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Thought I’d pop in from hibernation to wish my beloved a belated happy fifth anniversary! On November 13, Dave and I celebrated 5 happy years of marriage. Time flies when you’re having fun…
my favorite wedding picture
our wedding announcements
We’ve come a long way from that autumn afternoon on Orcas Island. In fact, today is a very big day for us. We just closed on our first house!
don’t worry, it’s bigger than it looks
We cannot believe our luck…
Not only did it tick all our “must” boxes, but it’s only 12 minutes from Dave’s workplace. That is a huge relief. The best part, however, is that it’s on a full acre, wooded lot. When we first moved to Seattle, we were in love with the trees. We loved everything about the area, but mostly our time on Orcas Island — that’s probably why we got married there. We always stay try to stay at the same little rental house in Olga, about as far away from the ferry dock as you can get. With beautiful territorial views from every window, this place feels like a little piece of that.
Right behind the house is our very own creek, which runs into a nearby pond called Swan Lake. Beyond the creek lies what will become an ideal, 700+ square foot letterpress studio. A studio you can visit! Right now it’s just a fairly dilapidated shell of a shop, but we’ve already got calls into contractors to get it more or less up to snuff for me and my gear by the end of December. A few repairs, insulation, drywall and flooring should be enough to move everything in and get back to work. After that I have visions of a flower and vegetable garden on the north side of the studio, with rows and rows of lavender in the summertime.
Here’s the catch: It’s definitely a fixer-upper. It’s certainly livable, but very outdated (dare I say fugly?) in places. Every room needs work. We have lots to learn, and more to do. But luckily we have imagination, each other and (from what I can figure) all the time in the world.
I can’t wait to show you more, but I have to go celebrate!
–Tara
Sorry I have been MIA lately… Sometimes this blog has to take a bit of a backseat! Posting will be very light over the next few weeks.
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I thought I’d post this Irish eye candy — some personal stationery we did for a client with Irish heritage.
Hope everyone has a fun and safe St. Patrick’s Day. Sláinte!
–Tara
As you know, I love seeing pictures from the weddings of the couples I work with — but look at this one!
This is Anna and Min wearing their gorgeous hanbok during part of their wedding celebration — the Korean Paebaek Tea Ceremony. Anna was kind enough to forward me the explanation of the ceremony from her wedding programs:
In Korean tradition, the marriage between a man and a woman represents the joining of two families, rather than the joining of two individuals. This ceremony was originally intended as a way for the bride to pay her respects to the groom’s family, with whom she traditionally lived after the wedding.
In a private room, the bride and groom will enter together dressed in ceremonial Korean wedding attire. Their parents will be seated in front of a table laden with various edibles and tea. The bride and groom will first bow deeply to the honorees, then kneel to pour tea. Once each honoree drinks the tea, they impart wisdom, advice or a wish for the bride and groom’s future.
Finally, the honorees will throw dates (symbolizing girls) and chestnuts (symbolizing boys), which the bride will try to catch in her skirt. According to legend, the number of dates and chestnuts caught signifies how many children she will bear. Later in the evening, the bride and groom are supposed to eat the dates and chestnuts that were caught.
The Paebaek ceremony was originally a way to pay respect to the groom’s family. Since brides no longer live with the groom’s parents after the wedding, many couples have modernized the tradition. Relatives on both sides of the family are often invited to participate and offer blessings to the couple.
I would love to have seen them trying to catch the dates and chestnuts! Here’s the bride in her wedding gown:
And of course, the invitations!
Thanks to Anna and Min for sharing your story with us, and to photographer Henry Chan (New York) for the great pics.
Best,
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
[So I have to tell you that I seriously considered titling his post "People Who Are Too Attractive." Haha. But in all seriousness, look at them. It's a little ridiculous!]
Nyema and Jamal’s June wedding invitations were definitely one of my favorites from this year. Their palette of green, gold, and shimmering champagne was just too delicious for me to handle. We used a cute dragonfly ornament for the invitation, lined the envelopes with metallic gold-dotted white paper, and printed it all in the most luminous and fresh grass green color. They even ordered some fun champagne-bubbled coasters as favors for the reception (yes, we can do that!).
A few more shots of the newlyweds are below. I love Nyema’s dress — especially the little lace jacket for the ceremony. It is so perfect!
Thanks so much, Nyema and Jamal! It was great to get to know you, and bond over Battlestar Galactica. (I am DYING waiting for the conclusion of season 4 next year!) Beautiful photos courtesy of the wonderful Jessica Messer of J. Messer Photography (Alabama).
Keep in touch!
–Tara
Green has always been a favorite of mine, so I am naturally in love with the pale colors of Sarah and Hamish’s August wedding. We started with an apple green dahlia ornament, and added a little brown bee for a touch of whimsy. That bee buzzed around everywhere, including the front of the invitation envelope.
I adore their cake design below as well — from the slightly minty green tint to the little champagne-esque bubbles rushing up from the bottom tier — so cute!
And so scrumptious!
Thank you so much to Sarah, Hamish and Hy Studio (San Francisco area) for sharing these wedding day photos with us.
–Tara
I’ve been meaning to pass on these lovely shots from Linnea and Jesse’s Death Valley engagement photo session by Peter Holcombe Photography. I especially love the colors of the landscape in the bottom photo. It makes me want to camp in the desert. (Well, almost… I have a heat aversion. And also a camping aversion.)
Even though this was a rushed invitation project, we still had time to do a quick custom illustration of a hummingbird silhouette for it. I love the muted, unique colors of this one. Linnea even had cool names for them like Smoked Celadon and Pacific Blue. Ahhh…
Thanks Linnea, Jesse, and Peter Holcombe Photography (Colorado)!
–Tara
As you may remember, Aly at La Luz Photography did all the product photos on the Ephemera web site, and even gave me some pointers for taking my own pictures day-to-day for this blog. (Things are improving, no?) After she took our photos, we got to work with her again on some letterpress stuff! First we did note cards featuring her existing logo and signature damask pattern in chocolate and slate-colored inks. The slate color is divine! I love how they came out:
Then, after Aly had her son in March, we got to do some adorable baby announcements for her and her husband, Ben. You might recognize the pattern from this bright and fun wedding invitation in 2007. It totally works as a birth announcement as well — just change the colors to whatever you like. Here we used pool and chartreuse inks:
How cute is he?! I want to squish him (nicely, of course).
Welcome to the world, Henry!
–Tara
