The ROOTs of Friendship

Part of what I enjoy about this job is creating a special piece of artwork for two people that they will always cherish as a part of their wedding memories.  Though some view wedding invitations as simply a piece of paper, I personally look at them as a special momento, that introduces wedding guests to the night of magic ahead.  Each invitation that I create is special and unique, whether a bride changes the colors or the font or creates a whole new design, each one is special.

What makes this job even better is when I can create something special for people that mean a lot to me.  I am blessed with a large family and many close friends, so thankfully I have this opportunity from time to time.  Everytime a family member or friend asks me to create stationery for them, I am honored.  I feel honored that they trust my creativity, artistic ability and expertise to handle a task that is so important.

This wedding set that I will be showing you today is certainly a special one.  It is special for a couple reasons: 1) I have never created a wedding set like this and it was a wonderful creative challenge 2) it was for a special friend that I have known for years.

Before even discussing ideas with the bride, I knew this was going to be pretty awesome.  She is a very classy girl and I just knew it would be fun and easy to work with her on this.  Once we got rolling, it was even easier.  She was super duper organized, knew just what she wanted, and once she, myself, and her uber-creative sister put our heads together, we came up with a complete wedding suite that was basically all around fabulous.

Let's start with the bridal shower invitations.  These 5x7 invitations were simple, cute, and classic.  Featuring a monogram that ties in with the invitation, they were the perfect start for this wedding set:

Next up is the amazing, outstanding, fabulous, totally cool work of art that is her wedding invitation.  Notice how the stationery starts to coordinate from this point on - I love that.  For the invitation, the bride chose a metallic black vertical pocketfold inviation with dark purple matting behind the invitation and sealed with a monogram, matted on the same paper:

Now, because these invitations were oh, so beautiful, and my photos could not do them any justice, I had my friend at Elzabeth K Photography snap some professional shots.  Aren't they great?!

One thing I love about a wedding is when the bride and groom are able to add personal touches and details to make the day truly represent them.  This was the case with this wedding and this next part was truly the most unique and fun place card design I had ever done.  The bride and groom are avid sports fans, so rather than numbering tables, they wanted to represent their favorite sports teams by naming the tables.  Each table was labeled with a team name and logo, like this:

Then, to top it off, guests did not pick up place cards to direct them to their table, they picked up tickets that looked like tickets to a sporting event to direct them to their table.  How fun is that?!  I was so excited making these, they were just so fun and so unique, I loved everything about them!

And of course, I had a really cute keepsake made for them by Remaking Memories, but I was not able to get a photo of it to post.

Overall, this wedding set was a lot of fun to create and I am so happy with how it turned out.  I am also so happy for my friend that she found her true love.  Cheers to many, many years of happiness, Suzanne and Chris!

Around the World in 10 Fonts

Memorial weekend was a big weekend for me.  My sister-in-law got married in Michigan and my best friend tied the knot in a private ceremony in Sayulita, Mexico.  My sister-in-laws wedding was perfect, and my bffs reception on June 4 was 1st class all the way.

Let me explain a little bit about my best friend.  She is a free-spirited, fun-loving, go with the flow, cheery, intelligent, and basically all-around awesome girl.  She is the owner of the website Adore to Explore and it just so happens that she is a travel writer, freelance journalist and around the world explorer.  She and her equally charismatic husband travel the world in search of fine cuisines, spectacular sights, and adrenaline pumping experiences.  Together they have trekked around the globe and are currently doing so again in an effort to spread the love through humanitarian efforts.

Though one paragrah cannot begin to explain the life of Erin and Jason, I think you can start to get the picture about their unique lifestyle.  Needless to say, their wedding reception was less than ordinary.  It was an event with an around the world, vintage travel theme that was carried out through the most perfect details.  The meal featured cuisine from all around the world, highlighting some of their favorite international feasts.

If I went into detail to describe the ways that their reception was awesome, I would be babbling on and on forever.  So, instead, I will just focus on how I fit into the picture, ;).  But really, their reception should have been featured in a magazine, it was seriously 100% amazing!

At each place setting, there was a neatly folded napkin.  Inside the napkins, these menus were tucked in for each guest.  The menus were simply awesome.  A design based solely on the use of fonts, these menus were simple, classy, and basically fabulous.

Now, I cannot take credit for this design work- the initial design started with my graphic designer cousin, Todd.  He came up with the initial framework and design, I just did the tweaking.  But, as you can see, these menus set the stage for a sensational meal in a first class way:

At each bar, there were two of these menus, which featured specialty cocktails suggested by the bride and groom.  The bar menus coordinated perfectly with the dinner menus and were again designed by the uber awesome, Todd Solgat:

As you can see by the stationery, this wedding was unique, personal, and all around spectacular.  Cheers to van den Schneids, may your life be blessed with many travels and warm memories!

Oh My How Time Flies!

It seems like just the other day I made these sweet birth announcements for my newest little cousin, Layla:

I met this little sweetie when she was 1 month old.  She was just a peanut and did what all babies do - sleep and eat and repeat.  Cute, but less than entertaining.  Fast forward one year and now we have an adorable, active little girl who loves to show her toothy grin to all of those around.  I am grateful to have her and her mommy staying with me while they visit Michigan and I am also so excited that I was able to create the invitations for her 1st birthday party!

Layla's mommy has great ideas, it is so nice to have a clear direction to work with when designing an invitation.  The design process was super simple and the result was an invitation that is just as fun and vibrant as Layla herself:

I have also been working on several small projects this week.  Several times I have blogged showcasing stationery elements of the wedding featuring this invitation:

Below are thank you notes that I created to coordinate with the rest of the invitation suite: 

This invitation was a take on that same design, just a different color scheme.  I always love to customize designs, this time was no exception:

This week I am working on some wedding invitations, bachelorette party invitations, and some place cards that are so unique, they will knock your socks off!  So, as always, stay tuned!

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!