Greeting Card Box

I try to be the card maker who plans ahead and makes batches of cards in advance, getting birthday and holiday cards in the mail on time. Truth is, I am usually whipping them together the night before. In the end it all gets into the mail the same way, but I would love to be more prepared.

For me, part of that is also having a place to store cards so that they're not mixed in with all my other craft supplies. I've seen greeting card boxes - with handy divided sections for just because, birthday, thank you, etc - at Hallmark (although I cannot find a link to one!) and thought it was such a great idea. I decided it was high time to make one for myself.

After a few weeks of searching for the right size box to hold a variety of card sizes, I settled on this floral printed gift box from Michael's. Although I like mums, I do not love the print on the box. I did love the size, magnet closure top and the price of $4 (coupons are the BEST!). I knew I could find a nice piece of paper to cover this, and I was right. I purchased a sheet of the wood grain kraft paper at Paper Source for $2.50.

 

I measured the paper and cut it into two strips in order to properly cover the box. Using book binding glue, paint brush, scissors and a bone folder I got to work. I did the bottom, back and lid first. Then I used the second piece to wrap around the front and sides. The inside of the box was light orange, and will be filled with cards, so I was not concerned with that.

While the box dried I spent some time purging my scrap paper. I recycled a lot of odds and ends, and held on to some of my favorite patterns to make a sign for the front of the box.

Using the Cricut and a variety of cartridges, I made the word CARDS!

I was hoping the letters would pop out a little more, but with pattern on pattern, they were getting lost. At the suggestion of always the clever IHB, I put the letters on a piece of light pink paper.

Ta-da: my very own greeting card box!

A peek inside...

and a side view...

I love it! This was so easy to put together it makes we wonder why I waited so long. Oh well! This weekend I'm hoping to spend some time making cards to fill 'er up!

This post is part of my September Creative Challenge. Thanks for following along as Inspired Honey Bee and I do something creative Monday - Friday all this month. Final week!!

Something Blue...and well organized.

Do you know what today is? Yes, it's Friday, September 2. It's also the Friday before the long holiday weekend (hooray!), the second day of the September Creative Challenge and 10 months until our wedding!!

It feels like just yesterday we had over a year until our wedding; amazing how quickly time flies by! Details for the big day are well underway. Several of the important pieces are already taken care of so I'm excited and not feeling stressed. However, the 10 month marker is definitely a good kick in the bustle to get organized. As 7.2.12 gets closer there will be many more details to keep track of.

My first step in operation organization was to start a wedding binder. In addition to spreadsheets, this binder will be my other best friend in planning the big day. It's a place to keep signed contracts, receipts and of course ideas torn from magazines.

I bought this blue [IN]PLACE binder earlier this summer. I chose this particular brand of binder because it has pockets in the front cover and the corners have elastic loops to help keep all the good stuff safely tucked inside.

My first order of business was to brand this blue binder with our wedding date! Using metallic silver paper and my beloved cricut, I cut the numbers and two small starburst periods. They are now glued on the front cover.

Next I created the tabs for the sections. I chose the Avery Note Tabs (20 pack) because of their color and they are easy to stick and remove, just in case I change my mind (which neeevvveeerrr happens!).

Thanks to the recent bride, Mrs Cotton, for sharing with me the sections of her wedding binder. I used her list as a starting place for my wedding binder sections. Here is what I came up with:

Timeline/To-Do ~ Budget ~ Guest List ~ Vendor Contracts ~ Venue ~ Photography~ Ceremony ~ Reception ~ Paper Products ~ Flowers ~ Cake/Dessert ~ Bride & Groom ~ Bridal Party ~ Bridal Shower ~ Rehearsal Dinner ~ Hair/Make-up/Accessories ~Registry ~ Honeymoon

And now for the fun part: putting all the ideas, contracts and receipts I've had tucked in the front pocket into their individual plastic sleeves. Now when I pull ideas from magazines, I can put them in their section. I also went through all of the paper products from our friends weddings that I've held on to over the years. It was fun to look back at all the beautiful paper and now use them for inspiration (thank you, ladies!).

I will admit, I am a nerd about organizing; it makes me happy. Regardless of your nerdiness, being organized for your wedding is essential to staying stress free. So here's to the next 10 months of organized planning with my trusty blue binder!

This post is part of my September Creative Challenge. Follow along as Inspired Honey Bee and I do something creative Monday - Friday all this month!

Creative Challenge: Day Twenty-Three

One of the best and most useful gifts I've ever received was this engraved recipe book. It's leather bound and has just the right amount of categories and plastic sleeves to store my recipes. It's a perfect combination of two of my favorite things: cooking and organization! 

 I currently have subscriptions to Real Simple, Cooking Light and Sunset magazines. When I read them, I dogear the pages of things I find interesting or want to reference later. A majority of the pages end up being recipes or gift ideas. The recipes make it to my lovely recipe book and sadly the other interesting tidbits sit in the magazines stacking up on the shelf.

 

 In an effort to make better use of all the wonderful things I've marked, I decided to make an idea binder. Much like my recipe book, I wanted tabs that were easy to flip to whatever I'm looking for. Lucky me to stumble upon the back-to-school supplies and find this cute binder:

After a quick flip through some of my dogeared mags, I came up with a few categories for my tabs:

BEAUTY

FASHION

GIFT IDEAS 

HEALTH

HOLIDAYS

HOME

INSPIRATION

PARTIES

TRAVEL

QUOTES

I added some plastic sleeves and ta-da - idea binder is done! I can now organize and easily reference all those great ideas.