STD -- Is there an end in sight?

meghan1177 · December 4, 2008

Please forgive me for the little rant to follow -- I just needed to get it out of my head!

I think I can honestly say that we've been working on our STDs for several months now -- they've some how managed to be quite unlucky!

We decided that we wanted to do boarding passes with a twist. We wanted the part that you'd traditionally tear off on a real boarding pass to be a magnet. I made mock ups using labels to cover magnets we had, and it looked cool.

So, I ordered the magnets from Vista Print in August -- and man was I disappointed. They were cut crooked and the color on all the magnets looked sun-faded. They were tacky and gross.

We decided we would cover all the magnets with printed labels so the colors would be bright again. This first involved covering each magnet with a blank label so the original color wouldn't show through. Dear FI "labelled" about 100 magnets before I realized that the magnets were so cheap that with the weight of the label they couldn't actually hold up the boarding pass (which was the point -- so they could just throw it up on the fridge).

Scratch that idea.

During all of this, I went to Papersource to pick up the paper-- I had only purchased enough sheets previously to do a test or two and see what we liked. I get to Papersource, and wouldn't you know -- they've discontinued carrying the paper. Ugh!

Many phonecalls later (and a brief look into becoming a small business to be able to order the paper in bulk -- I kid you not), we finally were told that there was a limited supply in the stock warehouse and we could order it online. Double ugh!

While waiting for the paper to arrive -- I decided that since I wasn't doing the magnet anymore, we should find some other "bling" to make ours unique (the need to be unique is a curse, I tell you!). We decided on starfish charms -- tying a ribbon around the boarding pass envelope and tying the charm on there). My FMIL had sent some to us over the summer so that's where we got the idea. Simple enough -- except no one was selling starfish charms in October.

I eventually find them online -- spend far more than I'd like on them and patiently wait for them to ship. For some unknown reason, they are delayed by 2 weeks and after several phone calls, I eventually get my shipping charges refunded and the charms arrive.

So that brings up to last week -- add in your typical frustrations with printing envelopes and everything else, and we are finally at a stage where we have all the "ingredients" to make our save the dates.

But man, the process -- it takes forever to assemble one of these things. We've been working on it for more than a week and only have about 45 done and dusted. We've another 75 to make! Oh my.

Between the folding, cutting and gluing of the envelope sleeve, and the cutting of the boarding pass, and then the tying of the ribbon and stringing on the starfish -- it's all just exhausting.

I am incredibly lucky that FI is helping -- but still, I'm ready for it to be over!

But by the time I'm done, it will probably be necessary to start the invitations if they are ever to arrive before the wedding!

Why, oh why, do I think that DIY is such a good idea?!?

(PS. I do have pictures on my camera that I will upload soon, promise!)