Paper Party 2016: Rainbow Watercolor and Hologram Foil Invitations

I’ll be sharing the photos from this year’s Paper Party in just a bit â€“ but first, I wanted to help set the scene by sharing the photos of the rainbow watercolor and hologram foil invitations that we created for this year’s party! As with previous years, the invitations were a group effort. The ultra-talented Ashley Buzzy designed the invitations and envelope liner, Bella Figura printed everythingÂ on their smooth cotton paper, and Michele from Meant to Be Calligraphy addressed the envelopes. This year’s invitation design featured hologram foil over a digitally printed watercolor background!

I’ve been really inspired by all things iridescent lately, so I used that as the starting point for the rest of the inspiration for this year’s party. I created a moodboard for this year’s party, which contained an image of crinkled iridescent cellophane and a few images of disco balls â€“ and voila! Party inspiration! I thought Ashley Buzzy had the perfect design aesthetic to complementÂ my iridescent rainbow disco party theme, and I was thrilled when she agreed to create the invitation design!

Ashley was super inspired by the rainbow overtones of the iridescent cellophane in the party moodboard. SheÂ created this gorgeous rainbow watercolor background by layering a rainbow gradient over a watercolor splatter pattern that she scanned into her computer. Ashley also created a rainbow watercolor splatter envelope liner that complemented the invitation design without mirroring the design too closely.

I really, really, really wanted to use hologram foil for the printed party invitations â€“ but I had no idea there were so many different types of hologram foil! I must have looked at more than 40 hologram foil swatches at Bella Figura before settling on this smooth rainbow-y silver hologram foil called Spectrum. I love how the foil shows a different color and light spectrum at every angle! Bella Figura also letterpress printed the design and printing credit on the reverse side of the invitation and the envelope return address in a beautiful teal ink.

For the envelopes, I once again turned to my favorite envelope finishing trick: dip dyeing! I decided to continue the rainbow theme by dip dyeing the envelopes four different pastel colors: lavender, blue, green, and pink. Michele from Meant to Be Calligraphy addressed the envelopes in black ink in her beautiful Durham style.