Oh So Beautiful Paper

I thought I’d start the week off with a lovely set of real invitations – and DIY’d letterpress at that!  These invitations come from the bride, Leika, who fell in love with letterpress invitations but didn’t have room in her budget for letterpress.  So she decided to do them herself using the letterpress facilities at Pyramid Atlantic, which is a fabulous resource for any bride in the DC area.

The full invitation suite included a stand-alone 5″ x 7″ invitation, reception card, and rsvp card – each of which was letterpress printed on white paper in charcoal gray ink – and red return envelope with a gray damask-print address label for the rsvp card:

The suite was held together with a red belly band with the word “cherish” printed on the front, and mailed in a dark charcoal gray envleope with a red + white damask lining:

Here’s more from Leika: I decided that learning to letterpress would be the best of both worlds – I’d get the letterpress invites I was craving, while still being able to DIY the invites, which is what I was originally planning to do anyway.

There were a couple of designs from Ceci New York that served as general inspiration.  I pulled the elements of each one that I liked, found some swirly elements (Ed Note: for a great resource filled with free graphics and fonts, check out the fabulous blog iDIY!) and pulled the concepts together into the card I was seeing in my head.

My fiance’s name (and my soon-to-be last name!) starts with a C, so we used the C monogram as a graphic element throughout. I wanted it to have a vintage inspiration without being a deco-themed invite, so I used damask, rich colors, and deco fonts, but that’s it.

The monogram at the top of the invitations and response cards is hand-stamped; I didn’t want to run a second color for just that little bit, so I got a custom stamp and stamped away!

I had the pleasure of seeing these invitations in person, since Leika was kind enough to mail a set to me to be photographed, and I can confirm they’re absolutely lovely!  Leika really did a great job with the letterpress process, creating nice, deep, and even impressions on each element of the invitations.  You can see a few more photos of Leika + Terrell’s invitations on my flickr page right here, and you can read more about Leika’s invitation design and wedding planning process on her own blog, practically married, right here.

Thanks so much, Leika, for sharing your invitations with us, and congratulations on DIY’ing such a wonderful invitation suite!

{all photos by Oh So Beautiful Paper}

1. Leika says:

   06/02/2009 at 9:37 AM

   Thanks, Nole, for the lovely post, and ladies for your kind comments! The letterpress process was a lot of work, but a lot of fun! I highly recommend it for anyone who’s looking to learn an interesting paper art!!
2. JLS says:

   06/01/2009 at 4:50 PM

   That is SMART to stamp the additional color w/o raising the letterpressing price. Interesting….this opens up a whole new set of ideas. My fiance is going to kill me.
3. Lucy C says:

   06/01/2009 at 2:49 PM

   Congrats to Leika for making such lovely invites. The colours are georgous and I love the design. It is always a little more personal when you are able to make something yourself as well.