’s shittycam. Unacceptable, I know.)
Aren’t they cute? Yeah, I think so, too. Here’s the problem. I ordered 100 sheets of Stardream cardstock in “Sapphire” from Envelope Mall. I based this choice off a color swatch deck I have from Cards & Pockets. Stardream is a paper brand, and they only make one shade of “sapphire.” Cards & Pockets calls it “sparkling sapphire,” but I figured it had to be the same. Right? Wrong.
This is what color they were supposed to be—remember this?
(Personal photo)
Yeah … when you look at Envelope Mall’s “sapphire” by itself, it looks like that might be what it is. It’s blue. It’s sparkly. But as I was cutting it, I’d been thinking to myself, “Man, this color looks kind of dull. But it’s probably just the bad lighting over here.”
It wasn’t. The second I moved my pile of 160 completed photo frames into the box where the envelopes are residing, I noticed something. They weren’t the same color. Not at all. While the Envelope Mall “sapphire” looked sparkly bluish by itself, next to the REAL sparkling sapphire, it looks almost gray. It’s hideous. HIDEOUS.
I think it goes without saying that this isn’t going to fly. Yes, I spent $30something and sevenish hours on this paper already. No, I cannot return it. But I didn’t put all this time into picking the PERFECT blue just to send off a Save the Date with a bluish motherfrigging cadet gray bull crap lkasjdflknvaefjlkasdf ugliness. So, I ordered the RIGHT paper from Cards & Pockets (I had ordered from Envelope Mall originally because it was about $2 cheaper), shelled out for two-day shipping, and added a few more days onto this already RIDICULOUS process.
So now, perhaps you see why I am losing my shit a little bit. I can’t blame this on anybody but myself. I’m in a time crunch because I underestimated the amount of work my complicated design would take to assemble, and that’s my fault. Mr. Panther has been helping as much as he can. See?:
(Personal photo)
He’s so proud of all the stickers he made! He’s been working 14-hour days, so he can only do so much, but I’m fully aware that most men would refuse to give up their limited free time for an insane design their nutty fiancé dreamed up. Clearly, the situation could be worse.
I will survive this. For real. Hopefully, in less than a month, I’ll have completely forgotten the feeling of desperation I’m experiencing right now, and I’ll just be happy I sucked it up and did the best I could. But until then… MAN. Talk me off the ledge, people.
Anyone else get a little overwhelmed by your first big project?
For our names, I used the Ornatique font, for the invite text I used Harrington, and for the address labels, I used Belshaw. All fonts are from 
Mr. Moonbeam even got in on the action. He helped wrap the trace paper belly bands and attached some address labels.
Look at that intensity!
