DIY Bride™

{Update April 10: Workshops are postponed due to technical difficulties. Many apologies for the inconvenience! Please check back May 01 for status.}

I’m delighted to present the first event of DIY Bride Workshop Series. Beginning March 15, 2009 Going Digital 101: Using Photoshop to Create Kick-Ass Invites will be available for registration. In this free three-lesson, self-paced video-based course, you’ll learn the basic tools and how to use them to create gorgeous wedding invitations and stationery.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to open files in Photoshop
• Learn the function of and how to use basic Photoshop tools
• Add text and photos to a layout
• Save your layout in printable format
• Select fonts and photographs
• Install and use brushes, patterns, and shapes
• Add digital patterned paper to an invite layout
• Learn about color theory
• Get a primer on layout and design basics
• Learn about printing options

Each video lesson is divided into short, doable tasks that will have you up and running with Photoshop in no time. Because this is a self-paced workshop, you can stop, rewind, and restart the videos as many times as needed.

With this workshop, you’ll get:

• A downloadable invite kit that contains an invitation template, patterned paper, fonts, brushes, and other embellishments so that you can follow along with our tutorials.

IMPORTANT: This workshop requires that users have Adobe Photoshop. You can download free 30-day trials of this program from the Adobe.com website.

Registration is open beginning on March 15, 2009. The course will be available on March 20 and will remain open to registered workshop attendees indefinitely.

Registration Form

Jewel from Savadelis Films sent over this announcement for their upcoming DIY Wedding Video seminar:

For brides and grooms who have chosen to rely on friends or family to film their wedding day and would like to have a quality wedding video, we are offering a creative solution: a How to DIY Your Wedding Video seminar. If couples are going to do-it-yourself, we’d like to help them do-it-well. Now they can do more than just hope for the best.

There are four reasons it isn’t a good idea to ask a friend to video your wedding: poor image quality, poor sound quality, they’ll miss something important, and it will be B-O-R-I-N-G. But we have a solution. We will share very practical tips and techniques on how to frame a scene, shoot from the best unobtrusive angles and record better sound. We will demonstrate how to anticipate key moments and how to edit a compelling story so that friends who only wanted to “take a peek” will beg to see more.

WHEN, WHERE, HOW MUCH?
Sunday, March 22, 2009 1 PM – 5 PM
Julia Morgan Ballroom at the Merchants Exchange Club
465 California Street, 15th Floor, San Francisco
www.movie-me.com
info@movie-me.com
408.773.9421
Online registration $49

WHAT IS MOVIE-ME?
MOVIE-ME is a creative solution to brides who have chosen to rely on friends or family to video their wedding day.  We are offering an afternoon seminar that will dramatically increase the couple’s odds of producing a better video of their wedding.
1.  It’s a 4-hour informative, interactive fun seminar on how to DIY a wedding video in which a professional videographer will be filming a series of  enactments of a ceremony, entrance into the reception, toasts, cake cutting and first dance. Attendees will see on a screen in real time what is being filmed, will hear narration of the right and wrong way to do it.  There will also be a demonstration of how to edit.

2.  Attendees will come away with
5 most common mistakes and how to avoid them
the ‘must have’ shots at the ceremony and reception
the best unobtrusive camera positions
and much, much more

3.  Easy tips and tricks
the single most important step to producing a great video
the most important piece of equipment you can’t do without
how to quickly and easily record excellent sound

WHO SHOULD COME?
Brides and grooms
Friends who will shoot and/or edit the wedding
Friend who will edit the wedding that a professional videographer shoots
Friends who will shoot and edit Friday and Sunday activities (a professional videographer shoots the wedding)
WHY COME TO A SEMINAR?
1.  It would take a lot of time and effort to research the information on the internet, even if it existed, which it doesn’t; your time is worth something
2.  It’s easier to learn by seeing a professional do it than by reading a book
3.  It’s one of those things where you just have to be there (it’s the experience)

LEARN FROM ONE OF THE BEST
Movie-Me is presented by Chuck and Jewel Savadelis of Savadelis Films, an award-winning husband and wife team who are outstanding presenters with an engaging and lively style, who draw from their experience as wedding cinematographers and their long-time avocation as avid movie buffs.

Be sure to stop by movie-me.com to enter to win a Flip video camera!

One of my favorite wedding resources, Southern Weddings, just launched their first print edition and it’s gorgeous! Available at newsstands viat http://www.swsmag.net/, I highly recommend picking up a copy no matter what your geographical location is.

Michael’s is offering a 50% off coupon for this weekend:

Review Update: November 07, 2009:

While I once loved this printer, it is now so problematic that I can no longer give it a recommendation. Here’s why:

• After less than a year of use, it is now completely unusable due to an error message that keeps popping up on the display screen. (It says to turn off the unit and restart it. I do; the error pops up again. Lather, rinse, repeat.)
• Constant paper jams. The paper tray feeder is exceedingly sensitive and paper jams are commonplace.
• Printing on cardstock is hit or miss. I’ve found that when I’m printing multiple pages of cardstock that sometimes it’ll accept a few pages of CS and then reject the next page for no discernible reason. It’s the same cardstock – no tears, wrinkles, or other things that may cause problems.
• Smudges, smudges, smudges. I spend a lot of time (and wasted ink) cleaning the print heads to get clear text prints on regular printer paper. I find that full-color photo prints get lines, streaks, and smudges in most print runs no matter what photo paper I use (fwiw, I use Epson’s own photo paper as suggested by the mfgr. and have tried other brands to no avail.)
• See the comments on the original review for others’ experiences with this printer.

For what the retail price is on this unit I expect better quality, especially from Epson whose products I’ve been very pleased with in the past. This one simply disappoints after less than a year in use.

One of the perks of having this blog is that I get to have hands-on time with some really great tools and products. The Epson Artisan 800 printer is the latest product I’ve received and tested out.

If you’re interested in doing any kind of printed paper craft for your wedding, a good printer is an absolute must. The quality of your printed materials will define the success of your project. As a hardcore paper crafter, I know this all too well I’ve gone through 4 printers in 3 years!

Finding a reliable inkjet printer that can handle a variety of cardstock, papers, vellum and other materials has been a personal quest of mine. When Epson offered to send me the Artisan 800, I happily accepted the offer. At the time they sent the printer I was writing book #2 and thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to test out the printer. With all of the paper projects, manuscript drafts, shipping labels, scanned artwork, and other stuff that was involved with the book the timing was perfect to see how the printer would handle a wide variety of tasks.

Product Features:

• 5 in 1 with Wi-Fi: Print / Copy / Scan / Fax / Ultra HD Photo
• Up to 38 ppm, photos in as fast as 10 sec¹
• Built-in fax and Automatic Document Feeder
• Wi-Fi and Ethernet networking
• 7.8-inch touch panel, 3.5-inch LCD
• Professional quality CD/DVD printing
• Two-sided printing saves paper
• Create coloring books and personal note paper
• Two-year limited warranty with registration¹
• Ultra Hi-Definition photos last 4x longer than photo lab prints
• Two paper trays always ready to print photos and documents

Price: $299.99 Retail

The Verdict

I love this printer but it’s not without faults.

The good:

• Clean, crisp text prints on most cardstocks, vellum, Avery labels, regular printer paper.
• Excellent photo prints. Seriously, one of the best photo printers I’ve ever used.
• Prints on CDs! For those of you giving CDs or DVDs as wedding favors or gifts, this is a really neat feature.
• Scanner is easy to use and give clear scans on most line drawings tested.
  
• Works great with Macs (I love no hassle printer set ups).
  
• Individual ink tanks cost about $16.00 each to replace.
• Really neat image enhancement feature for scans/prints.
• Touch screen. I’m a sucker for a good interface.
• WiFi! I have this printer connected on my home network and it works beautifully. I can print from anywhere in the house.
• You can turn photos or drawings into coloring books, create personalized notepaper, and print lined paper.
• Double-sided printing capacity.

The bad:

• I didn’t like the software that’s used for printing on CDs. It wasn’t  (for me) very intuitive or feature-rich. I used many bad words when trying to design a CD cover for the first time.
• Smaller font sizes (6pt and under) didn’t always print clearly.
• Not all cardstocks fed through the paper tray or auto feeder. I had some problems with CS from Stampin’ Up! (80 lb weight). Sometimes it’d feed with no problems, sometimes not. It wasn’t a consistent problem.
• Doesn’t always like “odd” sized papers but seemed to handle most pretty well.

Overall, this is an excellent printer that’s capable of handling most standard paper size projects without problem. If you’re looking for a great all-in-one (printer, scanner, fax) this is definitely worth buying. The replacement cartridges aren’t super cheap but they’re pretty competitively priced compared to other printers’ inks in its category.

Here’s some coupon goodness for this week. Please see individual coupons for exact dates and offers.

Michael’s:

AC Moore:

Hobby Lobby:

Update: Pic + Stats

7 lbs, 19″ long, and utterly adorable. The best thing I’ve ever created, I tell ya.

Hey Everyone!

Zion Alexander was born on Tuesday, Feb 03 at 4 pm after a pretty short labor. We’re back at home today and all are doing great. I’ll do a little post this weekend with stats and pics after we get some time to settle in.

Thank you so much for keeping us in your thoughts!

-Khris

Care to save some cash, my friends?

JoAnn

http://www.joann.com/joann/

Free shipping on orders of $25 or more.
Code is EDB039
Expires 2/8/09

Michael’s

Hobby Lobby

Along with my paper obsession comes a nasty little addiction to ribbon. Seriously, I have hundreds of yards of the stuff and I’m pretty confident I’ll never use it all up in this lifetime. I tend to buy in bulk because, you know, I just might need that peacock blue silk shantung 3/8″ and that 100 yards of cute 1.5″ chartreuse polka dot ribbon some day. Yeah, I’m kinda sad in that way.

Anyway, since I’m always on the prowl for nifty new ribbons I thought I’d share my mega list of great ribbonerie resources with you. Beware: some companies require a minimum order (either dollar amount of bolt/cut size). All are open to the public; some have wholesale/bulk pricing if you’re a qualifying business.

• Angela Ligouri
• Artistic Ribbon
• BB Crafts
• EA Ribbons & Bows
• Fancy Nancy’s
• Hyman Hendler & Sons
• J Caroline Creative
• JKM Ribbon
• M & J Trimming
• Masterstroke
• Mokuba NY
• Of The Earth
• Paper Mart
• Paper Source
• Raffit Ribbons
• Really Reasonable Ribbon
• Renaissance Ribbons
• Ribbon and Bows Oh My
• Ribbon Bazaar
• The Ribbon Factory
• The Ribbon Jar
• The Ribbon Place
• Ribbon Shop
• Romantic Flowers
• Strano Designs
• Tinsel Trading
• Twice as Nice
• Vintage Vogue