Oh So Beautiful Paper

Archive for October, 2011

It always happens right around this time of year – requests start pouring in for fabulous planners and organizers.  As it turns out, it’s hard to find a planner that is both functional and pretty!  For the last few years, my favorite planner has been this amazing monthly and weekly planner from Laurel Denise, and I’m thrilled to share the 2012 edition with all of you today!

Laurel’s 2012 planner comes in a variety of colors, all spiral bound and with tons of space to write out to do lists and goals for each month.  You can view monthly and weekly pages at the same time, and at 7″ x 8.5″ the planner is easy to carry around in a purse or tote bag.  You can read all about the design right here!

For something a bit extra, Laurel is generously offering Oh So Beautiful Paper readers a special large format to do list that you can use in concert with the 2012 planner.  You can download the PDF right here!  Thanks Laurel!

Photo Credits: Marcy May Photography

Happy Monday everyone!  My husband and I are back home after a quick weekend trip to upstate New York to visit family; it was a great trip, but I’m so happy to be back home with our cats!  We’re starting this week off with a suite of lovely invitations for a wedding in historic Gettysburg, Pennsylvania from Dianna and Emily at Fourth Year Studio.  Once Caitlin and Andrew settled on Gettysburg as their wedding location, Dianna and Emily set to work on the wedding invitations, save the dates, and rehearsal dinner invitations – drawing design inspiration from some of the unique historic features of the region.

From Dianna: As history buffs, Caitlin and Andrew were traveling in Gettysburg for a weekend visit when they first realized they were in love.  After getting engaged, they knew it was the perfect place to tie the knot.  The invitation design stemmed from the historic relevance of Gettysburg.  The battlefields are lined with wood fences that are unique to the area and the tree graphic was actually derived from an image of a witness tree (a tree that was witness to the civil war battles and is still standing today).  Their October wedding took place at sunset overlooking the historic battlefields.

For the main invitation, we letterpress printed three pieces in turquoise and brown ink onto thick cotton paper.  Coordinating fabric strips strung the three pieces together.  RSVP postcards were flat printed on wood veneer and enclosed in a fabric pocket.  The final invitations were packaged in kraft paper envelopes with a matching address label.

Like the RSVP postcard, the save the dates were also flat printed on wooden postcards.

The rehearsal dinner invitation was letterpress printed and backed with fabric.  All the fabrics used for the rehearsal dinner invitations made a reappearance at the reception in the form of little love birds handmade by Caitlin’s sister.  The RSVP portion of the rehearsal dinner invitation was printed front and back on extra heavy cotton paper.

Thanks Dianna and Emily!

Check out the Designer Rolodex for more tal­ented wed­ding invi­ta­tion design­ers and the real invi­ta­tions gallery for more wedding invitation ideas!

Photo Credits: Dixie Pixel

Today’s cocktail is the Robert Frost, a bourbon-based cocktail with sherry and white port that is unbelievably tasty.  The drink was invented by none other than Derek Brown, DC’s cocktail master, for a 2009 White House holiday party.  While we sadly aren’t invited to parties at the White House, we had the pleasure of tasting Derek’s creation during a recent outing to the Columbia Room, one of his DC establishments.  Be careful with this one.  It goes down easily, and may disappear faster than you mean it to!

Read below for the recipe!

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Yet another week that flew by much too quickly (at least for me)!  This weekend my husband and I are heading to upstate New York to spend time with my husband’s family and visit our brand new niece!   I’m bracing myself for cold weather and hoping to catch a glimpse of the changing leaves that I’ve heard are so pretty in the region (although the leaves have been very pretty here in DC, too).  But in the meantime…

…a few links for your weekend!

• More adorable wedding invitations from Hello Tenfold
• Pretty faux bois gift tags!
• These downloadable canning labels make me want to learn how to can!
• These marbled wood floors are so pretty
• Also, I rounded up some beautiful wedding dresses from Bridal Market over on United With Love this week!  Gowns with sleeves, vintage-inspired gowns, ballgowns and short wedding dresses, and non-traditional wedding dresses for an adventurous bride.

This week on Oh So Beautiful Paper:

• Joanna + Martin’s music-inspired book wedding invitations
• Gorgeous new watercolor wedding invitations from The Aerialist Press
• Sweet baptism invitations inspired by Noah’s Ark
• Beautiful calligraphy birth announcements for baby Lincoln…
• …and adorable illustrated announcements for baby Julian
• Part 6 of the 2012 calendar round up!
• DIY Tutorial: Bookmark moving announcements
• Fun holiday party invitations from Hello Tenfold
• Glory’s storybook wedding invitations

Welcome to the newest member of the Designer Rolodex!

• Fine Day Press

That’s it for me this week!  Check back a bit later for this week’s cocktail recipe – it’s a seriously good one this week!  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you back here on Monday! xoxo

Photo by me (from Instagram), taken near the Washington Monument yesterday afternoon