Wednesday, December 8, 2010

GIY Save the Dates: Make Me a Magnet

Now that our guests have received their Save the Dates, I can FINALLY start sharing with you guys!

You guys know I’ve talked a lot about STDs and you know that this was a decision that was crazy hard for me to make. Luckily, even though I changed my mind a million times, I made sure to save everything to share my crazy process with you all! So be on the look out for the Giraffe STD saga!

Where we left off, I had designed this STD because I didn't think we'd be able to have photo STDs which I had previously fell in love with. Well, our amazing photogs came through and delivered our wonderful E pics.

Receiving our E photos was a wonderful surprise and I love them, but it through me for a loop! I had finally decided on a design when now I HAD to go back and use one of our photos to make into a STD magnet. Yup, that magnet idea just stuck with me and I couldn't let it go!

Okay, I spent a very long time working on a magnet idea. I just keep thinking that if I had been billing a client for all the time I'd spent. . . Well, I wasn't so no need thinking about it! Here's a screenshot of the magnet designs in Illustrator.

All photos used in the magnets were taken by our ridiculously talented photogs, Miller+Miller Photography.

Quick disclaimer: Please do not judge me because of some of the designs in this post. A number (aka most) of them remain unfinished because I would change my mind and move on without completing it. In real life, I wouldn't leave things unfinished.

The first magnet I designed was made to match that Rack Card sized STD you see in the screen shot - which is also the one I showed you guys last time. I love this one for so many reasons, but Mr. G and I agreed that's it's too yellow which doesn't suit our colors.

From there, I jumped here. I'm not sure why I didn't stay on this one. I love the photo and I really wanted to share it with our guests, but something didn't feel right.

Next was this one. Eh, it's not quite finished, but I think it had potential.
After that one, I thought we should use a beach photo of us in the same outfits instead, because the beach photos were my favorites (also, that might not be true because all the photos were my favorite ;-) haha).


Then I wondered about throwing a gradient behind us. I mean, why not, people!


Which made me suddenly remembered that I love stripes (I guess). I thought we might look cool with a wedding color blue bar behind us.

I personally love the last one, but Mama Giraffe didn't. She wanted to see one of us with our 'customized' Chuck Ts because, well, they're rock star super awesome. Well, that and because saying something about people gettin' out their dancing shoes would be adorable.

That one wouldn't work for me though because even though the colors & fonts matched our shoes, my crazy anal-retentive self couldn't handle that the weren't our wedding colors. That's were the next one came in. . . the next one that Daddy G didn't like at all.

So I changed it a little bit more. . .

And then, after about a half dozen more revisions, I thought I had it! I was sure it was all figured out! (I even worked in that monogram that I still have to blog about).

(editing on this photo done by me)

And what happened? Well I decided on this one, it was all settled, I thought it was ready to print, and we all agreed. . .

And then, Mr. Giraffe changed his mind! Him of all people!

Up next: The Magnet we go with. . . and a half dozen revisions of it.

Anybody else go through a HUGE process with their Save the Dates (y'know, aside from Panther)? Does it not bode well for future DIY invitations ;-)?

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