HOPE

This past weekend, a local Relay for Life was held and several of my friends and family were involved with the event. 

Unfortunately, these days, most everyone knows someone or has someone in their family that is, has, or was battling cancer.  This awful disease is everywhere and thankfully there are many organizations out there working dilligently to find a cure.

This year, I donated several items to be sold at their silent auction.  My favorite item that I donated was this photo art:

I also donated 2 ceramic trivets:

One mosaic cross:

And a set of photo art notecards: 

Together these items brought in $65!  Every little bit helps and I am glad I had the opportunity to give to such a great cause!

Etiquette, Trends and Some Help from my Friends

The rules of party etiquette have changed over the years. Prior to the Internet, many people swore by the rules and books of Emily Post.  Her etiquette guidelines were the bible of party planning and any doubtful brides sought out her books for advice.  As a matter of fact, when I first got engaged, a dear friend of mine mailed me a copy of her book as an engagement gift, it was wonderful!  Everything I needed to know about weddings was right at my fingertips and I was able to look up the "rules" on any questions that I had.

These days rules have gone out the window and it seems that a desire to be different and unique is a resounding theme amongst many engaged couples.  Thought many are eager to break down the traditional wedding barriers, there are some etiquette rules that still ring true.  One of those is the idea of a nicely addressed envelope.  Many brides these days have tossed aside the idea of hand addressing invitation envelopes and opting to either use address labels or have addresses printed on envelopes.

I personally think that invitations do not have to be hand addressed.  Though I feel etiquette is important, I also feel that some rules are silly and not necessary.  My dilemma is not to hand address or not, it is that printing addresses on envelopes has become a rather tedious and expensive task for me.  I am having a hard time finding a quality printer that does a good job printing on envelopes and have sadly been through 3 different printers in an effort to find one that works ok.  My question to all of you readers is, how important is the outer envelope to you and is offering this service something that I should continue to do?  I am asking you all, after all, it is your opinion that matters!

Summer Vacation - Finally!

Finally, summer vacation is here for me!  I always look forward to re-charging my batteries in the summer and this summer I especially need it.  I have been so busy these past few months, I could barely think straight.  I have to also admit that I let my organizational skills slip a bit and I was not too thrilled with myself for this.  So, my plan with my new freedom is to rest, relax, and re-organize!  Hopefully I can come up with some new systems to help streamline the invitation business and hopefully I can even come up with some new designs!

Now - to the good stuff!  Below is a photo of a bridal shower invitation that I created.  This invitation was for a friend of mine at work.  Her summer wedding colors are pink and yellow - these cheery invites were the perfect invite for her shower!

Next up is a seating chart that I created for a bride.  I created all of the stationery for this wedding - I love it when I am able to create all elements of the wedding and am able to carry over a theme.  I especially love to do that when the bride chooses such a gorgeous design, everything just looks so nice all pulled together.  This seating chart was printed as an 18"x24" poster, framed and was displayed at the reception venue.  Not only does this serve a function, but also adds to the reception decor:

This invitation features the "Sour Apple" design - one that many brides have chosen and one that looks good in any color scheme.  This simple, clean design is a great way to feature your wedding color scheme without over doing it:

Next up - some inspiration!  Aren't these tulips amazing?!  I took this photo at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago and I am dying to come up with a creative way to use them!!  Any ideas from my readers out there?!

It's Been Awhile!

Things around here have beyond crazy busy!  I obviously have not blogged in forever because I have been working, working, working!  Below are some of the things I have done recently:

Invitations - These invitations are really special.  They are a combination of two different designs, something that I love to do.  The bride combined the "Candy Stripe" design and the "Organic" design.  These two designs are similar and seemed to combine together really well.

Programs & Favor Tags - Creating programs and other stationery that coordinate with wedding invitations is so fun!  Earlier I created invitations with this design and the bride wanted to create stationery that all coordinated for the rest of the wedding.  I created program covers and favor tags that also doubled as placecards.  It was so nice to see the design carried throughout the entire event.

Open House Invitations - This was the first set of open house invitations that I created and they were so fun!  The awesome photos, taken by Sara Blossom Photography, provided the basis for a great design!  We created a few different styles of invitations in order to incorporate more of his senior pictures.  The event information was listed on the back, that way recipients can save or frame the invitation if they wanted.

Stay tuned for 2 sets of wedding invitations, seating charts, bridal shower invites and programs.  There is a LOT more to come!

Spring Weddings!

The spring weddings are rolling in!  I have been very busy printing away these past few weeks.  This blog features two invitation sets, both very different and both new designs!

Up first are the invitations for Karah and Andrew.  I met with Karah in January and we discussed the details of her wedding.  I didn't have a design that exactly fit her needs, so I came up with a new design "Berry Branch".  Karah and Andrew liked the idea of a solid color invitation with white text and a white graphic. We chose to work with this berry color as it is a main color for their wedding.  The invitations were printed on linen paper and their package included envelopes with return address printing and guest address printing:

I also created shower invitations for Karah and Andrew as well as thank you notes.  My favorite part of their wedding stationery set though was not any of the above mentioned, it was this invitation:

The bride and groom had a combined bachelor/bachelorette party and all guests were attending a Tiger's game.  I thought these invitations were perfect and so much fun!

The next wedding invitation set also involves a new design, this one I LOVE!  I love it because I spent a lot of time of the development stages for this one and I was finally happy with the end result after coming up with 7 draft designs!  This design had to be perfect because these invitations were made for my sister-in-law!  Her wedding color is a dark purple with black and white damask accents.  The invitations coordinate with this theme with an all over purple damask pattern and black and white accents.  The envelopes that I chose to go along with the invitations were to die for!!  They were a slightly textured metallic lavendar with a hint of a silver sheen.  I was SUPER happy with the end product.  I printed the guest addresses and return address on the envelope to top off this beautiful set: 

This past weekend we celebrated at a combined bachelor/bachelorette party for the happy couple.  My other sister-in-law created gift bags for the guests and I made these personalized water bottle labels to be put on water given to the guests.  Aren't these great?!

Up next in the blog - Open house invitatins & the wedding of Christin & Randy!

Wedding Bells

The weddings bells are warming up and getting ready to ring!  I know this because I have been working on a slew of invitations lately, all spring weddings that are right around the corner!

The first wedding set, I sadly did not take many photos of :(  This wedding set was gorgeous, a delicate floral design (a new one, too!) printed on ivory felt paper, which was then mounted on silver metallic paper.  The invites had coordinating reception and RSVP cards, printed guest addresses and printed return addresses.  The set was very nice.  However in the middle of production of this order, a tragedy occurred in my family and after I was able to come back to reality, I was so hurried to get her order completed, I did not take time to take any photos.  This bride was so patient and understanding and her invitation set turned out truly beautiful.  Katie from Remaking Memories also created a personalized Christmas ornament that I gave as a gift to the bride and groom.  But I was not able to snap a photo of that, either :(.  Sooooooo, here is a photo that I DO have, one that I took of a print sample that I had, so please use your imagination and try to imagine how wonderful the entire set was!

And now, I am super, duper, duper excited to share with you the FABULOUS 1st birthday invitations that I created for one of my greatest friends.  As some of you know, Libby of Elizabeth K Photography is rather awesome.  She is fun, energetic and uber, uber creative.  Well, her cutie pie daughter is turning one in May and of course, there will be a fabulous party involved.  One thing I love about Libby is that she is creative in all facets of life.  From her photography and her personal style, to her ideas, she is always thinking outside of the box.  When it came to theming her daughter's birthday party, she did not disappoint.  The party is going to be vintage circus theme and we came up with these invitations:

Aren't they awesome?!  And really, I can not take much credit for these, the ideas were all her, I just put it all together and printed!  These invites are being sent in ivory envelopes and really give off the vintage vibe.  I love these and am so happy with the outcome :)

Stay tuned to the next blog to see the wedding stationery or Karah & Drew and Anna & Dan!

A Busy Little Bee!

I titled this blog post "Busy Little Bee" because that is what I have been since my last blog post, over ONE MONTH AGO!!  I apologize for my absence.  I know everyone has a busy life, but mine went through a period of overload.  When I say overload, I mean overload!  I was up to my ears in orders, events and life.  It was nutzo!!  My next few blogs will show what exactly I have been so busy doing.
In this blog I will show you some birthday invitations, a bridal shower invitation and a wedding set.  So, here goes:

My husband's best friend turned 30 this past week and his mom and sisters wanted to throw a surprise birthday party for him.  I was so excited to make these invitations for a couple of reasons #1, this guy and his family are nothing short of awesome, #2 I was looking forward to the challenge of creating an invitation that was not cutesy and girly, something I have yet to do.  So, below you will see the finished product.  I thought it turned out pretty darn perfect:

Lately I have been creating lots of invitations for birthday parties and showers.  Below is a bridal shower invitation that I finished up this week.  The wedding colors were pink and yellow, this cute cake invitation was the perfect fit for this event:



Finally, I want to show off my first set of wedding invitations from this season.  This bride was so wonderful to work with.  She was easy-going and organized and knew exactly what she wanted.  I met her at the Zehnders Bridal Show and her wedding set was the first set of the 2011 wedding season that I completed.

She chose the "Modern Floral" design and customized the color.  The royal blue she chose was a nice contrast to the white and I think that the designed really popped:

And of course, as a gift to the bride and groom, I commissioned Katie of Remaking Memories to create a Christmas ornament for them:

Stay tuned for 3 moer wedding invitations and some bachelor/bachelorette invites that will knock your socks off!