Excitement at the letter box!

Last Thursday my letter box had 2 exciting surprises waiting in there for me!

I just LOVE getting hand made mail...

Yes, it arrived... my sister's wedding invitation!

Looking just superb!

Thanks Jackie for the invite, I love it almost as much as I love you! lol

I also had the excitement on the same day of receiving my very first Christmas Card for 2009, a handmade one at that! Thanks Margaret for the lovely card you have made... I bet each and everyone of your friends who went to their letter boxes was just as excited as I was when they opened their mail and found a special chrissy card made for them by you!

Thursday really reminded me how special "Handmade" is, and what joy it brings to life!

The 'perfect' invitation for my sister's special day!

As most of you know, I travelled south to my parents house during the last school holidays, in which during that time, my sister Jackie & I set out to tackle to fun challenge of putting together 60 wedding invitations. With 3 kids between us, in the school holidays, one would agree this was to be a challenge just in itself, but thankfully our mum "nanny" came to the rescue and did a fantastic job babysitting, Dad "gumpy" had his share in the babysitting too, so all in all it was a group effort, and well worth it I would say.

What we created was....

the "perfect" invitation for my sister's special day!

The ribbon is held on with slot punches either side of the opening and the ribbon looped through them, so when you open it the ribbon hangs there in place, keeping it looking very classy!(Believe me, a lot of thought went into this invite *giggle*) The Baroque Motifs image has been stamped 3 times on each invite front with VersaMark then clear embossed, it looks WAY better in the flesh than in this photo.

My brother in-law to be, Jason, works for the Australian Defence Force. The wedding will be a 'Military Wedding' with the groom and groomsmen in Service Uniform. That is where I came up with my most brilliant idea yet.... the cute crown buttons on the invitations...

Well I thought it was a brilliant idea until 60 build-a-brads later! lol

For those who are wondering just how did I get the crown in there... the magical world of scanning allowed me to do that. Using a badge from Jason's uniform I scanned the crown, shrunk it down to a tiny little version and printed many little mini crowns in which I punched out and placed into my build-a-brads! Wha-lah!!!!

Stamps: Baroque Motifs
Ink: VersaMark, Chocolate Chip
Card: Always Artichoke, Very Vanilla
Accessories: Antique Brass Build-a-Brads, Clear Embossing Powder, Ribbon
Tools: Paper Trimmer with Scoring Blade, 1/2" Circle Punch, Horizontal Slot Punch, Embossing Buddy, Heat Tool, Daubers, & Adhesives.

I can't wait to get mine in the post with some words on it to feel complete!