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Have I told you about how every time I get an order of envelopes addressed by Brigitte I want to keep it? I’m not a hoarder by nature, and logically I know that I have no use for envelopes addressed to other people’s friends, but when I see this kind of beautiful, I can’t help but want to steal one:
I mean, look at the “ss” in Massachusetts. They are so cutely disconnected.
At least I can find and then hoard these vintage stamps 
. Thanks for the images, Sophie and Andre!
–Tara
I just started a new calligraphy class with Brigitte — this time I’m learning Blackletter!
I am so bad about creating projects for myself to stay in practice. I think it’s because there is something almost too-permanent about ink on paper. It’s hard to commit! However, for quite awhile I’ve wanted to design a last-name-logo for Dave and myself, and this would be a really fun hand to use for that. Then sometime next year after we (hopefully!) move, I want to get it made into an obnoxiously-large custom return address stamp. If it goes well, I think such a stamp will become my “signature housewarming gift.” Cute, right?
This is my miniature inspiration board for our stamp:
Blackletter Alphabet by amazing calligraphy genius, Ward Dunham; Return Address Stamp by the wonderful Maybelle Imasa-Stukuls.
In the meantime, here’s some homework:
Yikes… I really need to work on that Z…
–Tara
This is the part of the story where you find out that my husband, Dave, makes awesome hand-crafted soaps! On one of our earliest trips to Orcas Island, he got hooked on some handmade soaps he found in one of the great shops there. He works very hard at his day job as a computer tech, and was in desperate need of a fun hobby, so a couple of years ago, he decided to try his hand at making some himself.
The first attempts were… interesting… (right, Dave? I still have a bar of the original batch in the shop sink downstairs!) He experimented over and over with different formulas for the basic mixture, adjusting this and that, and having his friends and family try them out. Over time, he has gotten REALLY. GOOD.
So good, that he just started selling them on Etsy last month. Behold:
I helped with packaging — each one has a label with the logo letterpress-printed in black ink on Hahnemuhle Bugra paper. The soap’s scent is hand-lettered by me in opaque white gouache. I’m glad I’m doing this for him — it is a good excuse to practice my own calligraphic style every once in awhile! I’m calling it “Casual Copperplate” because it’s basically just my own relaxed writing while using some of the rules of that traditional hand.
The soaps are all-natural, vegan-friendly, and the scents are incredible — my favorite ones are anything with mint (I think they are perfect for helping you wake up in the morning). He’s got some tea-tree mint and orange-mint coming out soon, and I can’t wait to try them out as soon as they are done curing. He also makes plenty of decidedly “manly” soaps. Don’t ask him to make anything with chocolate. He’s leaving that to Jessica Simpson.
They make a great gift — check it out!
–Tara
I have long admired Stephannie Barba’s work at Couture Maps, and have been meaning to blog about it for some time. She uses hand lettering, letterpress, hand painting and tons of other techniques to create these gorgeous, one-of-a-kind maps for her clients. They are so perfect for destination weddings in particular, but it’s easy to see that anyone would want their wedding maps to be this adorable:
Pretty impressive, right? Well, what if I told you she is also incredibly organized? Last year I received this paper delight in the mail:
That’s right. It’s one of her maps, but it features her vacation destination that year — the Seychelles. She must have brought all those cards and envelopes on vacation with her, and then bought the stamps and sent out a custom postcard of her very own! How rad is that? I’d like to think that someday I will be that together, but it is really unlikely .
Thanks, Stephannie, for letting us spotlight your work. I hope you’ll keep me on your mailing list!
–Tara
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d blog about Amy and Tim’s lovely raspberry red August 2008 wedding. I just love the colors in those flowers… so pretty and pink without being too feminine overall. Of course, we made sure to match Amy’s raspberry fabric swatches in the ink for the invitations… She went with a modern, dotty version of our Vintage Flourish design, and paired it with a raspberry damask envelope liner.
Our calligrapher, Brigitte, did all the addressing — it was a rich gold color on deep brown envelopes. She also got to help Amy directly with place cards and miscellaneous signage at the wedding. Check out the “Bride” and “Groom” scalloped-edge chair labels below.
Amy and Tim also made the cutest table number signs — instead of a plain old “7,” they got creative and included old photos of themselves from age seven. The photos on table 8 were from age eight, and so on. Love it!
And finally, one more fab photo of the happy couple on a San Francisco beach. Thank you so much to Amy and Tim, and Jennifer Kloss Photography (Bay area) for sharing these photos with us. You pulled off a stunning event!
–Tara
Have you ever seen anything as beautiful (and smart) as these foxy new valentines by Hello Handmade?
Hello Handmade is a collaboration between calligrapher Betsy Dunlap and artist Shanna Murray. Would you believe they have never met in real life?
Simply pop on over to their Etsy shop, and order one for $10. You submit the message you would like hand-written in Betsy’s unique calligraphy, and your beloved’s address, and they will send out all the valentines on February 7th. I am seriously considering sending one to myself.
–Tara
The holiday cards are in the mail! Would you believe that I have never really done the holiday card thing? Even though I make cards? As my job? Yes, I realize that is not quite right. I have just never gotten it together in time, or had a fun enough idea. I didn’t even start these until December 1st, so the process was definitely rushed, and there were a couple of things I would have done differently if I had thought about it longer. However, there is something satisfying about a finished, original project, and they all went in the mail this morning!
I actually asked my husband, Dave, (who does not consider himself to be an artist) to do all the drawings. The block handwriting is also his. The calligraphy touches are from me, plus I manipulated and arranged all the images Dave made, and did all the printing. I printed 4 colors on the flat cards, and just 1 on the envelopes. The whole thing came out just as I’d hoped: quirky and casual, which represents us pretty perfectly. I actually think I’ll hire him to make some other fun drawings for me to use in new invitation designs.
A few detail shots:
Oh yeah… there’s a haiku. Dave is sort of known for his haikus:
’tis the season, yo
ev’rybody gather round
have an awesome yule
The best part of this project was that I finally got a chance to really test out my Copperplate calligraphy skillz from my class this fall. I addressed about 80 chartreuse envelopes, in 3 evenings last week, and was surprised that it didn’t take longer. I had been a little worried I would get frustrated and give up. Next time I will probably go slower in the hopes that they will come out better.
One of the smartest things I did was to design the envelopes so they were ruled with light dotted lines — that way I didn’t have to worry about how I was going to write in straight lines. (This time, anyway.) I thought the Love: All Heart stamps matched the colors well, but I also used the Nutcracker ones.
Since I probably shouldn’t be posting my friends’ addresses online (!), here are just a few cropped snippets. As you can see, I started out a little heavy handed with the first names on my list:
But then got into the flow of things, and lightened up a bit:
Not sure which is better. What do you think?
Happy holidays!
Tara
Happy Halloween! (Yes, that picture is extremely grainy…)
Awhile back I promised to update you with my calligraphy progress — well, it’s coming along swimmingly. I definitely know I’ve found the writing style for me. The first class I took this summer was on the Foundational hand, and it was pretty neat, but very slow, and just not my favorite look. The new class I just finished this week was on the Copperplate hand, which uses a flexible pointed pen and I am utterly in love! It’s so elegant and a lot quicker (but by no means quick).
Just so you can see how far I’ve come, below is the first envelope I addressed to a friend. All in all, passable (right down to the blah Forever stamp):
I thought this was the best word I wrote because of the spacing. I have a problem with cramping things up, and I thought this was actually decent in that regard (yay!):
And here’s what about 4 weeks of practice has yielded. Look ma, upper case letters and everything:
Much better slant and interline spacing, but I’m still not quite up to where I want to be. I am hating that lower-case “p.” I have lots of holiday card envelopes to address in the next couple of months, so hopefully by the time I get to the end of my list, I’ll be a little happier with my progress.
I realize I’m a little obsessed and picking things apart way more than needed, but my goal is to get good enough to maybe someday sort of approach Brigitte’s level of expertise. It may take 20 years, but could totally happen! Practice makes perfect. The other day I wrote someone a check in calligraphy…
–Tara
Le sigh…
If there is one thing in the world I would *love* to be able to do really well, it’s calligraphy! I have been getting better at it now that I have some direction. For a few years I piddled around, buying pens, nibs and ink without really knowing what I was supposed to do next. Frustrating.
Luckily I met my wonderful calligrapher friend, Brigitte Hefferan, who teaches classes here in Edmonds. Earlier this summer, I took a class from her on the Foundational Hand. Foundational is supposed to be good for us novices because it forces us to go slowly. (VERY slowly.) After we learned the basics, Brigitte encouraged us to get off our graph pads and make things — real things — every chance we got, because it would make us better over time.
My first official project was a 30th birthday “card” for my friend Alane. I composed a really stupid (but perfectly metered) 2-verse limerick for the occasion, and then wrote it out on black Strathmore Pastel paper with hot pink and red Windsor & Newton gouache. Yes — a little bright, but I love how the gouache jumps off the black page:
The writing is the fun part. Before you get there, however, you have to plan it all out. And I am pretty lazy.
How big will your card be? That tells you what your line length you have to work with, which tells you what nib size you need to use. You also have to rule your paper with pencil before you start (I do, anyway!). Then once you actually write, you may find that you didn’t quite do your math correctly! I knew pretty quickly my lines were going to be too long for the nib size I chose, so instead of starting over (which would involve re-cutting and re-lining a whole new sheet…), I decided to write the poem like a paragraph, but make each “limerick line” a different color. At least that way you can tell more easily it rhymes.
The gouache is an opaque watercolor that you mix with a few drops of of distilled water. You mix this all up with a basic paintbrush, and brush it sparingly onto your pen nib. (I’m still working on the “sparingly” part.) Then you write a few letters, run out of goache, brush some more on, repeat. Eventually you’ll need to rinse out your nib because it gets a little clogged.
It is all a very tedious, but fun and satisfying — the process really makes you appreciate what calligraphers do. A hundred times. For your wedding envelopes… Or even more — what the monks did for illuminated manuscripts. Wowza.
So this has been step one on my journey. Hopefully I’ll have time for lots more projects I can document here — the wheels have been spinning. The next class up covers the Copperplate hand, which is probably what most people think of for wedding envelopes. I started playing around with my new nibs already…
–Tara
Where to begin???
I suppose with HAPPY WEDDING DAY TO DEBBIE AND MIKE! Today is their big day, and even though we have never met, I am way excited for them — I’m pretty sure they and their guests are in for a wedding like no other.
Exhibit A:
What’s that, you say? Why yes, that is a wedding invitation. And yes, it has a typewriter on it. And candy! Loads of lollies, peppermints, and a swirling line of very cheeky gumdrops. And it’s going to be ok, because that’s just how these 2 roll.
Debbie is very creative and a writer, and wanted to do something totally out of the ordinary, so she came up with a theme of old fashioned typewriters and candy. You can read all about how she’s been weaving this into her wedding right here (she’s also the much-loved Miss Mrs. Lovebug from Weddingbee!)
All the images are quirky, cute, detailed custom illustrations, and were so fun to make. The invitations were printed in 3 colors: a very light blush pink, a deeper (but still light) petal pink, and silver, which looks like a pewter-y, graphite gray when printed on a white card). We also made a custom pink dotted envelope liner that complimented the set beautifully.
One of my favorite details, however, has to be the calligraphy that Brigitte Hefferan did for this project — she was able to mimic the “Feel Script” typeface used in the suite. It all came out so well that I actually asked Brigitte to address one to me just so I could keep it! I so wish I could do this:
All my clients are fantastic, but sometimes I get the feeling that I could become really good friends with a few of them — if only they lived closer. As a part of their wedding ceremony, Debbie and Mike will eat bitter chocolate and drink sweet red wine — to symbolize taking the good times with the bad in their new life together. Chocolate. During the ceremony. Doesn’t that sound like a couple I need to meet?! If you 2 are ever in Seattle, I’d love to buy you a drink In the meantime, I hope today is everything you imagined and more.
Much love,
Tara
PS. Thanks to fab Tucson-area photographer Chris Richards for allowing us to post these beautiful engagement photos. Credit for the letterpress pics goes to Debbie who was goodly enough to share.
