Weddings | Jennie & Jason

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The set of wedding invitations I have to show you today are pretty special for me and for Twin Ravens Press.  I’ll get to why in a second, but, in order to understand why this job means so much to me, you need a little back-story first.  A year ago today, I was working with an intern in the printshop and I smashed my hand in our platen press and broke it.  Not only was this accident terrifying on principle, but at the time, there wasn’t really any certainty as to whether or not I would fully recover, and I had no way to know how this would affect my ability to continue my career as a letterpress printer.  I’m happy to say that, a year later today, I’m fully healed and entirely capable of creating beautiful letterpress invitations with no loss of dexterity.  I was really lucky.  So, what does this have to do with the beautiful set of wedding invitations you see above?  Well, a couple of days prior to my accident, a year ago, Jennie and Jason signed a contract with us and put down a deposit to have me design and print their wedding invitations.  When I broke my hand, it was going to be at least six-ish months before I could work again and I wasn’t sure that I would be able to do this job. As I’ve always said, if something is meant to be, it finds a way of working itself out.  This job certainly did…

Up until last March, I was basically running Twin Ravens almost entirely by myself.  I had occasional help now and then from interns and very-part-time employees, but there wasn’t a whole lot of consistency in terms of that.  When I broke my hand, I called up a now-very-close friend, Darcy Jeffs, and asked if she wanted to work here, part-time, until I was able to print again.  Luckily for me, she said yes!  Darcy is a graphic designer herself and worked in both Holland and New York City prior to moving to Oregon.  She now lives in a century-old schoolhouse on the Oregon Coast with her fiance and three adorable cats.  She’s also the proprietress of Neue School Press, and one of my very best friends.  Darcy took over this job with gusto, and designed the gorgeous suite for Jennie and Jason that you see above.  After the designs were complete, we printed and assembled these together, here at Twin Ravens.

Jennie and Jason’s wedding suite included an A7 size matted wedding invitation, a 4bar reply card, a Paebaek Ceremony invitation, a small website card, a custom belly band and two sets of envelopes.  Let’s check out their wedding invitation first!

Jennie and Jason’s wedding invitation was an A7 size that was printed in three ink colors (orange, red and chocolate brown) on lovely, 140 lb. Holyoke Natural 100% cotton paper.  Each invitation was matted on a shimmery deep red card stock to create a border.  Darcy created the gorgeous fall leaves and branch imagery that you see on each of the pieces.  We paired the invite with gold A7 envelopes from Waste Not Paper Company and letterpress printed Jennie and Jason’s return address in red ink on the flap.

Didn’t the graphics and letterpress printing just turn out so beautifully!?!  Darcy did an amazing job taking on a project that I was (quite literally) unable to handle last year, and the invitations turned out absolutely gorgeous!  The fall theme that she and Jennie came up with was perfect for Jennie and Jason’s September wedding at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

Above, you can see what the invite looked like with the belly band.  Jennie and Jason’s belly band was composed of a circular medallion that was made out of the same Holyoke paper they used for their invitation, and was printed with their initials in red ink.  The printed medallion was then matted onto a slightly larger medallion made out of the same shimmery red paper we used for their invitation matt.  Then, the actual band, was made out of a shimmery bronze (similar to chocolate brown) paper.  It was scored in two places and fastened in the back of the invitation with a clear round seal.

Above you can see two of Jennie and Jason’s inserts!  The one on the left was their invitation to their Paebaek ceremony.  A Paebaek ceremony is a traditional Korean celebration held at weddings.  If you’re interested in what this is, you can read more about it here.  The Paebaek ceremony invitation was a 4bar size and was printed in chocolate brown ink.  On the top right, above, you can see Jennie and Jason’s website insert.  The website card was the same size as a standard business card and was printed in the same orange ink that we used on their wedding invitation.

Below, Jennie and Jason had two different reply cards, one with a July RSVP date and one with an August date.  Sending out two rounds of invitations is a great way to limit the number of attendees to a certain head count, particularly if you have a large guest list.  Both reply cards were printed in red ink and featured a place where guests could indicate what type of entree they wanted at the reception.  Each reply card was paired with a shimmery red envelope that had Jennie & Jason’s address letterpress printed on the front in gold ink.

Jennie was so sweet and patient to work with throughout this whole process, especially considering that my prognosis was so unknown.  I loved working with both her and Darcy on these and I think the final product couldn’t have turned out more beautiful!

Jennie was sweet enough to also send us some images from her and Jason’s wedding day.  Check them out below!  In the next two groupings, you’ll see both family photos from the wedding and photos from Jennie and Jason’s professional photographer, Jennifer Hughes of Jennifer Hughes Photography in Baltimore.

Aren’t they just a lovely couple!?!  Jennie & Jason, thank you so much, for continuing to work with us in spite of my accident!  I’m so happy that we got to do these, and it looks like your big day was absolutely gorgeous!  Thanks again!

Custom Business Cards | Adair Cannada Design

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Check out this awesome set of edge-painted business cards we created last fall for Adair Cannada of Adair Cannada Design in Nashville, Tennessee!  These letterpress business cards were printed with two ink colors, double-sided, on thick, 220 lb. 100% cotton Crane Lettra paper.  Each card featured a lovely light blue, and a dark slate grey ink on both sides to make up Adair’s logo and contact information!

As an extra special finishing touch, we edge painted Adair’s cards with the same light blue color as we printed on the front and back.  I just love how edge painting adds a little extra pizazz to any card design!

Thanks so much for working with us on these Adair!  You rock!

Weddings | Priscilla & David

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It’s been a little chilly out here in Oregon, so I thought, for a change of weather-pace, I’d show off this awesome set of pocket-folder invitations that we created for Florida couple, Priscilla and David, last year.  Priscilla and David were married last May in sunny Key West and their invitations definitely have a warm, inviting, beach-y feel.  If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may remember their awesome palm tree save-the-dates from last year.  If not, go check those out too!

Priscilla and David’s colors were orange, green and chocolate brown and we were able to incorporate all three into their stationery design to create a very awesome suite!  Above you can see all of the pieces in the suite together, which included their pocket folder invitation and envelope, a reply card and envelope, directions, accommodations, and reception cards, a custom letterpress map and key, and a schedule of events card.  We also made them a very cool custom belly band!

If you were to have received one of Priscilla and David’s invitations, below is what you would have seen when you first opened the envelope.  Priscilla and David’s envelopes were a white monarch style envelope from Green Paper Company that was custom lined with an olive green lokta paper from Nepal.  The pocket folder which enclosed all of the other pieces was a chocolate brown folder and we created an awesome custom belly band to seal it shut!  The belly band featured a large band of the same olive green lokta that we used for their envelope liners, with three strands of natural raffia twine, and a layered, square medallion.  The medallion was made out of a square of Kagome Bamboo paper, olive green lokta, and a letterpress piece with their names and wedding date in chocolate brown ink with a little green palm tree in the background.  These were super time-intensive to make, but the look was just amazing!

Check out the awesome textures of their belly band!  The letterpress printing was amazing and the Kagome Bamboo, lokta, and raffia just add so much extra depth and texture!

Below is what you would see when you opened up the pocket folder!  Priscilla and David’s wedding invitation was printed in three ink colors: green, orange, and chocolate brown, and was mounted into the folder with a lokta and kagome bamboo double-matt.  The pocket on the right contained five different inserts.

The texture of everything in this suite was totally awesome!  Priscilla chose our house Holyoke 100% cotton rag paper in Bone White for her invitation and all of her inserts.  It’s such a lovely paper and takes the impression of the letterpress printing so well!

Below left and bottom right are close-ups of their invitation.  I love their bright, tropical color scheme!  The image in the top right below shows their green return address that we letterpress printed on each envelope.  All of the custom calligraphy that you see throughout this suite was done by the wonderful and talented Michele Clark of Calligraphy by Michele.

Each of Priscilla and David’s inserts were designed to match the invite.  Below you can see their 4bar size reply card, which was letterpress printed in two ink colors: olive green and orange.  I love all of the little tropical icons we used at the top of the insert cards and next to the events on the reply!  Below, top right, is the envelope we paired with Priscilla’s reply card.  This envelope was printed with chocolate brown ink and featured their same palm tree graphic from the invitation on the left hand side.  Below, bottom right, is an image of their reception card by itself.  This card was smaller than the RSVP and was printed in a single color: olive green.

Above, priscilla also included an olive green directions card that featured a wonderful little starfish motif!  Below left, is a separate insert for accommodations and transportation information.  Below right, is the back side of Priscilla and David’s custom map.  The back was a key that was created by the very talented Crystal Kluge.  Scroll down to see the actual map itself!

Each invitation included the above A6 size map printed in olive green ink.  The map design was created by Crystal Kluge and featured adorable illustrations for all of the important Key West landmarks for Priscilla and David’s wedding.  Check out the detail below!  It’s awesome!

Above, bottom left: We letterpress printed a larger version of this map in black ink that you can see above that Crystal hand-watercolored for Priscilla and David.  It’s such a lovely keepsake and piece of artwork that they could frame and hang up in their home after the wedding was over!

Lastly, each invitation included a schedule of events card that was printed in two ink colors: olive green and orange.  This card had the places and times of each event, as well as a website URL for guests to reference for additional information.

I loved working on this suite and I imagine that Priscilla and David’s Key West wedding was warm, tropical and absolutely beautiful!  Thanks so much for working on these with us last year Priscilla!  All the best to you and David!

Custom Business Cards | Simply Rose Photography

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I just love a gorgeous letterpress printed business card!  They just stand out from the crowd in a way that no other type of business card can.

I was very excited when we got to design and print the set of business cards you see above for Rose Dykstra of Simply Rose Photography in Vancouver, Canada last month.  Rose’s cards feature double-sided letterpress printing in two colors (an organic, grassy green and light pink) on 100% cotton, duplex Crane Lettra Pearl White Paper.  The front side features Rose’s logo in two colors and the back side features her name and contact information in green.

As an extra-special finishing touch we edge painted these cards in light pink to match the pink of her logo!

Aren’t these cards just gorgeous?!?  I love how the letterpress impression turned out on the super thick paper, and I think that the edge painting really helped to finish the design off!  Rose took some additional photos of these cards and posted them on her blog here.  If you’d like to check out some of Rose’s gorgeous photography, you can on her website.

Thanks so much for working with us on these Rose!  I love how they turned out and I’m so glad you did too!  If you ever need anything else, just let me know!  Thanks again!

Buddy Monday: Weddings | Sarah & Adam

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Happy Buddy Monday, everybody!  I’ve been really excited to start this weekly feature now for over a year (yeah, it’s been planned for that long…).  If you read my post from yesterday, you already know a bit about what this series is going to be.  You’ll also know that I stole the idea for the blog series from my friend Sarah, as she did something similar on her blog three years ago.  At any rate, I thought it was only appropriate (since she gave me the idea) to have Sarah & Adam as my first Buddy Monday!

I met Sarah & Adam when Adam started working at a videogame company that my boyfriend was working at several years ago.  Adam had moved to Eugene for the job, while  Sarah had stayed behind on the East Coast.  It wasn’t very long before Sarah moved out to Eugene to join Adam.  A couple of years ago they were married in an awesome wedding on Bailey Island, Maine near where Sarah had grown up in Bath, Maine.  I was super-lucky to be able to attend their wedding, and was overjoyed to collaborate with Sarah on creating their wedding stationery!

Sarah and Adam’s stationery suite featured a custom folder that contained their invitation and directions/information card, a postcard rsvp card and an awesome yellow & cyan invitation envelope!

Sarah is an awesome designer herself and she designed all of the patterns that you will see throughout their invitation suite and that were incorporated into other details of their wedding!  Above is the invitation folded up with the invite envelope.  The invite envelope was an awesome curry yellow color from Waste Not Paper Company.  Sarah designed the cyan envelope liners and we die-cut and glued them in each envelope ourselves.  Each folder was created by hand by blind embossing one of Sarah’s patterns across the length of the folder.  It was scored in three places and sealed shut with a handmade, embossed sticker.

Upon opening the folder, here’s what you would see:

One panel of the folder contained the actual wedding invitation, and the other was reserved for an additional information card with directions, registry and website information.

Sarah and Adam’s invitations were printed in four ink colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK…hee, hee), on Crane Lettra 110 lb. Bright White Paper.  I love all of the different colors and textures Sarah was able to create for these, and their use of modern, unconventional fonts was totally awesome!

Isn’t the texture of these just amazing?!?

Sarah and Adam’s RSVP postcard was designed to match and was printed in two ink colors: yellow and black.  It was printed single-sided with instructions to have guests draw a picture on the reverse side.  At the wedding, Sarah & Adam had a photo album filled with all of their reply cards to show all of the different pictures everyone drew.  It was pretty cool!

Aren’t they so cool?!?  I absolutely love Sarah’s unique design sense, and her color palette was super-fun!

Prior to their wedding I had never been to New England, let alone Maine.  It was an awesome trip and a wonderful celebration of two very special people!  Wanna see some photos from their wedding?!?  I know you do…  All photos below were taken either by me, or by Sarah & Adam’s wedding photographer, Erin, of A Love Supreme Photography.

I love this photo of the happy couple…

Maine (above)!!

Sarah created most of the decor herself using many of the same patterns she had created for the invitations.  See the cute little bird in the wine glass?  Those were her place cards.  Everyone got to take one home!  (I have two of them on my desk right now).  She had all of the fabric for them custom printed by Spoonflower and then sewed them together herself.  She’s one crafty gal!

Above, Sarah & Adam’s reception was held at Library Hall on Bailey Island, Maine.  I love all of the crochet pieces that Sarah made to adorn all of the tables and place settings at the reception.  She also made all of the garlands you see above.

The night before their wedding, we attended Adam & Sarah’s rehearsal dinner which was at an awesome lobster restaurant on Bailey Island.  I had never eaten a whole lobster prior to this, and I have to tell you, it was maybe one of the awesomest culinary experiences of my life to date.

Below left, I just love this timeless photo of Adam & Sarah by Erin of A Love Supreme Photography.  Below, top right, Me and the beau, just in case you wanted to know what I look like.  Below, bottom right: They even had custom printed M&Ms made for the reception!  The two in my hand say “Sarah & Adam, for realsies”.  I just love these two people so much!!

Adam and Sarah have actually moved back to Portland, Maine since I was in Maine for their wedding.  I miss them, but am excited about what they’re up to out there.  Adam is teaching at the Maine College of Art and Sarah just recently started her own event planning business, Daycraft Events.  Check out her Pinterest and Facebook pages while you’re at it!

Adam & Sarah: Thank you for awesome summer BBQ’s, craft projects, DIY popsicles in Dixie Cups, a fabulous trip to Maine, Friday nights at Jameson’s, your awesome sense of humor, style and design, and for teaching me that it is, in fact, possible to dance and drink beer at the same time, so long as you use a straw.  You rock my socks, for realsies!  : )

Coming Tomorrow: Buddy Monday

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Three years ago one of my awesome former Eugene (now Portland, Maine) friends, Sarah Lomba DeGrandis, did a weekly feature on her blog, S. Jane Craft, called “Buddy Monday”.  Sarah’s an artist and crafter, and as such, has a lot of awesome friends, family and other people in her life that are creatively inclined, and she used the weekly feature to show off their work.  It was cool.

About a year ago I asked Sarah if I could steal her weekly feature idea and she (being the awesome person that she is) totally didn’t mind.  I wanted to change it up a bit though.  Rather than featuring work by awesome friends that I know weekly (although that would be cool too), I wanted to feature awesome work that Twin Ravens Press has done for our friends.  You see, we work on lots and lots of wedding and business stationery every year…and it doesn’t all end up on the blog.  I wish it all could, but since I’d rather spend more of my time working with fine folks like you and actually letterpress printing, sometimes the blog gets put on the back burner.  I realized though that over the last five years, I’ve gotten to design some really kick-ass stationery for friends, and most of it hasn’t been shown on this blog.  So, this new weekly feature is going to hopefully be a way for me showcase awesome stationery that I’ve created for awesome people in my life, even though some of it was created 4-5 years ago.  I hope you enjoy it!  Check back tomorrow for our first ever “Buddy Monday”.

Custom Business Cards | LeadPencil Designs

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Check out these awesome business cards we printed last month for Eugene/Springfield, Oregon architectural designer Shawn Jenkins of LeadPencil Designs!  I love the simple, clean, modern design of these business cards.  They utilize a couple of great letterpress techniques without going overboard!  The front of the card, which you can see above has Shawn’s logo printed in two ink colors: red and grey in the center of the card.  We blind embossed a pencil image behind the text as well.  These cards are double-sided, 2.5″ square, and were printed on ultra-thick Crane Lettra Bright White 220 lb. Duplex paper to minimize the show-through from one side to the other.

The backside, which you can see below, has Shawn’s name and contact information in grey at the bottom and an area above his name to write down any notes you might want to remember after talking with him.  This is a very handy idea for a business card, in my opinion.

Aren’t they great?!?  If you’re in the Eugene/Springfield area and are looking for an architectural designer, give Shawn a call!

 

Weddings | Vi & Lalo

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If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may remember a post from over a year ago about an awesome set of very modern black & white save-the-date coasters we did for a Texas couple named Vi & Lalo. The coasters are pictured below.  I loved printing this design, and as a result have designed and printed several other very similar save-the-dates since.  This reminded me that in all of the excitement and busyness of last fall, I never actually wrote about Vi & Lalo’s invitation suite.  Their invitations were super-cool too!

Vi and Lalo’s invitations were also black and white and were a square pocket folder style.  The suite included an invitation with coordinating envelope, a reply card and envelope, a reception card, and a sweet, simple belly band.  In the grouping of photos below you can see Vi & Lalo’s pocket folder invitation all closed up with the belly band.  The belly band was a simple band of purple paper that was printed with their names and wedding date in silver ink.  When the pocket folder was opened, it revealed their awesome, 6.25″ square invitation in the center of the folder with the extra pieces in the suite neatly stored in the pocket on the right.  In the bottom right photo below you can see a close-up of their return address from their invitation envelopes.  The invitation envelopes were 6.5″ square metallic silver ones with their address printed in black ink on the flap.

I love how modern and unique Vi & Lalo’s invitation design was!  Vi and Lalo designed all of the pieces in their suite themselves and then hired us to letterpress print them.  All of the printing was done on 110 lb. Crane Lettra Bright White 100% cotton paper in black ink.  I love Vi’s use of ultra-modern fonts and how she made the letters of her and Lalo’s names join together in certain areas and connect to the modern flourishes at the top and bottom of the invite.  They’re so cool!!

Vi and Lalo’s reply card was designed to match and utilized the same fonts and similar design elements from the invitation.  These were a 4bar size and came paired with a coordinating purple envelope in the same shade as the belly band.  Each reply card envelope was printed with Vi & Lalo’s address on the front in black ink.

Last, but not least, Vi & Lalo also included a separate reception card with their suite.  Their wedding was held in a church and the reception in a hotel, so this extra little card was perfect for making the distinction.  I love how Vi continued the modern flourishing on this card even though she didn’t have larger typography to connect it to!  The continuity throughout this suite is just so cool!

I loved working with Vi & Lalo last year on these invitations and just love their modern sense of style!  Thanks so much again for working with us Vi!  If you ever need anything else, just let me know!  All the best!

 

Weddings | Anna & Matthew

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I can’t believe it’s been nearly 3 weeks since my last post.  Sheesh!  It’s been busy, but in an awesome sort of way.  We’ve gotten to work on so many cool projects in the last few weeks, I don’t even know where to start.

Last week we finished the awesome 3-color invitation you see above for Anna and Matthew.  Anna and Matt are getting married at the end of June in Pennsylvania, and I couldn’t help but show off this invitation, because it’s just so pretty.  I love it when couples incorporate bright, cheery colors into their designs (plus, I just really love orange).

Anna and Matt designed their invitation themselves based off of the design we printed for Weddingbee’s Mrs. Panther last year.  You can see Stephanie’s invitations here.  Anna changed up the fonts and colors for her design, but kept the layout fairly similar.  As you can see below, the invitations were letterpress printed on heavyweight 100% cotton duplex paper in three ink colors: two shades of orange and a lovely light blue.

The letterpress impression on these turned out totally awesome!!

As a gorgeous finishing touch, Anna and Matt had us edge-paint their invitations in a similar light blue to the blue we used to print their names.  This is a gorgeous finishing touch and really adds to the beauty and uniqueness of their invitations!

Again, that color combination just makes me smile.  It really feels like summer might be around the corner when we get to print invitations like these!

Thanks so much for working with us Anna & Matt!  If you ever need anything else, please don’t hesitate to let me know!

Weddings | Lauren & Brian

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A couple of weeks ago, over President’s Day weekend, three wonderful couples that we worked with were married.  The first of the three were Lauren & Brian, who’s wedding stationery you can see above.  I’ve been working with Lauren and Brian, and Lauren’s awesome mom, Judy, for several months now, and I’m so excited to be finally showing off their stationery!  Their invitation suite, which you can see above featured a fun and modern A9 size invite printed in two ink colors: orange and black.  The invite was paired with a matching A9 envelope that was lined with a really fun orange Lokta paper.  We also designed and printed coordinating reply cards and envelopes to match.  

Inspiration for a design can come from a variety of places, and for Lauren and Brian’s stationery, the inspiration was the fun, orange, screenprinted Lokta paper that we ended up using for Lauren & Brian’s envelope liners that her mom, Judy, found.  I love the fresh orange-on-white pattern of this paper, and we found it to be the perfect motif to work with for Lauren and Brian’s stationery.  Towards the top of the invite you can see a tiny section of the pattern printed above the typography in orange.  Love it!

Several months prior to printing their wedding stationery, Lauren had hired us to print her Save-the-Dates.  Their save-the-dates were 4″ square coasters, letterpress printed with black ink and paired with little black envelopes.  If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may recognize the design.  It was originally created for a couple named Vi & Lalo a year earlier.

Lauren loved the modern typography from the Save-the-Date design, so when I went to design their invitations, I made sure to incorporate some of the same fonts for consistency from the first piece of their stationery onward.  However, for the main invitations, we also incorporated a second ink color (orange) and some pretty, modern script for their names.

Isn’t this a lovely invitation?!?  These invites were printed on 100% cotton rag Holyoke Paper for a lovely impression that you can both see and feel.

Below is an image of the invite envelope so you can see the awesome liner better!  The photo in the top right shows the flap, which was printed with Lauren’s mom’s return address in black ink.  In the lower right image you can see their coordinating rsvp card and envelope.  The rsvp envelope was printed with Judy’s address in orange ink, and the reply card featured the same script we used for Lauren and Brian’s names for the word “Please”, and the other font from the invitation for the rest of the text in black ink.

Gotta love that deep, luxurious letterpress impression!

For the day of the wedding, Judy also had us design a set of matching wedding menus for the reception.  These were also printed on Holyoke paper in the same orange ink that we used for the invitations.

I just love how all of this stationery turned out!  Judy told me that they were able to incorporate the orange patterned lokta paper into other decorative elements for the wedding, like decorative votive wrappers, etc.  I’m sure everything looked amazing!

Wanna see the awesome couple that this pretty stationery was created for?  Here you go (all photos courtesy of Jacob Mariano Photography):

Don’t they look like a fun-loving, awesome couple?!?  Lauren, Brian and Judy – Thank you so much for working with me on your wedding stationery!  It was so much fun to work with you.  If anyone would like to check out more images from Lauren and Brian’s engagement photo session, you can on Jacob Mariano’s blog.

Thanks so much again Lauren, Brian & Judy!  You guys are awesome!