Welcome to Paper Party week! If you’re a longtime reader, you probably know that I host a party for members the stationery industry during the National Stationery Show in New York each May – and this week I’m sharing the invitations and photos from this year’s party! The party is just a fun evening for everyone to come hang out and socialize in a way that isn’t really possible at the show, but this year I also partnered with the stationery industry’s advocacy organization, Writes for Women, to raise money for charity. And you guys! We raised more than seven THOUSAND dollars! Pretty good for our first try, huh? I’ll share photos from the party in another post, and then we’ll wrap up the week with a big giveaway just for OSBP readers of a few goodie bags from Paper Party 2018 filled with amazing stationery. But since we’re all about the paper around here, I thought that I’d start by sharing the amazing Paper Party 2018 modern minimalist invitations. I was lucky to work with an amazingly talented team, including Ramona & Ruth, Bella Figura, Legion Paper, Cards & Pockets, and Meant to Be Calligraphy – this year’s design features modern abstract shapes in matte white foil on a deep green paper. It’s seriously the most dreamy combination!
I’ve been feeling really inspired by modern abstract shapes this year, so I immediately turned to Kim of Ramona & Ruth to create the invitation design. I’ve been loving the direction of her recent collections, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to collaborate! I came up with a color palette of mustard yellow, pale pink, lavender, and forest green and sent that to Kim along with a mood board that I created for the party. We started with a digital save the date that incorporated pretty much every color in the mood board, along with plenty of fun shapes and Kim’s beautiful monoline hand lettering.
We knew we needed to streamline the design a bit for the printed invitations. I fell in love with a gorgeous forest green Colorplan paper from Legion Paper, so Kim suggested printing the design in matte white foil. It was perfect! Bella Figura handled the printing, duplexing two sheets of the forest green paper for an extra thick invitation that also allowed us to add design and printing credits on the back of the invitation. Duplexing means pasting two sheets of paper together, creating one thick sheet of paper – and it’s the best way to letterpress or foil print on both sides of an invitation without having the text or graphics show through on the other side. This was our first time duplexing the paper party invitations, and the thicker sheet of paper definitely felt more substantial!
For the envelopes, I turned to Cards & Pockets – they have the largest selection of colorful envelopes I’ve ever seen! We went with a gorgeous dusty rose pink envelope and added a digitally printed envelope liner featuring some of the shapes and colors from the original save the date. I love seeing all these colors together!
Michele from Meant to Be Calligraphy addressed the envelopes in white ink in her monoline script style to complement Kim’s hand lettering. I love the relaxed feel of the monoline lettering with the modern minimalist vibes of the invitation design. And of course I couldn’t resist the new forever stamps designed by Rifle Paper Co.!
There you have it! Our Paper Party 2018 modern minimalist invitations created with the most amazing paper team! If you’d like to see the invitations from past paper parties, you can check them out here, here, here, and here. Photos from Paper Party 2018 coming up next!
Design: Ramona & Ruth
Printing: Bella Figura
Paper: Legion Paper Colorplan Forest Green
Envelopes: Cards & Pockets
Envelope Calligraphy: Meant to Be Calligraphy
Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper
