What Inspires Me: Vintage Stamps

As a child I collected cancelled stamps. My first were stamps from Italy that my great grandmother gave me.

Credits (from top left to bottom left clockwise): Sarah Rusin Design photographed by Amanda of Turtle Pond Photography via Inspirations & Creations; Designed by Sarah Parrot with Calligraphy by Grace Edmands, photographed by Fat Orange Cat Studio via The Sweetest Occasion; Magnolia Rouge; Invitation designed by Nicole Tremblay and printed by Studio on Fire via Green Wedding Shoes.

For a wedding, this look can be more expensive than having stamps custom printed. If you're going for a vintage theme and want the details just right, you can go it alone (assembling collections via eBay or Etsy) or work with a stationer. I'd say no one notices the details, but I'd be lying. Our guests noticed our stamps.

Where to Get the Look (from top left to bottom left clockwise): Penny for Thoughts Stamps for 10 Letters from Verde Studio, $10; Puppy Love Stamps for 10 letters from Treasure Fox, $8.50; Rose Love Stamps for 10 letters from Treasure Fox, $8.50; Heart-Shaped World Stamps for 5 letters from Verde Studio, $6.25.

Check out Verde Studio on Etsy for curated collections as well as custom orders or The Paper Nickel Stamp Co (discovered on The Blah, Blah, Blahg via Snippet & Ink).

Do you have any tips for assembling a collection of unused vintage stamps?
Any vendors brides should know about?

Sneak Peek: Save the Dates are Ready!

Oops! Budget Fail - Personalized Postage $$

I'm sure every bride does it - hands over their credit card before thinking about how much they really want or need whatever it is they're buying. I did it. Looking back on this, I will agree that this was actually a moment of pure stupidity.

Here's an example of where I should have thought about how much I really wanted customization. I did my due diligence and found a reputable inexpensive DIY vendor Stamps.com (that's not the problem). What I didn't do, was calculate how much your "Plain Jane" postage from USPS costs. Here goes - follow along:

120 Postcard Stamps $0.28 each = $33.60

200 Invitation/Thank You Note Stamps $0.44 = $88.00

Total = $121.60

Now, here's what I paid:

$83.94 for 120 Postcard Stamps $0.28 each valued at $33.60 with processing & printing costs of $50.34 (150%)

$149.90 for 200 Letter Stamps $0.44 each valued at $88.00 with processing & printing costs of $61.90 (70%)

Total = $233.84 of which I didn't really need to spend $112.24

Luckily we were already saving with our Save the Dates as paper and ink were free (a savings of roughly $85.32 if we'd had custom photo postcards made by CardStore). So... I could look at this budget oops in another way. We intentionally printed our postcards ourselves so that I could order personalized postage. Seen this way the postage was only really an additional $26.92 over what "Plain Jane" postage would cost. (Yeah, I'm not buying it either - it's a weak argument. Be thankful I'm not making the argument that at least we only paid $5.60 for each sheet of 20 - $0.28 stamps instead of $14.95 and $8.80 for each sheet of 20 - $0.44 stamps instead of $17.95 or $18.99.)

Morale of this budget oops? Before researching custom vendors know how much the item costs without personalization - then you'll know if you truly found a good deal. This experience now has me thinking about whether I really need the convenience of extensions (to be quoted but potentially over $500) or whether clip-ins for the day are perfectly fine (as low as $59.90 for 16-inch human hair clip-in extensions). I think clip-ins will be perfectly fine - I mean hey, I went swimming and hot tubbing with some and they survived, I'm sure a wedding is much less dangerous.

Btw... If you want personalized stamps, I found four vendors. Stamps.com, PictureItPostage, Zazzle, and SnapFish. (There are other online stores out there, but most rely on Zazzle.) Stamps.com was the least expensive but you only had 1 size to choose from and could only use a horizontal image. Zazzle gave the most customization - 3 different sizes and the ability to use either a horizontally or vertically oriented image for your stamp.

Have you purchased something without thinking? Did you go over budget or did you reallocate funds?

Sneak Peek: Postage has been ordered!

One of the products I loved when I was working event photography was custom stamps. So it was inevitable that yes we too - like many couples - would use a photograph for our postage. I've included a sneak peek of our stamps.

Creating stamps is pretty easy with Stamps.com. You just upload a photo that satisfies their content guidelines. You position the image where you want it by dragging and dropping. If you want you can add a variety of borders. I opted for borderless. It's as simple as that!