{happy weekend!}

Happy Friday everyone!  I don’t know if it’s the time of year, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about simplifying – getting back to the things that I really love (and that make me the most happy), and making more time in my daily and weekly routine to enjoy my city and hang out with friends.  This has meant letting go of a few projects and saying no to some other ideas.  I’ve also been on a mission to declutter our apartment, which is a huge challenge for a natural pack rat like me!  As difficult as these things can be, I feel a million pounds lighter with each step.  Do any of you go through stages like this?  Anyway, we have family visiting this weekend and I’m looking forward to exploring more of DC with them.  But in the meantime…

Magnolia garland and tiding wall decal by Shanna Murray

…a few links for your weekend:

  • Gorgeous illustrated notebooks
  • A pretty new print from Christine Wisnieski
  • Yum!
  • A fun DIY project: silkscreened placemats
  • DC-area folks, help Pyramid Atlantic celebrate its 31st birthday this Saturday!
  • Another one just for DC folks – but as a Capitol Hill resident, I’m really excited about this
  • Lynn from Satsuma Press is offering a fantastic deal on her beautiful letterpress calling cards.  Use code 6LSY8L to order 250 two-color calling cards for just $195 (a 40% discount!), or code ZEA68L for 10% off 100 two-color calling cards.  Offers are good through the end of April.

This week on Oh So Beautiful Paper:

As usual, we have a fun cocktail coming up for you this afternoon, so check back a bit later for the recipe!  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you back here on Monday!  xoxo

Travel-Inspired Letterpress Business Cards from A Fine Press

Matthew from A Fine Press sent over the fabulous business identity and stationery that he recently designed for wedding photographer Karen Ard.  Karen loved the idea of incorporating a wax seal (such a great detail!) and doing something travel-inspired, so Matthew came up with an identity inspired by Southern California surf culture and business cards inspired by luggage tags.  The entire suite was letterpress printed on kraft paper in soft and beachy colors.  So lovely!

From Matthew: Karen was particularly drawn to the idea of a wax seal to bring her business stationery together.  She approached me with the idea of doing a travel-inspired visual identity and stationery suite that maintained a nod to her SoCal location.

For inspiration, we drew heavily from postage and postmarks from around the world.  We loved the idea of using the circle of a postmark as our starting point.  A friend’s surf video got me thinking about all the great surf-culture branding out there and the image of a hibiscus blossom on a longboard provided us with a clear direction.

Karen wanted colors to reflect the beach and had suggested we start with seaglass colors.  From there, we settled on teal, with brown as a second color along with cream and kraft-substrates.  For a typeface, we went with the Deco-styled Aviano Sans, which I found extremely evocative of vintage travel.

The print pieces were done on French Paper’s Muscletone Kraft with PopTone Whip Cream envelopes.  In addition to Karen’s official colors, I printed her 1-color logo in transparent white on her thank you cards to make it pop while keeping it neutral in color.  Her luggage tag-inspired business cards were printed with her handwriting filling in the important details.

Thank you so much Matthew!

Photo Credits: Karen Ard

{happy weekend!}

I apologize to those of you who might be tired of hearing me blather on about spring in DC, but it really is just so beautiful this time of year I can’t help it!  My husband and I went for a walk in our neighborhood yesterday evening and I spotted some lilacs just starting to bloom, and earlier in the day I spotted some wisteria!  It’s early in the season for a lot of these flowers, but apparently everything is going to be early this year due to the relatively mild winter and I’m not exactly complaining.  I’m just trying to soak as much of it in while it lasts.  One of my favorite things to do during lilac season is to visit the Mount Vernon estate; it’s covered in the gorgeous (and fragrant) blossoms!  I’ll have to plan a trip soon, but in the meantime…

…a few links for your weekend!

This week on Oh So Beautiful Paper:

A big welcome to the newest Designer Rolodex members!

As usual, we have a fun cocktail coming up for you this afternoon, so check back a bit later for the recipe!  Oh, and speaking of cocktails – one of our recipes, the Oaxacan Sunrise, is a competition finalist!  If you’re over 21 and have a moment, we’d love it if you could vote for us!  Voting ends later today, but you can vote right here.  Thank you so much!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you back here on Monday!  xoxo

Photo by me (via Instagram), taken at the Congressional Cemetery yesterday evening

Molly Jacques Calligraphy Business Cards + Artwork

I love the classic beauty and elegance of these business cards from calligrapher and illustrator Molly Jacques.  Molly frequently works with the ladies of Sugar Paper (which is where I first became acquainted with Molly’s work) and her calligraphy and illustration portfolio is simply stunning.  The ladies of Sugar Paper letterpress printed Molly’s double-sided design in their signature pool ink.  Gorgeous!

Molly has a beautiful shop with calligraphy address stamps and some truly beautiful prints – I just couldn’t resist sharing these two prints in particular:

Thanks Molly!  You can see more of Molly’s illustration and calligraphy work right here!

Business Card Design: Molly Jacques

Letterpress Printing: Sugar Paper

p.s. Check out more business card ideas and inspiration right here!

Photo Credits: Molly Jacques

{happy weekend!}

It’s officially my favorite season in DC; the cherry blossoms are starting to bloom, the sun is shining (mostly), and everything is our garden is starting to come back to life.  Yay!  I’ve been working with the windows open all week and trying to spend as much time outside as possible.  I’m looking forward to doing some gardening this weekend – and sometimes we take our cat Olive outside with us (she loves it!).  But in the meantime…

Cherry-Blossoms-National-Geographic

…a few links for your weekend

This week on Oh So Beautiful Paper:

As usual, we have a fun cocktail coming up for you this afternoon, so check back a bit later for the recipe!  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you back here on Monday!  xoxo

Photo Credits: National Geographic