Wedding Menus

Minted has done it again! Lured me into their design contest.

This time a highly regarded wedding magazine wanted some good ideas for wedding menus. There were 3 categories: Spring Wedding, Metropolitan Evening, and Tropical Destination.

3 out of my 4 designs made it into the voting stages. See what you think, and if you feel like it, go to minted.com and vote!

Print your own invitations

If you live in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area you might want to check out Hollander's.

Print Your Own Letterpress Invitations!

Hollander's enables you to actually learn the charm of letterpress printing of invitations, announcements, custom stationery, and other small printing needs by teaching you how to print your own using our letterpress equipment.

The cost is $115 per plate and includes the plate you will design, choice of ink colors, and all the instruction you need. It does not include stationery which must be purchased from Hollander's. We recommend our Arturo Stationery for printing, but many other papers are available to use.

For more information regarding printing options and scheduling, please contact us.

Image and information from Hollander's site.

Word Spot: A Letterpress Game

I saw this game at Barnes and Noble last night. Looks like a great gift for the Letterpress lover in your life.

Letterpress craftsmen of centuries past used to hide words within a block of text as a challenge to their peers. They called this past time vedere parola.

To celebrate this rich tradition Front Porch Classics has created WordSpot, a timeless game where players try to find hidden words among an arranged board of lettered tiles. The first player to use up all their markers finding words is the winner!

Easy to learn, yet challenging and different every time.

For ages 8 and up.

Pantone colors for spring 09

Things are always evolving in the world of fashion and the "in" colors for the spring have been announced.

Well Pantone, I'll be sure to take notice when designing cards and invitations next year! I am LOVING the fuschia red!!

Find out how the color expert at Pantone decides on the trends here.

I'm Minted

If I wasn't already married, and if I would not make my invitations myself, I would totally buy them from Minted.com. They have amazing designers and addictive contests to enter. One of the recent contests was for Thank You cards. One of my designs was chosen as an editor's pick and will be sold on the site in the future. Maybe this fall, maybe spring...but YEA!! Here it is...

Back to school

It's back to school time around the world and I can tell. Teacher card orders are coming in left and right. Maybe it is early Christmas shopping or maybe it's a little "getting on the teacher's good side". I used to be a teacher, I know how these things work.

Pick up your own teacher cards at my esty shop.

Planning process

Tomorrow I will meet with my very good friend, L, to work on her wedding invitations. We've met about this once before and sketched out some preliminary ideas.

The details:
-January wedding
-Candlelight
-Gently falling snow (would be nice)
-Black and white and silver
-A mix of French & Irish food
-Damask pattern

It's always fun meeting with brides and this time won't be an exception. We've been friends for quite a few years and I'm so happy to be helping her with her invitations. Here is a little inspiration board that makes me think of her upcoming wedding day.

A Martha Stewart Halloween

This is one of the creepiest invitations I have ever seen. Can you imagine getting a "finger" in the mail reminding you to attend a Halloween party!?!

Despite its creepiness, I would totally send this out if I were having a Halloween party. It would set the mood for a great party. As a paper person, I always think the invitation to the party should be as thoughtfully arranged as the rest of the party details.

Martha Stewart has made it easy for you. Head on over to her craft store and snatch up some of these for yourself.

Birth Announcements

If you pick up a copy of the latest People magazine, you'll find a special feature entitled "Babies '08". (Sept. 15 issue) Here, you can check out how stars like Tori Spelling, Joey McIntyre, and Melissa Joan Hart chose to announce their new arrivals.

Surprisingly to me, a lot of the stars mentioned picked designs from www.tinyprints.com. I guess I figured that the rich and famous would not use the same site that a lot of my own friends use.

I like this one...

Design obsession

Ever since stumbling upon Minted.com a few months ago, I've become obsessed with their design challenges. The first contest I entered was for a bridal shower invitation. This was my favorite design that I did. It did not win however, so I am selling it on my etsy site.

This was the actual winner by Oscar + Emma design. Another Columbus designer!! Up next at minted is a wedding menu contest! Yum!!

Windy City

We didn't take a trip to Chicago, but we had our own version of the windy city last night. Wind gusts up to 60+ miles per hour, electricity to be out for days, schools closed, trees down, stores being overrun by anxious homeowners.

I'm not too upset. Nothing fell on our house and my family is safe and sound. I'm currently at my parent's house (who have electricity) but won't be able to design or print for a couple of days.

Another love

Along with my love of all things paper, I have a deep affection for photography. Taking pictures is quite a learning process for me and words like aperture and shutter speed leave my brain almost as fast as they enter it. The rules don't stick and therefore I am often found spinning dials on the camera until things look right on the screen. Point being, I might thrown in some pictures every now and then. Like now...
This is no day to be wandering around outside with a camera but these raindrops were begging me to take their picture. Now, I'll curl up on the couch and finish my book.

Stepping into the blogosphere

Well, I've finally done it. I've joined the masses and started a blog. I wonder how hard this will be? Will I have anything to say and will I remember it by the time I log on here. Only time will tell.

So, here is the story. I've recently started my own stationery and invitation business. Seems like there are a lot of us out there. I left the world of teaching to work from home and help my husband on our house renovation. It's a big leap of faith, but I'm enjoying all of the creative processes.

Enjoy...