Art Nouveau Garden Wedding Invitations

I recently designed some invitations for a friend who is printing her own wedding invitations for her and her fiance's upcoming wedding. The Art Nouveau garden graphic was purchased from iStock and manipulated in Adobe Illustrator.

I used an earlier draft of the design to print a fast invitation for another engaged friend who needed an invitation sent to a family member quickly for visa purposes.

{February} Hitched ‘n Hatched Tea

Back in February, my friends and I enjoyed an afternoon tea in celebration of our engaged friend and pregnant friend. I know that it seems like I go to tea a lot, but in my defense, this one wasn’t my idea. I just styled the event. (Ha! Ha!) 

The “engagement party” was a surprise, so I made neutral, Valentine-themed invitations inspired by a set of persimmon heart cards and peacock envelopes from Paper Source.

As always, I was on a huge work deadline (and office move) in the middle of this project, so they turned out to be a "lazy man's invite," as my Grandma Ona would say.

 

At the tea, everyone was greeted with a customized menu, cloth napkins (from Paper Source - no longer online), and a box containing a party favor.

 Napkins and Menus

I repeated the pattern from the envelope liners inside the menu.

 Party Favors

 

For party favors, each guest received a monogrammed mug, a tea bag with a crepe paper heart attached with baker's twine, a red or blue “tea bag holder,” and some heart-shaped chocolates from Macy’s.

 The complete package:

 The boxes were wrapped in pool wrapping paper, the peacock hearts and lined hearts (printed on plain text) were free-handed and cut out by hand, the persimmon heart was traced from a left over heart card.

Catching Up - July, Part 1: A Pucci-Inspired Baby Shower - The Invites

My dear friend, VP, had a little girl in July. We barely squeezed her baby shower in the Saturday before the baby was born (two weeks early!). VP didn't want anything too over-the-top and attention getting, so my friend and I hosted a very minimalist afternoon tea for her.

The Inspiration

For the invites and general theme, I wanted something very "high fashion" since VP loves Nordstrom. She didn't want anything too girly and pink and I wanted to include some shades of purple to honor her mother, whose favorite color was purple...thus, the Pucci-inspired invitation was born!

I was originally going to recreate the design from the Gigi line of paper products from Caspari.

{Source}

I quickly realized that this image from iStock was nicer than anything that I could freehand with my mouse.

{Source}

Front

The invites say "An Afternoon of Pampering," as we originally planned a little spa day that, unfortunately, didn't pan out.

Back

Ribbon Belly Band

 

RSVP Cards

Envelopes

I assembled these while in Atlanta for work. Thank the sweet Lord Jesus that I had a room on the concierge level and was able to print the labels for these. 

Catching Up: Pastel Baby Shower: Invitations

***I had been saving these next few shower posts for something that didn't pan out and then I hoped to get some better photos of the party items. Since neither of those happened, I'll just hide behind being really, really busy and post them under "Catching Up." Which isn't a total lie, as according to blogger, I started these posts in July!***

In February, I helped Aunt Ruth plan a shower for my sister-in-law, who gave birth to a shiny new boy in March. I say helped, but Aunt Ruth really planned and hosted the shower. I just plastered pastel polka dots and fabrics anywhere that would hold them.

The invitations were my first project on my new sewing machine. I thought that I'd polish them off in an afternoon  while on Christmas vacation. Well, I thought wrong. Thankfully, no one noticed the flaws that I shed so many tears over. And they all thought that I intentionally bunched up the corners so they'd look like Pampers (I didn't).

I had two versions - white with blue dots and a blue lining and vice versa. I was so hard on myself about these, but now that I've been away from them for awhile, they look pretty good!

I printed the party details on iron-on transfer paper, cut out the pattern, and ironed it onto the sewn diapers. I then added a round sticker asking everyone to bring their favorite children's book.

I lined the envelopes with leftover fabric. Each envelope was lined in the opposite fabric of the invite. A few were also lined in some striped fabric that Andy vetoed for the invites because "it looked like old man pajamas.

A word about these liners. I was getting the envelopes ready to mail at about 10:30 p.m. the night before they HAD to go out. I tried lining one and thought, "That was easy." I believe that I went to bed at about 4:00 a.m. that night. And it was a school night.

Everything was packaged in a gravel-colored envelope from Paper Source (obvi).

{All bad iPhone photos by me}

Up Next: The Party Decor

An Old Attempt at "Chic" Baby Shower Invitations

I stumbled upon this old project while cleaning out my craft drawers. I made these baby shower invitations for a friend a few years ago. This one must have been a reject, as I can't believe I'd send them out with that terrible spacing. Oh my. Despite that, I still think they're fun. The shower was canceled, but one of my friends asked me to make these for a shower she was hosting a few months later.

Beach Wedding Invitations

As I mentioned yesterday, my sister-in-law is getting married in Florida. I was lucky enough to design her invitations for her!

During the design phase, I was incredibly busy with work and she was beginning graduate school, so we had no time to get together to discuss a plan. We did everything via e-mail and text.

Her only request was "brown, blue, and a palm tree." I suggested adding coral to lighten things up. I sent her a few beach designs from real designers to get some perspective on her asthetic. She loved this invitation from Ceci New York.

Image: Ceci New York

Unfortunately, that beautiful rattan paper was nowhere to be found. My printer could get it for me for the price of a full invitation suite ($800). I finally figured out the right keywords and found it online, but it would have been $200 + expedited shipping, so it was out of the question.

I actually really, really struggled with a design for this project. I'm not really a beach person and couldn't let myself just toss a palm tree on a card and call it a design -- and, believe me, I tried. Poor Andy must have voted on 30 different configurations of cards with palm trees moved one millimeter. I needed something sassier. Since her wedding's taking place at a resort near Palm Beach, Florida, I had the Kennedys on the brain and, as a result, couldn't get preppy rattan furniture out of my head. So, I combined my kitsch with her beach to come up with this logo:

Thankfully, she liked it! Here's the final product:

My printer had the EXACT number of envelopes needed in the most perfect blue-green color.

The color is not-quite-Paper Source Pool, so I got lucky finding these few envelopes at the printer.

The Latin Jazz stamps were perfect

for my jam band sister-in-law and drummer brother-in-law to be.

Andy's mom liked them almost as much as the envelopes.

Image: USPS

I used wrap-around labels. Even though they're twice the work,

I'd rather sit and cut and glue for two hours than sit still and write neatly for one hour.

 I lined the envelopes in papaya-colored paper from Paper Source.

The front page of the invite.

 The full invite. I did not intend to use the tri-fold design again,

it just sort of happened due to time and expense.

I was really behind schedule on this project, so I didn't have time to cut things myself.

Paying the printer to cut for me wouldn't have been cost-efficient for 25 invitations.

The back of the postcard.

Thankfully, she didn't want a map or any other details included on the back. Thank God. I hate maps. From what I hear, the invites are getting good reviews. I feel so much more pressure to do well because I know that Andy's family tells people that I'm into this stuff.

I'm about to ship some tote bags, schedules, and menu/place cards down to Florida tomorrow morning. I'll share those projects next week so that I don't ruin any surprises for the wedding guests.