DIY Bride

I never thought I would consider myself a DIY Bride... until today.

On my To Do list for the day was:

1. Print hotel and direction cards at Staples
2. Check postage on invites
3. Figure out tags for favors

 To conquer my first task, I went to my local Staples with my fabulously cute turtle USB drive (a gift from Holly) loaded with the necessary files for the cards.  I was to get 15 sheets printed front and back in color on a thicker paper but not card stock.  I met a very helpful Juan (names have been changed to protect the idiotic) who helped me choose paper weight, color and finalize the files that were to be printed.  Juan mentions that there will be a "file transfer fee" to transfer the files from Word to PDF... absurd!  I could have done that at home for $0, Juan!  I guess the cute turtle USB gave off the aire that I was not tech-savvy (which I am!).  I unhappily gave my okay and continued choosing paper.  As I chose a lovely 67lb white cover stock, Juan dropped the bomb... I mean price.  He told me that printing front and back on the cover stock on their "special" printers would cost $2.00 each.  I thought in my mind, "that sounds a bit much... and I don't have a coupon for this".  I quickly called T and while waiting for him to answer I devised a wonderful plan to get a round this $30+ trip to staples for 15 sheets of paper.  I posed to T that I could by a ream of the same cover stock and simply print them at home!  We agreed and a $6.00 ream of 67lb cover stock was bought.  As I drove away I suddenly thought back to one of greatest Will Ferrel movies, Step Brothers; "So many activities!"  

By activities, I am referring to the many uses for this cover stock such as tags for favors, tags for bells, programs for the church and the list goes on.  As I returned to a computer, I looted and pillaged a particular website that will remain nameless for the time being and customized adorable tags for the yummy favors that will be for our guests.  Yet another light bulb went off when I thought of my craft-savvy friend Lauren and her paper punches.  After printing out a 50% off coupon for ACMoore, I ventured out once again and purchased a circle punch that I then used to punch out the favor tags instead of sloppily cutting them out by hand.  Genius!  You better believe that I will be using this paper punch and cover stock for the bell tags as well.  These two purchases are the gifts that keep on giving!  My dad gave me one of the greatest complements by saying, "Wow.  You should become a wedding planner and do this!"  One day Dad, maybe.

So thank you, Juan, for giving me a minor myocardial infarction from the price and inadvertently persuading me into buying my own paper therefore becoming a DIY Bride!  The ideas are endless and even as I finish this post, I am thinking of all the details that I could enhance.  I will be up for a while :) 

Oh yeah, I ended up going to the Post Office, too... I didn't forget!