PaperSource

A moment ago I finally got around to assembling the invitations for our engagement party. I purchased the supplies at the finest stationery store South Coast Plaza has to offer: PaperSource. While most brides-to-be may settle for a mere notecard style package of fill-in invitations, this simply would not do. Similar to wedding invitations, but on a cheaper and more casual scale, making custom invitations from this brand involves the mixing and matching of notecards, envelopes, envelope liners, notecard shashes, seals, and possibly a flourish of some kind. The possibilities are endless! So needless to say, at the mere idea of throwing a party for ourselves I became quite excited to actually have an excuse to go to this Mecca of decorative papers and be able to design invitations of my very own; a kind of practice-run for our save-the-dates and wedding invites.

I only needed at most 10 invitations, so I figured that this should be a fairly cheap and easy endeavor. I had a free afternoon two weeks ago after church, which happens to be fairly close to South Coast, so I was eager to go and fulfill my creative destiny. I think I spent at least an hour walking around the store in circles, my mind spinning with possibility. It was actually more frustrating than I expected. Since I only needed a small number of invites, it seemed that buying a package of inkjet-compatible notecards would be best, and there was entire quarter of the store devoted to them, yet none of them seemed quite right. They all seemed either too girly, or not girly enough, too dark, or too plain. I was about ready to give-up and send out evites. And then...there they were. I had probably walked past the window display 5 or 6 times without noticing them. A perfectly coordinated kit of rather cute, blank invites with all of the components I was looking for in different color combos, at half the price of buying the individual papers. Success! I made my purchase, and now here they are, ready to be addressed and mailed-off to our guests. To the naked eye, they're nothing that special, but to me and other stationery freaks alike, they're perfect.