citrus fun...{invitations}

Remember this for this wedding? Well here are a closeup of the invites I never showcased. This is also the wedding I did the bouquets and bouts for and we shot!
This was a collaboration of talents for this invite. :) Right after I was done printing the envelopes, and had printed the first color for the invites, the press had a moment of retirement. As it is a 100+ year old press, this can happen at unexpected moments. So Thank goodness for my friend and master printer at Paper Mum Press. She swooped in and finished the job on her press. Although she uses a different press, we had to reorder all the plates and new paper to start over but it worked great. She is super fast with turn around time and as she is a printer, more then a designer (her words not mine) she will happily print any designs. The RSVP are digitally printed by me and with the bride's help we sewed the invites, and she did the envelope liners herself with a templet I made. It was a fun collaboration of talents to get this baby out in the mail!

She's Krafty and She's just my type!

Yes the Power of the kraft... envelope that is. This is by far the number one choice by 95% of my clients. The softness, the organic, and the overall "non-wedding" look of this envelope is what draws my clients to choosing them as the very first impression and peek at the wedding that their guests will see. You say white - I say Kraft. Her beauty is just her simplicity, especially when letterpress or a fabulous over the flap to the front design has embellished her. This envelope has graced many weddings from the shabby chic to the playful sophisticate. It has been used with soft and bright palettes a like. Can you resist? I think not!

A Priest, A Rabbi, and 2 Doctors walk into a chapel...

To be continued.... The save the date for My great friends Jill and Adam! They are 2 very funny people and this save the date really shows it.
Designed by me! (of course :) ) It is 3 color letterpress with the wine stain (which I love and will be carried through out the whole invitation suite currently under construction) is digitally printed by me but the letterpress is printed ever so beautifully by Spark Letterpress.
It looks so great with the custom labels.
click on the pics so you can really see it big!

2 beach weddings : one surrounded by palms, one surrounded by pines, both on October 18th, 2008.

Here are two invites that I just finally got around to photographing to put on my website.
One is the invite for the wedding I just featured Courtney & Erin. The other is for a super great couple, Kari & Rick that went off to Mexico to marry! Both beachy but with a different feel and theme. All are a blend of letterpress and ink jet, I love doing mixed media pieces it really enhances the design.
I can't wait to see the pictures from Kari and Ricks wedding. I also photographed their ceremony program that I made as a fan, Thanks to help of Susanne of Cards de Luxe In which I designed and printed them and she supplied me with the shape templet, die cut and assembled them. There is no way I could have done this with out her help! Thanks Susanne. Make sure to check out her beautiful portfolio!
I am also posting a few pics of the arrangement I made to feature the invite of Courtney & Erin. I really love making arrangements, it is a hobby I would like to pursue one day.
Cheers!

Wedding Day Accessories Galore!!!

Wow!!! Finishing the day of accessories for weddings is the hardest part of the wedding timeline. As many brides often don't have the info for the programs, or escort cards until 2 weeks before it makes it unbelievably stressful to get it all done by the wedding or 3 days before if they want to assemble themselves. However I get it done and the lack of sleep that I endure, something magical happens and I become SUPER COURTNEY WEDDING STATIONERY EXTRAORDINAIRE. Although I would like to totally blame my brides (hi girls- I still love you all to pieces...) I will have to say that I often underestimate my ability and time it will take to print these item. Maybe I am too nice and shouldn't allow any changes or require all wording 1 month before and no later?!? :-) Or maybe I open my big mouth with crazy ideas like:
1.sailboats for table numbers using cantaloupes for the boat and printing tear drop shaped sails that are put together with wooden dowels... which did go smoothly I hear, waiting to see some pictures...
2. Perhaps decoupaged table numbers on to wood.... which also turned out fantastic. see the pics below.
3.How about 2 musicians that are getting married and are trying to find a cool way to display the escort cards.... My solution: find and old stand up base and use clothes pins to attach the escort cards to the strings.... But that was impossible to do 3 weeks before the wedding, thus giving me even less time to print for the escort cards....
But again I am proud to have finished some pretty cool designs with not a minute to spare....
4. lets wrap wire and buttons around paper mache kraft numbers for your tables....what? you have 25 tables... okay... I'll do it... Again I have heard it turned out lovely and matched her invites and the rest of the wedding stationery and brought the fun theme all together. It was a little rustic modern.

I have a problem. I LOVE trying to find great ways to display the accessories which leaves me with no time as the bride and groom discuss easy ways to get my ideas executed.:-) This makes the wedding event coordinators love me even that much more (sarcasm) as I give the couples crazy ideas.... Crazy ideas are the best! I always try to be more then just a printer. I don't just print escort cards I figure out the best ways to display them. This goes with all my accessories. The detail is not just the design but how it will be presented.

Here are a few pics of the signs on wood.... I will take some pictures of the last few programs I did and put those up soon. Soon being probably a week.







The table numbers were the years they had been together. 12 years 12 tables. perfect. Each table # had a photo from that corresponding year, They wanted them to look like old blue note jazz record album covers so each one was all red, blue or green overlay... Here is only a picture of the 2008 as I had no time to take a picture of each year, having to deliver everything 10 minutes after I finished.... I made a seating chart to go along with it and fun drink and desert signs.

Finished Projects

I have with in the last 5 months finished work for 12 brides:
10- wedding invitation suites
1-corporate event invite
3- save the dates
5- ceremony programs
5- escort cards
3- table numbers
I have answered well over 1000 emails with questions, advise, dilemmas, anxiety, excitement, frustration, and glee!

By the first week of August I have to finish
3 invitation suites
3 sets of programs
2 sets of escort cards
1 table chart
1 design for a cd jacket, for the favors
3 sets of table numbers.

It gets a bit crazy around here! A lot of late nights.

Here are 3 invitation suites that I have finished recently. The others I still have to take photos of!! Lots to do for my business.....
ARGGG!

The first is for Lori & Clelio married May 31st. I got nothing but fantastic praise from her and her guests. This suite had matching escort cards. The calligraphy was done by Jill Velez
This suite is 2 pieces with the invite on top and the reply underneath is a tear off postcard. All is a 2 color letterpress, the envelope is a 100% recycle kraft paper with a hand made lokta nepalese hand made paper of soft white vines on a blush color.
The bride's dress had a vine embroidery so it fit perfectly.








The next one is for Antonietta & Daniel They will be married on July 19th in Italy. I did the Save the date, the Invitation, escort cards, the covers for the programs, welcome notes, stickers for the favors, wishes cards to be used as a guest book.
These are pics of the invite and one of the save the date. The invite was boxed in a kraft cigar box filled with dried jasmine, the actual invitation was wrapped in a shimmer gold bronze paper handmade in India. The invitation is a 3 color letterpress the reply card is 2 color along with the reply envelope.
I had a custom wax seal of their initials made that was used on the outside of the envelope for the save the date and used on the little tag inside. The tag was tea dyed.
I made custom labels that were used to hold the box shut for shipping.
Basically this whole suite from save the date to invite is a postal workers nightmare!! But Every guests dream!






The final pictures I have are of Abby & Adam's invitation. Married on June 28th at Firestone Vineyards.
Abby is an illustrator so I encourage her to illustrate the actual invitation. I gave them a direction of style, and she sent me a little package of the most beautiful illustrations of vineyards. Some were full watercolor others just a one color ink. I took the illustrations, scanned them, and design it all around that. This is a mixed media piece of ink-jet and letterpress. It is all printed on Hand tea Dyed paper. In order to stay in their budget I offered to show her how I tea dye the paper so she could take it home and do it herself and bring it back to me to print everything.
Once I finished the letterpress Abby took it home and hand pained with an acrylic glaze the grapes and leaves on the invite.
this gave the invite many textures.
These pictures do not show the painting she did afterward but she did give me some to keep. She also had a custom wax seal made of their initials A&A. The invite's inner envelope was sealed with it along with the ceremony programs.
These pictures do not show the matching envelopes with letterpressed vines on the front..