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This is one of the recent projects I am really excited about — it’s our first booklet-style invitation. I’ll be blogging about it in depth later this year after I have some photos of the big day from the bride and groom. In the meantime, I couldn’t resist posting a little bit of it now!
It’s an orange and gray soft-cover booklet printed on bright white stock and bound with bright orange satin ribbon. Four pages tell the couple’s story, invite, and inform, while a tear-off panel acts as a reply postcard. The design itself is also really fun and preppy, so we’ll be adding it to our Ephemera collection soon along with a few others.
Fun!
–Tara
Source: Randy Heisch, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
We’re back! We were in the great state of Texas for a wedding over Easter weekend. It was a total whirlwind of activity, and lots of fun. The wedding was also totally blogworthy, so look for that on the horizon.
The Texas Hill Country was looking pretty spring-like with tons of bluebonnets and other native flowers springing up all over the highway. Dave and I took a drive to Austin to visit a few of our favorite places, visit old friends, and eat chicken fried steak (ever elusive in the Pacific Northwest):
Yowza.
On our drive around Austin, we passed a turnoff for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, which made me think of Ashley and Matthew, who are getting married there very soon. It’s sort of funny… Back when we had all that insane weather in December, the whole city kind of shut down and I snapped this picture of their poor little invitation stuck with me in the snow!
Not to worry, Ashley and Matthew… Spring has sprung in Texas! Actually I’m sure it’s been sprung for awhile down south. I think it’s finally arrived in Western Washington as well. Hopefully brighter evening hours will help me blog a bit more often this season. Lots to say! Thanks to all you loyal readers… I endeavor to deserve you 
.
–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
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
I don’t do business cards very often, but these were too fun to pass up! Bunnies!
One of my former wedding clients, Kathleen McGivney, approached me last October about creating a ton of business cards for a new venture of hers: Hanne Apparel — a line of organic and recycled clothing.
One of the partners, artist Lola Ramona, had already created the bunny illustration, and the group had a basic idea of what they wanted. I simply helped fine tune their design and then we were off, were printing 3000 dark charcoal-colored bunnies (they really do multiply).
I love the jewel toned teal color they chose for all the wording, and that cute little “Love Thyself” tag line.
In keeping with Hanne’s organic, recycled company vision, I recommended some of Porridge Papers’ handmade recycled paper for the cards. The color we used is called “Bad Taste,” and it is literally junk mail recycled into very cool letterpress paper. As in: I called to order the paper, and they said they’d have their employees start bringing in all their junk mail for a few weeks. It’s amazing… Every card was different, smattered with mulitcolored specks and bits, and even the occasional piece of embedded plastic (I assume from those pesky commercial window envelopes).
Porridge makes a ton of great recycled colors — even custom, vivid, deep-colored papers, and seeded papers your guests can plant after your wedding. If you have something special in mind, or are committed to having an extra-green wedding, they are a great option. Just let us know what you’re looking for, and we can price it out for you!
Thank you, Kathleen, Lola and Elizabeth — I wish you much success with your venture!
–Tara
ps. Don’t you wish your name was Lola Ramona? I always wanted a rhyming name. You can check out more of her illustrations and artwork here.
If I ever get around to creating a blogroll here, I will definitely be adding Coveiter, a style blog updated daily by two designers down south in Louisiana. (I promise that improving this old blog is definitley on my ever-expanding list of things to do! I have ideas!)
Coveiter is a verb that means to desire avidly. Lindsey and Julie approached me about printing their gorgeous notecards sometime last year. I am in love with what they created — they are truly spectacular — and I feel lucky I got to pull each print off my press for them. I totally coveted them, I admit it!
The note cards (below) required 3 separate runs: The purple and light gray you see easily, plus an un-inked pattern printed in the background. This technique is called “blind printing.” The texture created by the blind printing combined with the contrast in design elements is just to-die for…
The matching envelope flaps (below, left) also featured more of the same the blind-printed background, with the text overlaid in light gray.
I think this kind of look would translate really well to a booklet-style or folding invitation — anything that has a cover that needs to stand out and command attention. So stylish!
Thanks Lindsey and Julie! Keep up the great blogging and wonderful work .
–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
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
I feel like we’ve been a bit heavy on the green around here lately, so here’s something to mix it up — our cute Floral Whimsy design in a combination of wine and antique gold for Jennifer and Geoffrey’s September wedding in New Jersey. These two are adorable together, so their invitations had to match!
The Feel Script typeface Jennifer fell in love with goes perfectly with this design. Brigitte did her usual calligraphy magic by matching the typeface perfectly when she addressed the accompanying envelopes in a great purply-wine gouache. Of course, I have no picture. I promise I will start taking pictures of the calligraphy she does — it is to-die-for!
These two love cupcakes, so the cake above was actually designed by Pink Cake Box to look like 3 large cupcakes on top of each other. The ruffles represent cupcake wrappers, and are made from glistening fondant with a tiny little dotted swirl pattern, à la the invitations. How cute is that?!
My favorite thing about this wedding is pictured below: the seating “cards” Jennifer made for each guest. The rocks are something you can buy in any craft-type store, and she simply used a metallic Sharpie to label them with each guest’s name and table assignment. Definitely labor-intensive, but what a great visual impact for minimal cost.
Jennifer and Geoff — thank you so much for sharing all these with us. It was a pleasure working with you, and I wish you all the best in your new house! Wedding photos courtesy of Patten Photography (New Jersey).
–Tara
