How I discovered cardmaking: Part 2

My Wedding

After my engagement I started buying bridal magazines and planing my dream wedding. I didn't know of Pinterest back then so I made a mood board on Power Point.

I decided to splurge in 3 things only: the venue, the photographer and the wedding invitations.

The venue because if it was gorgeous I would need minimal decoration budget, the photographer because I wanted to remember the day with very professional pictures and the wedding invitations because I wanted to set the tone for the event with very elegant invitations.

A friend from high school made the cake for me, here is a picture she took:

My mother helped me sew the veil, and I made the flower girl basket and the ring bearer bowl that I decorated with paper flowers.

I had a relative easy time choosing the venue, the wedding dress, and so on... I just went with my first choice. The wedding invitations however, gave me a hard time. There was no shop in Ecuador that had invitations that caught my eye.

And then I thought... maybe I could make my own wedding invitations. So I googled how to make wedding invitations, after some time browsing I came across a video on YouTube of a lady making a card with a manual machine! I was hooked, it was love at first sight.

That video led to another, and that one to another and right there I discovered that there was a hobby called "Cardmaking". I never heard that word before, maybe because it is not very used in Spanish.

Many hours later (maybe even days) of watching cardmaking videos I realized that it required a lot of tools and supplies that I didn't have and that was going to be more expensive than to order them in a shop. After much deliberation I decided to buy in the USA a wedding invitation kit and print them at home. They turned out very nice, I even included a tissue impregnated with a fragrance.

And this cardmaking thing that I discovered... I thought I would forget after the wedding was over.

Till next time,

María J. Guevara

Products mentioned in this post:

• Printable wedding invitations
• L'occitane Verbena perfume

How I discovered cardmaking: Part 1

When my grandmother split from my grandfather I was 9 years old; she raised me while my mother worked. Up until that point my grandmother was primarily a house wife: cooking all morning, cleaning and son on. I cannot remember what she did in the afternoons after lunch was ready. But after her split she got a new life... a crafty life. She enrolled in dancing classes, gym classes, baking classes, felt ornaments, polymer clay, fabric flowers among others. She was busy every other day of the week. In the afternoons after the dining table was cleaned from lunch she would set up her "craft station" and do her "homework", sometimes my mother would join and they seemed to have a blast.

Not once in almost 20 years I would join them, I don't know why exactly. I was a book worm and rather go to the shared bedroom we had and read a book, and when I went to college I was very busy with Engineering School. I didn't see the point of crafting back then, I also thought it was something only old ladies did, and mostly I didn't think I was born "crafty". Now that my grandmother is no longer here I regret that I never bonded with her in that area.

The times I made something crafty in my life were very few and remember them clearly. The first time was in kindergarten: I made a chest of drawers with matchboxes and a small mirror, when I was 6 years old I made a doll with toilette paper and a black marker while watching my mother sewed, about that time I also made a house shaped card and used a scalloped napkin for the roof.

When I was about 8 years old I made a paper angel with a template that came in a magazine in the Sunday newspaper. I tried to recreate here:

When I was 10 or 11 years old I made a tall Christmas card with a circle cut out and wrapping paper behind it, and in the front a snow made with a laundry detergent paste!

And then.... NOTHING else for many years.

At the beginning of 2011 I got engaged and had about 9 months to prepare my wedding. I had BIG plans, but when I got quotes from the vendors everything was way more expensive than I anticipated so I had to make cuts and then something I never would have imagined.... DIY. In retrospective if I had the money to pay for everything ready made I would have, but instead I was forced to try it myself and to my surprise I enjoyed it!

To be continued...

XOXO,

María J. Guevara

My first stamps ever

When I was a kid in the 90's growing up in South America, my grandmother went on a trip to the USA and brought me some toys, that included 2 wood mounted stamps and a pink ink pad.

The stamps were both from Hero Arts, one was kittens in a basket and the other was a postage stamp with a heart (my favorite for years).

The ink pad was a kid's ink pad in neon pink!

I never used the kittens, but I used the postage stamp with pink ink on envelopes or folded cards that I sent to my girlfriends in school and later to boyfriends in high school. No email or text messages back then :)

When I got to college I forgot all about those stamps and ink for years.

I found then again in 2014 when I went visiting my mother, she has kept them all those years.

I don't have any samples of projects to show I gave them away in 2016, I didn't use them and I thought somebody could use them instead.

Bye for now,

María J. Guevara

Products mentioned in this post:

• Hero Arts Kids ink pad Hot Pink.

* Affiliate links used at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting this blog.