Monday Movie Review

Brave
I love pretty much all Pixar movies, so it's no surprise that I was incredibly excited to see this. And while I did enjoy it, and will probably watch it over and over once I have kids of my own, and can't wait to see Princess Merida at Disneyland, it was probably one of the weaker Pixar movies.

What didn't work for me? Well, I wasn't a huge fan of the music. The music did fit the movie in that it was felt like old Scottish songs, but it just didn't seem memorable to me. And the fact that the boy saw the previews and then said, "I think this is going to be the plot of the movie," and he was 100% right. We also took the boy's niece and nephew to see the movie, and I feel like when we see movies with them it's hard for me to lose myself in the movie since I'm also trying to keep track of them.

But even with those complaints, I don't think you should miss it, and even see it with 3-D if you can. My opinion is, that if you are going to see a Pixar movie, 3-D is definitely the way to go. And I figured I'd leave you with an image of the 2 kids waiting for the movie to start.
So, it's not the clearest picture, but it's still fun!

Mailbox Monday (3)

I've gone a few weeks with no new books, which considering the number of books sitting around in my house waiting to be read, is a good thing. But today I'm back linking up with Mailbox Monday, to share the new addition to my to-read pile. Mailbox Monday was originally created by Marcia formerly of The Printed Page, and each month travels to a new host. This week our host is Burton Book Review and I'm sharing...
Borrowed from a Friend
Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner
Just one this week, but one I've really excited to read! I haven't read everything by Jennifer Weiner, but I have read quite a bit, and I've loved each one. I still can't believe I've waited this long to read it, especially since it's already out in softcover and since her new book is about to be released (at least I believe that's the case). But now that I have it, I won't be waiting long to read it, and even went and started the first chapter last night!

What did you find in your mailbox this week?

Behind the Pocketfold

After yesterday's big invitation reveal, I wanted to spend a little time today (and the next few posts as well) explaining exactly how I made the whole thing. I know while I was making these I read post after post of how-to (the most important I plan on linking to), and hopefully these following posts can help some other poor bride who wants to diy her invitations without any idea on how to get started.

If you remember a few weeks ago I posted how I bought a ton of 12x12 scrapbooking paper to use for the pocketfolds. But when I went to start looking for pocketfold directions I found most brides used 11x17 or 17x17 sheets of paper. If I was smart I would had researched this before spending over $100 on paper. But luckily I did find this post from Mrs. Deviled Eggs which contained a tutorial of making a pocketfold from a 12x12 sheet.

The easy thing her would just be to take you to Mrs. Deviled Eggs' post, but I know that I rarely click on links unless I really care. So by posting my own version of instructions I've either saved you one extra click, or made you read something you wouldn't have otherwise. And while I've made a few minor changes here, the bulk of this information is Mrs. Deviled Eggs'.

So... starting with a 12x12 sheet, cut of the top leaving 8.25" behind for the pocketfold itself.
Take your 8.25x12 sheet and score it at 2.5" from the left,
and 7.5" from the left. (This is going to leave you with a 4.5" pocket on the right, a 5" center, and a 2.5" fold. When you fold it all up the fold will come to the exact center. Except because the pocket is only 4.5" you can't do an exact point from the end. Although if you wanted to start the point 0.5" out, I think that could work. It just wouldn't have been symmetrical which would have bugged me.)
Fold up into a pretty little tri-fold.
Start with a brand new sheet of 12x12 paper (preferably one of the same color) and cut out a 5.5"x5.5" square for the pocket. (Mrs. Deviled Egg actually used her leftover scrap from the first step and stuck it on the side. But since I wanted to pocket from the bottom, and tall enough to reach the words RSVP, I used a new sheet. Because of this I needed 5 sheets of paper for 4 invitations. But depending on how high you want the pocket you can change the length, and safe yourself an extra piece of paper.)
Score the pocket 0.5" from the left,
and 5" from the left (or 0.5" from the right).
Rotated 90 degrees and again score at 0.5" from the left.
Comparing this next step to Mrs. Deviled Eggs' I did this completely wrong, which is probably why I had somewhat of a difficulty folding. But it worked out. I just cut out the corner, while Mrs. Deviled Egg cut out a little more at an angle. I guess the lesson here is even if you screw these simple directions up (which I did), you can still pull it off. (And do you have any idea how hard it is to photograph yourself cutting something?)
Now use your handy-dandy tape runner on each side as you fold them over,
and attach to the trifold. (I found this to be one of the most annoying steps. It was such a pain to get the pocket to not hang over the right, and still have the fold work on the left, but again I made it work.)
Now you have your pocketfold! From here I went to creating the actual invitation itself, but since it involves cutting and scoring I figured it'd make sense to instead explain the bellyband here. (Not that it requires a ton of explanation.) And again I did this step last, but since you can easily slide the bellyband off and one there's no reason why you couldn't do it now. Let's begin...

Cut off a 1.5" band from a 12x12 sheet of paper. (I used the leftover scraps from the invitation backing, but you could just as easily start with a new sheet of paper.)
Score at 2.5" from the left,
and a 7.5" from the left.
Fold and attach bellyband so the 2.5" portion is on the top. (I actually didn't glue this part together at first and just relied on the monogram to hold the whole thing together. But later discover if I glued, aka used my tape runner, both times it held together better.)
Cut out a 2.25" square, or whatever size you think would work best. (And again I used the scraps leftover from the invitation backing.)
Cut out a monogram. (I made mine to be 1.75"x1.75" using Adobe InDesign, which I'll get to in my next post, but these are simple enough you could just as easy use Word.)
Finally glue the monogram to the purple square,
and the purple square to the bellyband,
and with no effort at all (err... right...) we have our beautiful pocketfold complete with bellyband!
Was anyone else crazy enough to make your own pocketfolds or did you just buy them ready made? Or if you not quite ready for invitations, do you think you'd ever be crazy enough make your own pocketfolds?

The Story of Queen Anne

Courting Her Highness by Jean Plaidy
I still remember being in 8th grade, in London, seeing a statue of Queen Anne, and our tour guide saying something like, "You American have no idea about our Good Queen Anne." At the time he was right, since I had never heard of her. And since then everytime I learn something else about her I get a little bit excited because I'm proving that tour guide wrong. I have read books that mention Queen Anne, although that took place before her reign. As far as I can tell this is the first book I've read that takes place and describes the events during her actual reign.

To be honest, this book started out a little slow for me. I've loved ever book of Plaidy's I've read and was afraid this would be the first I wouldn't fall head over hells for. But about half way through I got into it, and Plaidy didn't let me down.

I think what confused me at first is that this book isn't like a lot of her others. There's no big romantic affair, there aren't really wars or political intrigue that Queen Anne is really involved with. Instead the courting in the title refers to the courting done by her friends. In fact this book felt a little like high school, with various female (2 in particular, one on whom is actually Princess Diana great-times-a-bunch-grandmother) fighting over who could be the better friend to the Queen.

I love reading Plaidy's books, but I'm sad to notice that they've stopped republishing her books. I'd love to someday read everything she's written, but to do that I may have to start visiting used book stores. But if you haven't read anything by Plaidy I think you'd enjoy this, but probably more after you read the rest of her Stuart series.

5/5

Today I'm linking up with Blonde Undercover Blonde for Book Club Friday!

You're Invited...

Hey Mickey, look what arrived in the mail today! (Yes, this is the exact conversation Minnie & Mickey had when opening their invite. And I'm sure every single one of my guests had a similar one. But back to Disneyland...)
How clever that we received a piece of mail from Louisiana and there's Louisiana stamps on it. And look how the label wraps around to the back to shows the return address.
Such artfully lined envelopes. Just looking at the purple polka dots reminds of the polka dots on my dress. And see that pocketfold peaking out?
How cute is that bellyband showing off the bride and groom's monogram?
There's so many different pieces inside! I love how the ceremony detail is front and center and all the additional information is conveniently on the side.
There's directions from both New Orleans and Louisiana,
and conveniently on the back of the directions is a custom map. Isn't the riverboat floating on the Mississippi River just darling?
There's an information card which is so helpful with hotel information as well as their wedding website address.
Isn't it smart to say on the RSVP card just how many are invited? I guess we won't be able to bring Donald along. And I love how the yes check box is so much bigger than the no, it really makes to want to attend just so I can check the bigger box.
Going back to the invitation itself don't you love how the ribbon holds it all together?
And how magical does the monogram look underneath the sheet of velum with all the ceremony details?
I guess we better send our RSVP back immediately to use that Louisiana forever stamp placed here as well.
So maybe every guest didn't react exactly the same as Minnie. But I'm sure some, probably half, if I had to guess, made the exact same comments.

Invitations: The Dream

Even before the boy & I became engaged I started picturing our wedding invitations. (Some girls imagine walking down the aisle, I imagined the paper products.) I knew I wanted to have the invite in a pocketfold similar to this.

via Mrs. ParasolI actually pinned that 42 weeks ago. Knowing that we've been engaged for about a year and a half, it doesn't seem too crazy, until I tell you I've only been a member of pinterest for 42 weeks. Of course that wasn't the only image I pinned, here's a few more of my favorite invitation pins, and what exactly I love about them.

SourceHere I love how perfectly the directions, menu, and RSVP line up on the right so you know at a glace exactly what's on each piece of paper.

SourceI just love the simplicity of the actual invitation here. I feel like when you have so much going on in the pocketfold itself, the main invitations doesn't need to be all that complicated.

via Mrs. Prairie DogWhile you can't see it perfectly here, I love the pointed corners on the flap as well as the pocket on the right.

via Mrs. Ferris WheelNot to sound too repetitive but I feel like this one basically includes all of the aspects I've already pointed out (The v-pockets, the additional inserts perfectly lined up,...).

via Mrs. Tea CupAnd moving from the outside to the insides, I knew I wanted some cute type of bellyband to wrap around the entire pocketfold.

While you can see I knew almost exactly what I wanted them to look like, I wasn't completely sure how to get there. To be honest, I've never really been a big diy person. Sure I've scrapbooked a little, but I wouldn't call them anywhere near professional. But as you've already seen, my mom was a diy pro, and I knew she'd help me pull it off. I remember talking to my mom last summer explaining my vision to her, and her telling me not to worry, that putting it all together would be easy. I had counted on my mom to help me with the design (and by that I mean design the entire things so that all I had to do was put it together), except as we all know by now that wasn't how life went.

Part of me still feels like I let myself down with our STDs. I'm not saying that I don't love how they turned out, but they fell short of my initial inspiration. And with my invitations I wanted to prove, to myself even if no one else cared, that I could still pull the invitations off on my own without my mom. And maybe it was more than that, maybe I wanted to prove that I would be ok. That even without my mom physically here to guide me, I still had some of her diy in me and could make the invitations I dreamed up happen, as well as the rest of my dreams come true.

Do you think I managed to pull it off? Any ideas as to what aspects actually made it to my final invitations?

Get Ready... 'Cause Here They Come

Guess what I did yesterday? No response? Well, here's a clue...
In case that doesn't make things crystal clear and you need an explanation, you're looking at a box full of wedding invitations! As of yesterday, they officially went into the mail. I can't wait to share them with everyone, but I at least want my guests to see them in real life before they see them online. So I'll have to keep you in suspense for a little while longer.

But I will share the fact that I managed to pull off my vision and they are 100%, completely diy by me. I wasn't completely sure I was able to make it happen, and while they may not be perfect, I'm still really proud of them.

Now hopefully I just have enough postage on each one and they make it through the mail safely!

Anyone else have a mild freak out when they put their invites in the mail? And please tell me happy stories about having every single invite arrive without a single one being returned to the house.