Red Crane Tattoos & Awesome Shoes

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Back in November a lovely Etsy shopper in the UK, named Catherine, contacted me about ordering a set of our Red Origami Crane Thank You Cards.  She was getting married in April and wanted to use them as thank you cards after her wedding.  She also told me that she loved my crane design so much that she was hoping to get it tattooed in celebration of her impending nuptials.  She wanted to know if it was okay with me for her to use my design as a tattoo.  Frankly, I found the idea totally exciting, and said yes.

I was extra excited to wake up this morning and discover an email from Catherine.  She got married last week and sent us a photo of her awesome wedding shoes, with our little red crane peeking out from them.

(Photo Courtesy of Julie Tinton Photography)
 

Isn’t that totally awesome?!?  I’m honored.  Plus, I LOVE her shoes.  I’m so excited that  Catherine shared this photo with us and that she loved my little crane artwork so much that she wanted to carry it with her forever.  : )

Above is an image of the original card design that Catherine had her tattoo based off of.  These cards are available in our Etsy Store as singles and in packages of six or ten.  Larger quantities and bulk pricing is available for larger orders.  If you’d like some little red cranes of your own, go check them out!

Thanks so much for sharing, Catherine!  You rock!

Weddings | Galen & Jeff

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Above is another one of my absolute favorite sets of wedding invitations from last year.  The couple we created them for was so sweet and wonderful to work with, and the design and colors are so much fun!  If you’re a reader of WeddingBee, you may have already seen these before.  The bride we created them for is Mrs. Candy Apple.  Galen and Jeff’s invitation suite featured an A7 size invitation with corresponding envelope, an A2 size reply card with corresponding envelope, and a 4″ square reception card that was printed as a coaster!

Check out their beautiful invitation below!  Galen and Jeff hired Blue Clara on Etsy to create their silhouettes and we incorporated them into this timeless, yet modern design.  The invitation is an A7 size and was printed on 100% cotton Crane Lettra Pearl White paper in dark grey ink.  Along with their silhouettes, the design also featured a lovely, decorative border and two different fonts: a fun, modern script for their names, and a classic, all-caps, roman face for the body text.  Their invitation was paired with a moss green envelope from Waste Not Paper Company and was letterpress printed with their return address in grey on the back flap.  I love how Galen had us use a small heart in the address where the ampersand normally would be.  So cute!!!

The letterpress printing on this piece was just lovely!

Below, you can see the reply card that we designed to match.  The reply card was also printed in dark grey ink and featured the same border design and fonts from the invitation.  I love the cute, creative response wording that Galen and Jeff used, and the adorable animal silhouettes are always a fun alternative to simply writing out meal options.

Galen & Jeff also included a separate reception “card” with their invites.  They were married at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Seattle, but held their reception at a separate venue: the Seattle Tennis Club.  They wanted to emphasize the fun aspect of their reception, so for this piece, rather than printing it as a normal card, we printed it on a coaster!  The coasters were printed in two ink colors: the same dark grey from the other pieces in the suite, and a nice olive-y green to match the envelopes.  I think this piece was super-fun!

Galen also added some additional embellishments to this suite that really tied everything together including a Moo Card with one of their engagement photos, bakers twine and custom calligraphy.  The calligraphy was done by Michele Clark of Calligraphy by Michele in Staten Island, New York.  Her work is always beautiful!  If you’d like to see these invitations fully assembled, and read about them on Galen’s WeddingBee Blog, you can here and here.  Check them out!  You can also read more about other aspects of her wedding and see recap photos by clicking the link to her full WeddingBee blog above.

Thanks so much again for working with us Galen!  I love how everything turned out and working with you was a blast!  If you ever need anything else, just let me know.

Adorable Monster Cards by Josh Searl

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Right before Valentine’s Day this year I had the pleasure of collaborating with an awesome local artist, Josh Searl, on a couple of new greeting card designs!  If you’ve visited our Etsy store since then, you’ve already seen these, but I figured they needed a little shout out on our blog too.  Josh is a design student at the University of Oregon and has been drawing adorable critters and making other awesome artwork from a very young age.  I’m good friends with his aunt and uncle, and was super-excited when Josh agreed to collaborate with me on these cards.  We started with two designs, the little blue monster you see above and below, and the little green one with the pink balloon that you’ll see further down in this post.

Aren’t they just adorable?!?  Both designs are printed as 4bar size cards on 100% cotton Crane Lettra Pearl White paper and come with coordinating blue or chartreuse envelopes, depending on the design.  Josh and I are going to be working on additional designs in this series, so if you love his monsters as much as I do, check back!  There’s going to be more!  The two designs you see above are currently available online in our Etsy Store and at Gramberry.  You can also find them locally in Eugene at Modern on 5th and Pearl.

If you’d like to check out more artwork by Josh Searl, you can at his Deviant Art site.  Check it out!

Thanks so much for working with me, Josh!  You’re awesome!

Weddings | Vivian & Allen

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This past December, a lovely couple we worked with in Australia were married in Kew, Victoria.  Vivian and Allen designed their wedding invitations themselves and hired Twin Ravens Press to do their letterpress printing!  Vivian and Allen’s stationery suite included an A7 size wedding invitation and a small gifts insert that were enclosed in an unprinted A7 invitation envelope from Crane & Co.  All of Vivian and Allen’s stationery was printed in one ink color: a gorgeous, deep, dusty-rose pink on 100% cotton Crane Lettra Pearl White paper.

Below on the left is their invitation by itself.  I love the combination of classic roman type with the large calligraphic script they chose for their names.  The lovely rose graphic that Allen created is a gorgeous motif for a wedding invitation, and it letterpress printed beautifully!  In the photo on the bottom right you can see their gifts insert.  In Australia, enclosing a card like this is fairly common, as many couples don’t do a registry, but do a wishing well instead.  I love how simple and pretty this suite turned out!

Allen and Vivian – thanks so much for working with us last year on these!  I just love all of our Australian clients – it’s so much fun to work with you, even though you’re over 8,000 miles away!  If you ever need anything else, please don’t hesitate to let me know.  Congratulations!

Weddings | Caitlin & Matt

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Last month we completed a lovely set of wedding invitations for a Chicago couple who are getting married this May in Cape Cod.  Caitlin and Matt hired us to design and letterpress print their gorgeous single-color invitation suite.  The suite included an inner/outer set of invitation envelopes.  The inner envelope was lined with a pretty green paper that was embossed with a lovely floral-vine pattern.  The stationery suite also included an A7 size wedding invitation, an A2 size events card, a 4bar size reply card with coordinating reply card envelope and a matching belly band to tie everything together.

If you were to have received one of their invitations, the first thing you would have noticed was the beautiful calligraphy on the front of her envelopes.  Caitlin hired a Chicago calligrapher to match the script type we used throughout the suite for her guest addressing.  You can see the letterpress printed script on her outer envelope flap below.  In the photo on the right you can see both the outer invitation envelope and the inner one with the invitation tucked inside.  I love the pretty green embossed paper Caitlin picked out for the envelope liners!  The texture and color of it was just lovely!

When you remove the invitations from their inner envelope, the pretty bundle you see above is what you would see.  All of the pieces in Caitlin and Matt’s invitation suite were stacked in order of size and then wrapped and held together with a custom, letterpress printed belly band.  The belly band featured playful curly lines along the band and a round medallion featuring their names, wedding date and a bucket of hydrangeas graphic in the center.  This central medallion was matted onto a slightly larger circle of the same green embossed paper we used for the envelope liners to tie everything together.

Caitlin and Matt’s wedding invitation is both classic and modern at the same time.  The layout is fairly simple and traditional, featuring a small graphic at the top of the design with the main body of text in a classic roman font below it.  The styling of the names is in a more contemporary, all lower-case script, and is featured prominently throughout the design.  I love the adorable hydrangea graphic we came up with and used throughout the suite!  Caitlin kept buckets of hydrangeas in her bedroom at her parent’s house, and we found these to be the perfect floral, but not too-busy, graphic for their invitations.

Caitlin and Matt’s 4bar size reply card was designed to match their invitations using the same fonts and ink colors.  These reply cards were paired with a matching white reply card envelope printed with their return address in the same sage green ink.  All of Caitlin and Matt’s stationery was printed on 110 lb. Crane Lettra 100% cotton paper in Pearl White.

Caitlin and Matt also included a separate events card with their invitations.  This card was an A2 size and featured information about the other events they are having in conjunction with the wedding.  We created tiny icons to represent each event.  These events include a clambake rehearsal dinner, a Sunday morning brunch and a sunset beach bonfire the night after the wedding.  It sounds like it’s going to be a fantastic weekend!

Above is one more shot of the belly band by itself so that you can see athe beautiful textures from both of the different papers and the letterpress printing.  I just love how this piece tied all of the other pieces together!

We’re currently working on a matching set of place cards and favor tags for Caitlin and Matt and I just love how they’re turning out!

Caitlin and Matt – you’ve been so much fun to work with!  Thanks so much for hiring us to create these with you!  Talk to you soon!  : )

Custom Business Cards | Color & Dust

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Earlier this year, we created a gorgeous, timeless, set of custom letterpress business cards for Kelsey Strawn of Color & Dust in Tyler, Texas.  Kelsey hired us to rebrand her photography business and I just love the logo and business card design we came up with!  Above you can see the finished letterpress business cards we made.  Kelsey’s cards feature rounded corners and were printed in silver ink on ultra-thick Crane Lettra 100% cotton duplex 220 lb. paper.  We used a combination of an ultra-modern san-serif font for the logo and a fun handwritten script for the tagline and URL.  

As an extra special finishing touch, we also edge painted Kelsey’s cards in silver!  I just love how modern and timeless these are!  Perfect for a photography business!

This is actually the second set of business cards Color & Dust has had us print.  The original set was done in the same design and was printed on a custom, handmade purple paper from Porridge Papers in gold ink.  These cards were super-awesome too, but unfortunately, I fogot to take photos of them.  : (  At any rate, I just love working with Kelsey, and her photography is amazing!  If you’re in or near Tyler, Texas, you should definitely look her up!

Kelsey was kind enough to share a few of her favorite images with us!  All photos below courtesy of Color & Dust.

Aren’t her photos just lovely!?!  I love her heavy use of natural lighting and bright colors!  If I had kiddos, I would totally hire Kelsey to do family portraits or pictures of my kids.  Seriously, if you’re in Texas, go check out Color & Dust!