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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 hate the forever stamps… I have no problem waiting until after they’ve hiked up that first class rate and forking over an extra however-many cents for cute stamps. Check out the new LOVE stamps — so adorable!
If I was a bride, I would be very tempted to over-stamp my invitations and put both a king and queen on each. Nauseatingly cute! You know you want to do it… (Thanks to C# for the head’s up!)
Happy stamping,
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
Adios, blue panther (aack)! There’s a cuter stamp in town:
While you may grumbling about the post office raising postal rates again, and messing with your invitation-mailing plans, there is an upside: It looks like the change has ushered in some adorable new postcard stamps. I know many a bride who has lamented the blue panther, so this is good news for all (except the blue panther, I guess).
I know it’s just a stamp, but when you work so hard on unique custom invitations (not to mention spend so much money!), aesthetics are important! I love cute stamps.
Thanks to Nyema for the head’s up
–Tara
