Stinkerpants

Help with Wedding Invitation Wording

November 29, 2009 in Blog • Tutorials & Tips • Weddings-Blog

If any of you are readers of So You’re Engayged, you may have seen my guest post yesterday about Wedding Invitation Wording.  A lot of the brides and grooms who come to me for their illustrated wedding invitations already have their invitation wording worked out, which is fabulous.  But if you don’t, you might find some of these tips helpful.

Wording for wedding invitations can be a laborious process of answering questions like, “who is paying for this wedding?” and “do we include my ex-step-dad?”  At the end of the day, most of your guests aren’t even going to notice it; in reality, the wording for wedding invitations tends to matter most to people in your immediate family (read: the people who think their names should be on the invitation and may be offended if they’re not).  As you will soon find out (if you haven’t already) weddings are usually end up being about family, so sometimes it’s best to err on the side of honoring your close family members, rather than doing what’s most simple (just because you don’t feel like dealing with it).

If you’re a non-traditional couple, things might be a bit easier for you because you’re not concerned with formalities (ie, whose name goes first, whether you write “two thousand twelve” or “two thousand and twelve”).  In case you’re curious, you can find a full list of the “correct” etiquette for wedding invitation wording from Martha Stewart.

Meanwhile, I’ll share with you guys some of the choices my previous clients have used, and a few of my other favorites:

Short and Sweet:

Together with their parents
The Couple
invite you to celebrate their wedding
Date, Time
Location
Dinner and Dancing to Follow

or

The Couple
invite you to share in their love
as they celebrate their marriage
on Date at Time
at Location
located at Address
Reception to follow

or

The Couple
joyfully request the pleasure of your company
at their wedding celebration
Date, Time
at Location
Address
Dinner and Dancing to Follow

A little bit more involved:

Because your love and friendship
have helped us become who we are
we invite you to share in our joy
with a celebration of love and commitment
Please join
The Couple
Date, Time
Location
Address
Reception immediately following

And for something extra cute and personal, list some of your favorite things to do together:

They have been
scrabble opponents and biking buddies
cat parents and business partners
but most of all they have been best friends.
Please join
The Couple
as they come together in marriage
Date, Time
at Location
Address
Dinner and Dancing to Follow

If you’re willing to think outside of the box, you can come up with all sorts of fun and non-cheesy ideas. For a few more ideas, check out:

• the Knot
• My Personal Artist (Michelle is my buddy on Twitter!)
• About.com
• Offbeat Bride

If you would like to include your family members (especially if your family is large or complicated), you might check out this page, which has pretty much every combination you can think of.

Did any of you create wedding invitation wording that you truly loved, or have you come across something creative?  Of so, I’d love it if you would share in the comments!

Our First Thanksgiving

November 29, 2009 in Personal Projects • Holidays

Hi Everybody!  I hope you guys had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

This year we hosted Thanksgiving, which was our first major family event.  I have to say, it was a big success!!  I created a heavy-duty Google Doc that kept us super organized (including timing for when dishes went in the oven, etc), and all of our dishes were served warm and tasty.

I made most of the side dishes, and Y was responsible for the mashed potatoes and the turkey.  If you follow me on Twitter, you might already know that we have a turkey fryer, which we tested a few weeks ago.  It was a little crispy the last time, but this time it was totally perfect.

Y spent a pretty penny on a Heritage Turkey from Marin Sun Farms.  I wasn’t morally opposed to eating him because he had such a wonderful life, so I tasted a little bit of turkey–and I have to say, it was delicious.

And of course, with the responsibility of hosting comes the responsibility of decorating.  I drew us a little turkey to be our mascot.  He held up a sign to identify each of the dishes:

I think my turkey’s name is Fred–and as you can see, he is also a Heritage Turkey.

Below is a photo of the Chestnut and Apple Stuffing I made (I changed the recipe a bit so it was vegetarian).  I also made a Vegetarian Strudel, Green Bean & Artichoke Casserole and pumpkin and vanilla ice cream sandwiches (I just put ice cream and pumpkin pie filling between two graham crackers).  Everyone said things were delicious!  I am proud of us.  :)

In addition to our turkey mascot, I decorated with orchids and decorative gourds:

and I used chalkboard paint on glasses I bought at World Market to create useful place cards:

I have to say, it really was an awesome Thanksgiving, and we had a great time hosting it for our seven guests (from both my side and Y’s!).  I wouldn’t mind hosting it next year, too!

How was your Thanksgiving?  Are you guys ready for Chrismukkah/Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/The Holidays?

The Cost of Raising Chickens

November 23, 2009 in Urban Hippies • Backyard Chickens

Last week I wrote a post about how raising chickens isn’t as easy as we thought it would be. In the comments, a few of you asked if I could talk about how much it costs to raise chickens. In my experience, you can make choices that make it either relatively cheap, or really expensive; I’ll talk about all these options.

Just to get organized, I’ll go over the few main expenses of raising backyard chickens first, and then I’ll expand on them in a moment:

1. The chicken coop and accessories: This is the home where your chickens will live. It needs to provide a safe place for them to stay at night, and a comfortable place to lay their eggs. You will also need a container for their food and a container for their water.
2. Food: Chickens eat a lot. They eat chicken feed and pretty much any scraps you give them.
3. Chickens: Of course, you need to buy some chickens. Otherwise the other stuff is pretty pointless.

Okay, now let’s talk a little bit more about our options.

The Chicken Coop

When we got our first two chickens, Y and I bought a pre-made coop from a local feed store. At the time, we thought we’d only have two chickens, so it was a good size. We also thought it was a good deal. As it turns out, this was an expensive route to take. Chickens need a coop and an enclosed area on the ground, so they can peck at the ground and not get picked off by an eagle. This coop and run are sold separately. Total, they came to about $350-$400 with tax, and we only had enough room for 2 chickens.

After we realized that we wanted more than 2 chickens, Y decided to build a new coop himself (I just realized that I never posted about this specifically, and I really should!). This new coop is really high quality, big enough for six chickens, and materials cost about $200-250.

Some people aren’t as handy as Y is, or don’t feel like investing the time. If you buy your own coop, you’re looking at probably $400 (but you might luck out if you look on Craigslist, as the woman who bought our first coop did!). As backyard chickenry gets more and more hip, you’ll find a lot of options for pre-made coops. For example, at around $500, I think the Eglu (pictured below, photo source here) is really cool, but you’ll probably want more than 2 chickens, so you’re looking at the big one, which is more like $1000 with the run.

If you’re thinking about going the DIY route (or you’re just interested in learning about the different types of coops), Backyard Chickens is a great resource for the different types of coops, and they have a lot of examples of homemade coops. People are pretty creative!

As for the accessories–that’s another one-time investment. I’d recommend getting the largest food containers you can so you don’t have to refill it all the time, and figure out how to hang them–otherwise you end up with a lot of chicken crap in the food, which is totally nasty. We bought large metal water and food feeders at the feed store, which probably cost about $50 total. The photo below is Tulip with the water feeder.

Another expense we have is bark chips. While at the Sunset Festival this summer, I checked out Sunset’s chicken coop and was very impressed. They used bark chips on the ground (in fact, they just recently wrote a post about their coop flooring), and it cut down on the smell and the need to clean the ground every week (the coop itself still needs to be cleaned, though). I came home and told Y, and we recently got a bunch of bark nuggets (around $50) to cover the ground. The results have been miraculous. The poop falls between the chips, and it doesn’t smell at all. I’d even venture to say that it smells good. So if you aren’t planning on getting the type of coop that you can move all around the yard (a tractor coop), I highly recommend the bark.

The Food

Chicken feed is pretty cheap. We feed all organic pellets, which we get from a local feed store. We get a big 50 pound bag for $35, and it usually lasts about 6-8 weeks (for 5-6 chickens). You’ll also need oyster shells as a calcium supplement, which keeps the eggshells thick. They hardly eat any of these, and they’re only 55¢ per pound.

Another cool thing about chickens is that they love scraps and will eat almost anything; here’s a list of all the things a chicken can and cannot eat. Chickens eating spaghetti? Pretty hilarious.

The Chickens

Chickens vary in price. You can get them as chicks and pay about $2 per chick, but then you have to go through the trouble (and heartbreak) of raising them. There are also upfront costs for that, like heat lamps, etc. We found grown chickens in our area on Craigslist, and paid about $25/chicken. One thing to note: chickens don’t start laying until they’re about 6-7 months old, and after a certain age, they lay less. So if you’re buying a “used” chicken, do your research.

The fun part about choosing your own chickens (as opposed to getting a kit with chickens included) is that you can choose what breeds you get. And different breeds of chicken lay different colored eggs. We get white eggs, light brown eggs, dark brown eggs with spots, and olive green eggs. It’s really cool.

In Conclusion

As you can see, the cost depends a lot on how much you choose to spend. How much are you willing to do yourself? We’ve spent more than we probably should have because we bought a crappy coop and didn’t plan ahead (although, we’ve been able to recoup (haha) some of our costs by selling stuff on Craigslist, so it’s not a total loss.

All in all, I’d say that unless you are super frugal and eat a lot of eggs, I wouldn’t do this to save money on eggs (at least not initially). We get about 2 dozen or so eggs per week for five chickens (when they’re all laying). However, for us it’s worth it not to support egg farms, and for the fun of it. It is really cool to have all these different colored eggs, and as I’ve said before: chickens are awesome!

Postcard Save the Dates and RSVPs

November 19, 2009 in Blog • Tutorials & Tips • Weddings-Blog

This post should actually be titled, “Why I don’t recommend postcard Save the Dates, but postcard RSVPs are okay.”  But that was too long (haha).

When I was planning my own wedding, one of my first projects was creating our Save the Dates.   At the time, Save the Date magnets and postcards were super hip.  I didn’t want to spend a ton of money on magnets, so I decided on postcards.  I slaved over the drawing for the postcard, and when I sent them out, I expected at least some comments from our friends and family.

Not a peep, I kid you not.

Rather than admit to myself that my awesome Save the Dates weren’t as cool as I thought they were, I decided to think logically rather than emotionally.  The following are my excuses for the radio silence (which have since been substantiated by the not-so-scientific experiments of mailing myself postcards).

Reasons why Save the Date postcards are a bad idea

• Postcards are easily missed. In the sea of junk mail people receive, they can get lost in the shuffle or accidentally slip into a Penny Saver and get sent straight to the recycling bin.
• Postcards can get absolutely mangled in the mail.  My not-so-scientific experiments involved sending myself 10 postcards.  All of them were scuffed up and torn, and sometimes the postmark was on the wrong side of the postcard, totally smeared and obscuring the image.
• Allegedly, postcards are lost more often than regular envelopes.  I’m not sure if I believe this (we used postcard RSVPs, too, and I received every single one that was sent).  However, other stationers swear by this statement, so I thought it was worth including.
• Save the Dates in envelopes are more formal than postcards.  This may or may not matter to you.
• Getting something in a pretty envelope is just more exciting! I love getting a colorful envelope in the mail.  And with a boatload of awesome envelope colors to choose from with Stinkerpants, your envelope will grab your guests’ attention and will not be boring.
• Postcards will only save you $50 bucks, on average. One of the main arguments for sending postcards instead of cards in envelopes is cost savings.  But think of it this way: if you send 100 postcard Save the Dates, you’ll save $35 on classy A6 envelopes and $16 on postage (because postcards are cheaper to mail than regular envelopes).  That’s $51.  And at the end of the day, what’s $51?  After you’ve spent so much time and money creating the Save the Dates themselves, it would be a shame to have them ruined because of $51.

Those are some pretty good arguments against postcard Save the Dates, don’t you think?

Make no mistake, however: I am not opposed to postcards in and of themselves.  Most of the reasons above relate to your guests’ experience of receiving the postcards.  After all, this Save the Date is the first impression they’ll have of your event, and you want it to be a good one.

I have a completely different take on postcard RSVPs, which were also gaining in popularity around the time of my wedding.

Reasons why it’s totally okay to send postcard RSVPs

• When your guests see the postcards, they’re in perfect condition.  And once they get to you, it doesn’t really matter if they’re mangled.  Hopefully you’ve kept a few in perfect condition for your scrapbook.
• They might fit with your invitation design better. Our wedding invitations were tri-fold invitations, and it made more sense to include a postcard, rather than an RSVP in an envelope.  I was able to use a removable glue dot to stick the RSVP to the paper, which worked very well.
• You’re expecting them, so you’re less likely to miss them.  If you’re waiting to receive your RSVPs, you’re going to check inside that Penny Saver to make sure none of them are stuck in there.
• Postcards will save you $50 bucks, on average. Okay, so it’s only $48.50 per 100 RSVPs (for A2 size envelopes and postage), but heck: if it doesn’t matter what they look like when they get to you, why not?

And there you have it: Stinkerpants’ basic list of pros and cons of postcards as both Save the Dates and RSVPs.  As a stationer and semi-newlywed, I’ve had experience both personally and with my clients.  Hope it was helpful!  If you have anything to add below, feel free!

Because I Love Animals: Charity Drawings

November 18, 2009 in Family & Pet Portraits

A few months ago, my friend N (same N who told me about the chicken article!  She has my back!  Thanks N!) told me of an animal rescue in need of some help.  Hopalong & Second Chance Animal Rescue is an awesome animal rescue here in the bay area; but they don’t just rescue animals.  Their mission is to eliminate the euthanasia of adoptable animals in NorCal, and they offer spay/neuter services, after-school programs, and community education about the necessity of spaying/neutering and the need for animal adoption.

As you guys know, I’m a BIG animal fan.  Our furry children are all adopted from various humane societies, and I feel very strongly that people should support shelters instead of breeders.  So when given the opportunity to donate my illustration and invitation services to a VERY worthwhile organization, I jumped at the chance!

Every year, Hopalong & Second Chance Animal Rescue hosts a fundraiser called the “Fur Ball” (which seriously couldn’t be a cuter name!).  This year’s 5th Annual Fur Ball featured invitations, RSVPs and ads by Stinkerpants!

Because the organization is moving, we decided to do a “moving” theme for the drawings.

I love this little kitty, throwing balls out the back of the moving truck for the dogs.

You might remember my sharing a little snippet of these drawings a few months ago…I’m glad I could finally share the whole thing!