Messy

Since before the wedding, our apartment has been a disaster area. We kept saying that once the wedding stuff clears out, everything will be normal and clean. Not so much. Today, however, I have made some headway with it. After the wedding, all the gifts and stuff that needed to be put away piled up as well as laundry and bills. We took care of the essentials first, and most everything else got left were it laid. So I decided that for my two days off this week, I would tackle this monster of a task. Things still look pretty hectic, but I am starting to see a difference.

I finished my résumé today and emailed it to Caleb. He said that he would look it over and help me fix it in a way to help me get the professional internship.

Part of the piled up papers are the thank you cards that I have yet to finish. I have promised myself that I will finish them before the end of the week. They're only like six weeks late. People won't know why they're getting a thank you card at this point. I meant to do them sooner, but things just kept happening that were more important, like that whole job thing.

Half way through my mess-be-gone "weekend" and I feel like the goal is within reach. I'm also hoping to get to the social security office tomorrow to finally get my name changed because facebook is the only place where my last name is different. I thought I should make it official.

I'll keep you posted on my success or failure. Thanks for reading.

Homemade Wedding Invites

So I promised to post pictures of the wedding invites after the wedding. I will also show how I did it.

First, here is what the finished invite and response card looked like:

I purchased the paper from GoodWill in Amarillo, Texas last July for about $9. The raised printing I did all on my own at home. I did it through a process called Thermography. 

I stamped the image onto the paper using custom stamps and special ink. 

The three stamps I used: Invite, Response, Cute Bride & Groom

Underside of stamp

Embossing Inks

The special ink keeps the image moist longer so that the embossing powder will stick to it. You heavily apply the powder -- then shake off all the excess. Only the stamped image should appear with the powder stuck to it. I found that using clear ink with the colored powder worked best for the look I wanted. 

The next step is to take an embossing gun (not pictured) and heat the powder to the melting point. Over heating causes the powder to burn. Practice a bit before attempting on actual invites. The color powder I used actually changed colors a bit when heated, which made it easier to tell when it was done. Over heating will also cause powder to melt flat resulting in shiny but not raised print. Because you continuously reuse the powder by shaking off the excess, you do not need to buy more than one powder jar. The picture of the powder is how much is left after doing 50 invites and 50 response cards (Maybe a fifth of the jar was used). 

That's how I created the invites. I might post a video of using the powder in another blog post for a different project. For now, keep crafting and thanks for reading. 

Next Step Career Moves

Recently, Chris and I have made slight moves in the right direction for both of our careers. Chris told me today that he is going to be on salary starting this week. It's exciting knowing that he will get paid for 40 hours even on a 4 day week like this. It gives us a little more room to breathe financially, though not too much.

The Professional Internships for College Program Alumni first opportunities showed up online on Monday. So, on Monday, I asked Caleb (one of my managers) what I had to do to get into them and what position would give me the best chance of getting into the program. He gave me some advice and two helpful papers. Both pertaining to the correct way to list Disney on a resumé. One was a sample resumé with Disney listed on it, and the other was a paper with options on how to list the number of guests you deal with daily and such on a resumé. He told me to add this program to my current resumé, and then he would take a look at my resumé and help me fix any issues I had with it. I've been asking several of my managers that did a CP and PI, questions about the best options. What I've decided, based on what they've been telling me, is that my best option is to stick with Operations. Operations covers more than just what I see in my area, which is only Main Entrance Operations. It also covers things like the attractions. I'm excited to see where this goes.

I'll post more about this after I update my resumé and apply for it. I've been trying to find more time to blog so that everyone can keep updated. Until then thanks for reading!