The cost of the Royal wedding vs our wedding..

from here

DIY idea: paint by number

Stop Motion Video

how cool is this

Creating Artwork for Letterpress

This post below is grabbed from Lettepress Art Work Blog and I don't know where I found the letterpress image


I'm not going to do this .... nope.. I think I might have found a wedding invitation designer (update to follow).... They lost me at Fonts below....


creating artwork for letterpress

If you've designed for offset printing, you'll find that letterpress printing is easy to design for as well. Here are guidelines that Boxcar Press's letterpress pre-press shop and Bella Figura gives designers interested in letterpress printing. Guidelines for preparing artwork might vary from shop to shop, so always check with your printer about their policies beforehand!

DESIGN GUIDELINES

Choosing colors: Use Pantone uncoated solid spot colors only—don't use process, RGB, CMYK, LAB, or Indexed colors. The colors in your document should correspond to the ink colors we’ll use when printing. i.e. if we’ll be printing in two ink colors, make sure only two spot colors are used throughout your files. While letterpress printing traditionally uses 1 or 2 spot colors; 3 or 4 spot colors make for an extravagant and lavish production.

Fonts: We recommend using type no smaller than 6 point. Letterpress excels at printing type and handles most fonts very well. Be sure to see our application-specific instructions below for instructions on supplying us your fonts.

Images: Vector images (from Illustrator or Freehand) work very well. For raster images (from Photoshop), avoid the grayscale color mode for your images. Use a 1200 dpi bitmap instead. See the application-specific information below for more information.

Line width: Lines should be 0.25 point (or .003”) or thicker. Don't use hairlines, please!

Trim size: Show the final trim size either by using a 1 point 100% black border, or by setting the document size to the trim size.

Dies and scores: Letterpress printing presses can also die-cut and score paper—even with very thick stocks. Die cuts should be clearly indicated by a 1 point 100% magenta line; scores should be indicated by a 1 point 100% cyan line. We'd be happy to consult you on your die pattern to make sure that it will work with our equipment.

Bleeds: If you’re using a bleed, extend your artwork at least 1/16” past the trim.

Screens: Letterpress excels at printing colors at 100%. If you’d like to incorporate a lighter color, we recommend using a second lighter ink color instead of a screen. Screens are more suited for offset printing, not letterpress.

Reverse type: Depending on the size of the reverse type, your reverses can clog up on the press. Because of this, we recommend a type size of 12 point or larger for reverse type, though this does vary depending on the typeface that you use. You may have to add a small stroke to the reverse type to compensate for letterpress ink gain. Also, if we're printing text and the solid area around your reverse type in the same color, we may need to print the solid area in a separate print run. Extra press runs do increase the cost of printing.

Light ink on dark paper: With letterpress, we tend to print dark ink on light paper, because that is letterpress printing’s strength! Light ink on dark paper is really best suited for engraving. When a client wants to incorporate a darker color, we might suggest printing an offset flood on the back side of a light colored paper, or duplexing a dark colored paper to a light colored paper. That said, if you really want light ink on dark paper, just be prepared for paper show through. With letterpress, we use translucent inks. Printing light ink on dark paper will be like using a thin coat of white paint on a brown wall: you’ll see the brown color through the paint. If using a pure white ink or metallic ink, we can run a piece through the press twice, at an additional cost, to create a more dense color.

Large solids (areas larger than ½” thick): Letterpress printed solids look different from offset printed solids. The paper tends to show through large solids, creating a slightly textured look that’s almost suede-like (we think this is a beautiful look by the way!). If you have a large solid and thin text in the same color, we’ll need to print the solid in a separate press run, to give the text a good deep impression and proper inking. Extra press runs do increase the cost of printing. Large solid areas can cause buckling of the paper, especially if using a thinner machine-made paper stock. You’ll also notice the depth of impression may appear less noticeable on really large letterpress solids—it doesn't have the contrast that line-art or type would have.

Envelopes: In general, letterpress prints envelopes well. If your artwork is anything other than a return address, consult with us about placement of your art on envelopes. Depending on the envelope, there may be limitations to where you can place your art.

Paper size: If you're printing a piece larger than 9x12, please consult with us about what maximum paper size you can use for your design. Depending on the nature of the artwork and the quantity we're printing, we can recommend a format that works well for our equipment.

APPLICATION-SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS:

Adobe Illustrator: Illustrator works very well for drawing artwork and setting type. Before sending your Illustrator file to us, outline the type (Type>Outline) and save the layout as a new file name (so that you can go back to edit the type if necessary later). Also, embed all linked images (an option in the Links palette). Preferred file formats: EPS or PDF.

Adobe InDesign: InDesign work very well for typesetting and layout. You can gather all the files we need with the File>Package... feature. Preferred file format: INDD or a exported PDF.

Adobe Photoshop: If possible, use only for imagery. Type should be designed in Illustrator, InDesign, or Quark instead of Photoshop. Bitmap images at 1200 dpi work best (you can set this in Image>Mode... menu with the 50% Threshold method). Preferred file format: TIFF (with LZW compression).
POSTED BY REBECCA / MOONTREE LETTERPRESS AT 3:39 PM 0 COMMENTS
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Stay at home Dad, anyone?

Image from Google search, not mine :)

Ok so a friend of mine sent me this article that says 1 in 15 dads are stay at home dad now.... Wow..... Really?

A couple paragraphs from this article below:


By HOPE YEN, Associated Press – 2 hrs 9 mins ago
WASHINGTON – For the first time, American women have passed men in gaining advanced college degrees as well as bachelor's degrees, part of a trend that is helping redefine who goes off to work and who stays home with the kids.
Census figures released Tuesday highlight the latest education milestone for women, who began to exceed men in college enrollment in the early 1980s. The findings come amid record shares of women in the workplace and a steady decline in stay-at-home mothers.
The educational gains for women are giving them greater access to a wider range of jobs, contributing to a shift of traditional gender roles at home and work. Based on one demographer's estimate, the number of stay-at-home dads who are the primary caregivers for their children reached nearly 2 million last year, or one in 15 fathers. The official census tally was 154,000, based on a narrower definition that excludes those working part-time or looking for jobs.
"The gaps we're seeing in bachelor's and advanced degrees mean that women will be better protected against the next recession," said Mark Perry, an economics professor at the University of Michigan-Flint who is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
"Men now might be the ones more likely to be staying home, doing the more traditional child rearing," he said.

continue reading here.

Given that I'm the only girl among my siblings and my two brothers are not going to a grad school while I did... hey maybe it's true...

My wedding photographer JAC shoot photography

Don't tell me you don't loveeee these pictures.. JAC shoot is a duo husband and wife photographer based in South Pasadena. They are Jamie and Chris. Chris shoots in film (yay!) and Jamie shoots in digital. While browsing for a wedding photographer, I found that I loooveeee... the look of film photography... and I'm also kinda in a budget... and can't afford the Elizabeth messina, Jose Villa so I went for JAC photography... Win Win...

Yifat Oren + Vera Wang event April 25th

Picture above of Spring 2012 Vera Wang

So I'm going to this Yifat Oren event at Vera Wang melrose store (Vera Wang won't be there)... on Monday, April 25th from 6pm to 8pm. I think the tickets are not being sold anymore, it was selling at Gilt City.

Anyone going??? Yifat Oren is a famous wedding planner who planned for Renee Witherspoon's recent wedding as well as Kevin Costner and etc etc. We'll see how much I get out of this event. my main question will be: in a wedding what to spend less on and what to splurge?

Do you have any advise for me?

So far, I'm splurging on venue/food, dress (which really does not count because my parents are covering most of my dress and shoe because I'll use it again in Indonesia), make up artist, bridesmaid dresses cost.

Planning to save on wedding cake (will likely cost me $600 for 150 people), invitation & stationery (we'll see how this goes gah...), having a DJ instead of band, having our reception and ceremony in the same place, most likely not have any photobooth.

What have worked for you guys?

Our fake Save the Date video..

Okay I say fake because this is not really our Save the Date, I tweaked a couple of the search keywords... and also this may not make sense to some of you but we met at Bodega wine bar in Santa Monica (thus the map search), we are both a graduate of UCLA Anderson MBA. I'm Indonesian and not used to dating American and I needed to get a US working visa to stay here. Also both of us work in the internet industry, so the google search STD is a lil within our realm of career. And then at the end of our real STD video.. I put in my wedding venue and website information...

I'm being green coz I didn't save any STD card.. yay.... and I saved some money too haha...

If you want to copy this idea, which one of my friend whose fiance works at Google plan to do, it's totally fine because I have sent out my STD :P

You can do so here

Live Painter for your wedding

Above works of Agnes Csizar.

So promise you won't tell anyone... promisee......? Okay so.... none of you readers are my wedding guest right?? Ok if that is the case then I'll let you in some secret...

We are going to / hoping to have a live painter at our wedding.... to paint our wedding reception ... SHRIEK.... this is really my fiance's cool idea.... which will be really cool if we can pull it off.. because they charge about $1200++ from what we've found.... but how could would that be.. See above painting as an example of end result... Especially since our wedding is held at an Art Museum.... So if any of you know of a LA based live painter , please send it my way.....

Invitation Woe...

Really invitation why are you sooooo expensiveee? Can't I get an affordable good custom designed wedding invitation? This is going to be my next entrepeneurship endeavour: get a bunch of graphic designer from Indonesia to do custom wedding invitation at an affordable rate. What do you brides think?

Since I last found Mercurio Brothers, I have only found Reaves Engravings to be a serious contender on the price. Reaves Engravings also send me samples for free.. which is awesome.. the bad news is that Reaves Engravings does not do custom wedding invitation design and I'm not exactly blown away with the papers. Now Mercurio Brothers... I bought a sample from them for $5 on April 1st (yes and today is April 22nd ) and I still have not gotten the samples yet... I've emailed them a lot.. and they had resend me another sample last week.. and I still have not gotten it. They have now sent me a third sample to my home address and let's see if I will get it.They also do custom invitation design at $80/hour although I don't know how long it will take.

I found an Indonesian designer who will do a full invitation set(invitation, info card, place card, program) for $350. which is expensive for Indonesian standard..... and I have yet to find a competitive rate from Indonesia. We'll see....

So why the insistance on a custom wedding invitation design... more to come on my next post :)

Vera Wang Spring 2012 wedding dresses

Excuse me while I fall down from my chair...... the back dress of that copper/brownish wedding dress is to die for...

Cake tasting: Lido Bakery Manhattan Beach

Lido Bakery
3001 N Sepulveda Blvd
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Neighborhood: Manhattan Beach
(310) 545-8955
www.lidobakery.com

i'm a woman on a mission....... to find a great tasting wedding cake at a super limited budget.................

So I always have SLJ's tripple berry cake for my birthday.... alas for my wedding I can't afford the $7.25/a person wedding cake at SLJ not to mention the potential for super bad customer service.. I was looking through chowhound and saw that lido bakery's cakes taste similar to SLJ.. say what? How come I didn't know about this for the past 7 years....

So i went to Lido Bakery and scheduled a testing, their price is still slightly above my budget but...... their berry & cream is goood... very very similar to SLJ, slight difference in my opinion on the buttercream. Lido's seems to be a little too soft, it could be just that one cake... but everything else is the same, the design is even the same! The berries and cream is at $5.50/person.

I also really liked the German chocolate cake (that has nuts and coconut, chocolate) and the Italian rum (rum, vanilla? buttercream, chocolate). These two cakes are at $4.50/person. Obviously I'm going to do a sheet cake.

The only downside for other brides to be is their delivery charge is $2.75 per mile (or something around that number) and they charge you on ROUND TRIP! Which will be $110 for me.... which is insane... They suggest that I get someone to pick up the cake... but I dont know if I want that risk... sigh decision decision decision

Poop Coffee

While I'm not an avid coffee drinker, I am Indonesian... and I also love exclusive things :) So I always like to promote the poop coffee... Okay yes... so there is this animal called chivet or Luwak in Indonesia. They love to eat coffee beans and the beans will get processed and will come out as poops and the beans are intact. They'll clean up the coffee beans and these coffee are called "Kopi Luwak" aka $75 a cup coffee served in Los Angeles.

More info here

I bought Arthur two bags of this coffee from Indonesia a couple years ago and tried it for the first time. It's really smooth... it's smooth like hot chocolate but instead it's coffee.. hard to describe.

i wanted to serve it at my wedding/ give it as a wedding favor, but since it cost $100 or $200 per pound , it's a lil over budget.... :( Are you guys doing coffee / dessert bar?

My most favorite wedding ever

Granted I never know these couple, I just saw their wedding posted at this awesome famous Indonesian photographer Axioo

Their wedding makes me want to have my Indonesian wedding in Bali instead of Jakarta (but I got veto-ed out by my parents).



















And if you are as in love with this wedding as I do, see more on their wedding video here

Square invitations are more expensive to mail

Say whattt?????

Yess apparently somehow the square invitations can't be run through the machine and need to be hand cancelled and cost more...

Here you go from the USPS website:


Tips and Tools for Measuring


Use these rulers and guide boxes to measure letters and large envelopes.

Once a piece of mail exceeds the maximum length, height, or thickness of one shape, it automatically gets classified as the next largest shape.

Minimum size for Postcards and Letters
5" long x 3-1/2" high

Maximum size for Postcards
6" long x 4-1/4" high

Maximum size for Letters
11-1/2" long x 6-1/8" high

Maximum thickness for Letters
1/4" thick

Maximum thickness for Large Envelopes
3/4" thick

Large Envelopes exceed one of the letter size maximum dimensions.

Unusual Shapes and Sizes
Sometimes a piece of mail requires additional postage because it is a certain shape or size that is difficult to process on mail sorting machines. To make sure you’re paying the correct postage, visit pe.usps.com. These are examples of mail that could require additional postage:
· Square envelopes
· Envelopes on which the address is written parallel to the shorter edge square

Okay I'm going to the regular size invitation... I wanted to have a square invitation... this is bull....

Awesome wedding alert : Gorgeous wedding in Bali

Here from Aaron Delesie

Bali...
Outdoor wedding...
Custom made wedding dress by Monique Lhuillier
Fireworks..

need I say more?

Cheap Letterpress Invitation

Source: Bellafigura Letterpress

So... I was going to find an invitation person in Indonesia that I can use to produce a cheap invitation for my Los Angeles wedding... I found a vendor who quoted me about $3+ for a deboss/embossed wedding invitation and possibly an RSVP card. It's pretty nice, it includes lining on the envelopes, two colors, print on each side of the invitations, prints on the front of the envelopes and the designs.. It's a strong contender... However... I was perusing the weddingbee site and I found this post.


http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/lets-find-the-cheapest-letterpress-invitations

and I'm like... HEERMM.....

Check out Mercurio Brothers

I maybe able to afford this letterpress... It's coming up to be around $520 before tax and shipping for:
- 160 invitations letterpress 2 colors
- 170 regular envelopes
- 160 digitally print information cards

So it'll probably about $4+ /invitation for this

And i'm not doing RSVP card because I've had two weddings recently who are directing people to the RSVP website so I'm following on these footsteps, I'm being green and I'm getting my letterpress invitation :)

The only downside is that I don't really like any of their designs, I've emailed them and have not heard back (BOO....) but I did call them and they seemed fine... and all these people I've reached out to to see if they can custom make an invitation for me will charge $500-$1000.... or there are some options to use ready made invitation and changing things for about $100.. none of the designs I like..

Time to outsource things to Indonesia again.

i also found another cheap/affordable letterpress too, the Aerialist Press.