Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi everyone!  I’m heading out a bit early to enjoy the long holiday weekend here in the U.S. and go to finally bring our cat (who as you might remember was in the animal hospital last week) back home where he belongs.  The poor guy didn’t get to come home last weekend as we’d hoped and ended up needing surgery, so we can’t wait to have him home.  As a result of his illness, we’ve also changed our plans and are now staying home for the holiday – our first Thanksgiving on our own!  It’ll actually be nice to have a quiet weekend and just be grateful for my little family.  But in the meantime…

thanksgiving-centerpiece thanksgiving-centerpiece

…a few links for your weekend!

…and in case you missed it, here’s what happened on OSBP this week:

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend, and for those of you celebrating this weekend I wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.  I’ll see you all back here on Monday!

{image credits: country living}

p.s. We’re taking advantage of the long weekend to do a server switch, so if things are a bit wonky over the weekend please bear with us.  Hopefully there won’t be any major disruptions, but just in case I promise it’s only temporary. 🙂

Watercolor + Calligraphy Save the Dates

Happy Monday everyone! Our poor kitty is still in the animal hospital, so I’m trying to cheer myself up with these gorgeous watercolor + calligraphy save the dates from Courtney of Swiss Cottage Designs and Jenna of Love* Jenna Calligraphy.

Blue Watercolor Calligraphy Save the DatesBlue Watercolor Calligraphy Save the Dates

Courtney hand painted the names of the bride and groom with watercolor and matched them with Jenna’s amazing calligraphy to create this beautiful and tranquil save the date.

Blue Watercolor Calligraphy Save the Dates

I love the subtle tone and color changes in both the watercolor and calligraphy inks – just stunning!  You can see more from Courtney and Jenna here and here.  Thanks ladies!

Photo Credits: Love* Jenna

Modern B’nai Mitzvah Invitations

Tova from Brighten My Day Studio created these super-colorful and modern invitations last year for the B’nai Mitzvah of twins Sydney and Robert.  The family wanted to go with a slightly different approach to the design, so Tova created the entire invitation suite using a colorful orange and purple color palette, complete with pop-art inspired save the date and envelope liners!

From Tova: This family loves art.  Their home is a gorgeous canvas for the amazing, bold artwork – from life-size mosaics to the classic paintings – that hang on each wall.  Since the evening celebration was being held at their home, we wanted the invitation to reflect their home and the party to come: bold color, modern feel, some drama and a nod to art.

Modern-Bnai-Mitzvah-Save-the-Date

The save the date was a great introduction: cherry red and beet papers featuring white engraved text and hand-illustrated Lichtenstein-inspired drawing of Sydney and Robert (which was mounted 3-dimesionally to the card).  In-town guests received a folded card, while out-of-towners received a tri-fold card which contained the weekend events.

Modern-Bnai-Mitzvah-Invitation-Liner Modern-Bnai-Mitzvah-Invitation-Pop-Art-Liner

We wanted to keep the design of the invitation really simple and clean, to showcase a huge wow factor in the color palate and the invitation size.  The invitation was 9″ x 11″ (huge!) and tri-plexed into a heavy-weight board of tangerine on the front and beet on the back.  The accompanying enclosure cards were also duplexed – tangerine on one side, purple on the back – in the same style as the invitation, but in a variety of modern shapes.

Modern-Bnai-Mitzvah-Invitation-Suite Modern-Bnai-Mitzvah-Invitation-Suite

The typefaces were a fun mix of clean and crisp, paired with a fresh, hand-writing inspired script.  And the kicker – the envelope liner was the Lichtenstein image from the save the date, blown-up and digitally printed in colors to mesh with the new tangerine and beet color palette.  Custom stamps were created for both the invitation envelope and the response card.  And, the envelopes were addressed in white gouache calligraphy by the uber-talented Crystal Kluge.

Modern-Bnai-Mitzvah-Invitation-Envelope Modern-Bnai-Mitzvah-Invitation-Envelope-Stamp

I LOVED creating this invitation, in huge part because the Goldstein family was so incredible and trusting.  I am still obsessed with the color palette – and just love that we were able to incorporate the “photo” of the twins into the pieces in such a funky, non-traditional way.

Beautiful work as always Tova!  Thank you so much for sharing these incredible invitations!

{image credits: brighten my day studio}

Nature-Inspired Quilled Marriage Certificate

Last year, I was thrilled to feature an amazing black and white quilled wedding certificate by paper filigrée artist Ann Martin.  Today I’m thrilled to welcome Ann back with another stunning wedding certificate!  The bride and groom were married last week in the Jurassic Park section of Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.  Given the jungle-like atmosphere of the theme park, the couple asked for autumn colors, leaves, mushrooms, birds – even a few small forest animals!

Nature-Inspired-Quilled-Marriage-Certificate

Nature-Inspired-Quilled-Marriage-Certificate

Ann took on the challenge of creating a non-traditional wedding certificate design for a very unique wedding.  The couple was thrilled with the result, which includes acorns, an owl, blue jay, squirrel, and even a tiny mouse.  Riva Brown of Living Letters Studio did the lovely calligraphy in dark brown ink.

Nature-Inspired-Quilled-Marriage-Certificate

The certificate will be signed by the bride and groom, as well as the wedding guests as a sign of support for the couple in their marriage.  Wedding certificates can be a lovely alternative as a wedding guest book, and of course can be framed and displayed at home after the wedding.

Nature-Inspired-Quilled-Marriage-Certificate

A bit of background from Ann on the art of paper quilling:  Paper quilling is a rolled paper technique that originated several hundred years ago in Europe.  As a DIY aspect, I encourage brides-to-be to quill their own certificates and have posted quite a few tutorials on my blog.  Place cards and favor boxes can be beautifully accented with just a few quilled elements.

Nature-Inspired-Quilled-Marriage-Certificate

Nature-Inspired-Quilled-Marriage-Certificate

So pretty!  Ann has so much more beautiful paper quilling examples over on her blog, which you can check out right here!  Thanks Ann!

{image credits: ann martin}

Quick Pick: Seesaw + Satsuma Press

Today I’m loving these new cards from SeeSaw and Satsuma Press.  Between playful patterns, beautiful calligraphy, and modern flags, it would be so lovely to receive one of these pretties in the mail!  First up, from SeeSaw, a variety pack of the most important greeting cards – birthday, thank you, congratulations, and hello – in some seriously fun color and pattern combinations:

seesaw-modern-letterpress-greeting-cards

seesaw-yellow-gray-thank-you-cards

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From Satsuma Press, I’m loving this collaboration with Mara from Neither Snow, featuring her lovely calligraphy next to Lynn’s feather illustration on these bird of a feather cards:

Birds-of-a-feather-calligraphy-cards

Simple-Flag-Letterpress-Cards

Simple-Flag-Letterpress-Cards

{satsuma press}

And speaking of Satsuma Press – have you entered the custom holiday card giveaway?  It closes tonight at midnight!

{image credits: seesaw and satsuma press}