With the wedding just over 6 months away, it was time to send out our announcements. After much thought and consideration to what we felt would best represent us, we knew that sticking to the MFEO ethos of creating something new from something old was the way to go. Our idea: buy vintage postcards and stencil our Save the Date information on the fronts and backs. As timing would have it, the Vintage Paper Fair was rolling through town which gave us the perfect opportunity to search for our Save the Date cards.
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On a brisk Saturday afternoon we made our way to the Glendale Convention Center ready to dig. At first, the Vintage Paper Fair was a bit daunting, with rows upon rows of tables filled with boxes of postcards, photos, posters and other relics of yesteryear. We narrowed our search down to Oregon cards only, where the wedding will take place. The search came to a close three hours later when we purchased 75 handpicked unique Oregon cards for $15!
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The next step was to draw the stencils with our wedding information. Inspired by psychedelic rock posters from the 60′s & 70′s, we drew multiple versions of “CB & Van Gettin’ Hitched!” for the front of the cards and “Save the Date! 8-31-12 McMinnville, OR” on the back of the cards. After an evening of doodling, we decided that CB had the best rendering indicative of that groovy 70′s font.
After a quick shrink from the copy machine Van carefully cut the stencils.
One sore back and two watery eyes later we were able to test out the paper stencil. We used flat white spray paint on the front. A roller or sponge may have provided more defined lines, but we prefer the imperfections of the overspray.
Once we felt confident that we got the look we were looking for, Van set up an assembly line at the MFEO studio.
By the time we got to the backside of the postcards we had a pretty efficient process, along with some nifty tricks. Gloves made matters worse as they would get too sticky. Painted hands was simply unavoidable. However using two thin strips of wooden lathe enabled us to hold down the paper and pull it tight from the top and bottom. Bending and bowing the cards helped control the overspray as the paper began to curl from the many layers of wet paint.
As soon as the paint dried, we hand addressed and stamped each card and dropped them in the mail. Everyone received a one-of-a-kind Save the Date, personally picked out for them.
- CB & Van
