Dragonfly?

You may have noticed a dragonfly stamp on your invitation as you opened the envelope. It has a great life, that stamp.

I, Angela, love dragonflies. When Seth and I first started dating, he would hunt up incredible photographs of dragonflies and damselflies and email them to me. There’s something graceful and charming about them and butterflies. Hence, the number of dragonfly and butterfly related items on our registry. They’ll be all over our kitchen. 🙂

And Seth has continued to surprise me with dragonfly related items. As most of you know, he moved out to the coast to be near me in February. To survive, he was substitute teaching and was kept busy as teachers started to request him (not a surprise to me!) and secretaries loved him because he was dependable and available. They especially loved him out in Jewell, which is a very rural town and basically just the school. He went out there one day to sub for the art teacher and the lesson that day was stamp carving.

That lovely stamp you see on your invitation envelope was created and carved by Seth. He also did two others that day, both just as great. Just another one of the perks of getting to marry the right guy. 🙂

Paper Mill

There are many Forces at work (and Ellises) in the wedding factory. In keeping with our debt (reduction) snowball and our unique personalities we decided on handcrafted recycled paper for our invitations. That figures–the first law of ellisdynamics is “do it yourself.”

Papermaking is riproaring fun. We’ve got it down to about ten sheet per hour (10×16″) after the initial setup. It’s more than lavender tinted, we added lavender blooms to some of the paper, which is why you’ll feel relaxed sniffing our invitation when it arrives. Here are some shots.

This is pulp non-fiction. You have to make a lot of the stuff. Almost any paper type can be turned into pulp for your own custom look. Glossy is a bit of a trick. We used recycled printouts from school, lavender tissue, and some construction paper scraps.

This is my Waring blender. It’s a doozy. One speed–obliterate!

Sponging the water out of the paper through the screen helps it release from the screen.

One of the Forces at work.

Here’s where we learned how to make paper. You should try it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bzedan/sets/967347/