Save-the-dates!

My brother-in-law designed my fabulous save-the-date design for our vintage hankies! Check it out!

I'm not going to lie, this has not been an easy and stress-free project! My sister and I started on Sunday to try to print the design on the hankies. I bought a yudu screen printer to use, but we were both new to the contraption so it definitely took some learning! It started out with a trip to Kinko's to print the design on to the yudu transparency, the first step in the process! Come to find out, Kinko's is not allowed to print on ink-jet transparencies, so back to the house to try it on the home printer! It actually worked out really well so the first step was complete and successful!

Then to the tricky part...creating the screen. I won't even tell you about all the steps we went through, but at the very end of it we figured out we didn't "expose" the screen long enough. That is a nerdy yudu term that you probably wouldn't understand unless you have read the manual a million times like I did! Anyway, the screen we created basically melted away and we had to start all over! The second time it actually worked and we were ready to start printing! Of course we started on a couple of sample hankies because I didn't want to mess up any of the ones I really loved. The first one seemed to work out perfectly! On to the next two...not so perfect. The first one that turned out so well was a thicker fabric and the ink did fine on it, but the other 2 were extremely thin (as you can imagine most vintage hankies would be) so the ink on the silhouettes started bleeding. Enter MELTDOWN. Ok, I didn't have a total meltdown, but after 6 hours of working on this I was tired and frustrated and I didn't know what to do!

We called it quits for the day as I contemplated ways to avoid this little ink-bleeding problem. Over the last couple of days I have tried other things trying to make the ink not run and nothing was working. I read on someone's blog that they had better luck with the metallic paints because they are thicker than the flat paints. So I went to Michael's today and bought some metallic ink and decided to give it a whirl. And whah lah! Look below to see some examples of my successful hankies. The ink is VERY thick and does not run at all so I think we may have a winner people!

The pictures didn't turn out perfectly because I took them on a glass table and the reflection of the silver in the ink makes it look a little grayish in the picture. Anyway, they look cuter in person!

I only have 6 done so far, but I'm going to try and get a lot done this weekend! That's another thing about the yudu. Its a slow printing process because you have to wash the screen off after about 5 hankies because the ink will dry on the screen! What a pain! It will be worth it in the end though!

There's a lot of Hankie Panky goin on!

So, starting about 2 months ago, I saw the fabulous idea to make my save-the-dates out of vintage handkerchiefs. You might be thinking that sounds strange, but let me give you an idea of what I'm talking about! I first saw the idea on the wonderful Lucky Luxe's blog and I fell in love with it! (By the way she has a fabulous blog, you have to check it out!)  Then I told my super crafty sister about the idea and she loved it as much as I do! Here is the first picture I saw on Lucky Luxe's blog:

So after getting all excited about the idea since I knew it was perfect for me, I started trying to figure out how I was going to go about finding 200 vintage hankies at a reasonable price! That was the one thing I didn't want to do with this project: spend a ridiculous amount of money. So, I looked at a couple of antique stores and found that they had several beautiful hankies, but they were all way more than I wanted to spend. I was getting a little down thinking I would never be able to follow through with the idea, when I decided to try ebay! Of course! Why hadn't I thought of that right away?? And of course, ebay was my savior. There are so many vintage hankies on there for sale its unbelievable. And though some do go for higher prices, it is easy to find several that are affordable and cute! So I started collecting hankies really fast thanks to ebay!

To make things even more exciting, my sister sent me an email with a link she had seen on Style Me Pretty's blog about someone else doing vintage hankie save-the-dates! And here are the pictures. Thanks to Style Me Pretty, I started following this blog, Benign Objects. Here are some of her pictures of her own save-the-date hankies. How inspiring! Thanks Rachel!

The silhouette of the couple is so unique and vintage-looking. I absolutely love it! There are step by step instructions on how she did it on her blog. Be sure and check it out!

I can only hope mine turn out this fabulous and beautiful! Thanks so much for the inspiration! Now here are a couple of pics of the hankies I've gotten so far! I can't wait to start the printing process!

I have a whole table full! But I still need about 60 more. Come on ebay!

Here is a close-up so you can see some of the hankie detail. I have gotten some really beautiful ones, but some I could live without! The ones I don't like will be returning to ebay after this is all over!

So what does everyone think about this idea? Do you love it as much as I do??