Pink + Yellow Baby Announcements from Wiley Valentine

Rachelle from Wiley Valentine and Michael from Czar Press recently welcomed an adorable baby girl named Piper.  Of course, as a stationery designer and printer, respectively, the birth announcements that Rachelle and Michael created for Piper are truly something special.  I’m loving the balance of playful femininity with bright pops of color and vintage-inspired design elements.

Modern-Pink-Yellow-Baby-Announcements

Rachelle created the design with beautiful flourishes and floral elements in bright tones of yellow and hot pink.

Modern-Pink-Yellow-Baby-Announcements

Modern-Pink-Yellow-Baby-Announcements

Michael printed the announcements on a heavy 100% cotton stock, with edge painting also in bright pink and double-sided with custom printed envelope liners.

Modern-Pink-Yellow-Baby-Announcements

Modern-Pink-Yellow-Baby-Announcements

Modern-Pink-Yellow-Baby-Announcements

Modern-Pink-Yellow-Baby-Photo-Announcements

Modern-Pink-Yellow-Baby-Announcements

Rachelle also sent over a few photos of Piper’s beautiful nursery, so check back soon for more photos!

{all images by Wiley Valentine}

*Wiley Valentine and Czar Press are two of my fabulous sponsors; for more on my editorial policies please click here.

Mid Century Modern Wedding Invitations

So I don’t usually post this early, but these invitations by Erin at The Indigo Bunting are so amazing that I just couldn’t wait.  The entire design is totally bananas in the absolute best possible way – I mean, just look at that letterpress houndstooth pattern in the envelope liners!

Indigo-Bunting-Emily-Dan-Mid-Century-Modern-Wedding-Invitation

Indigo-Bunting-Emily-Dan-Mid-Century-Modern-Wedding-Invitation Indigo-Bunting-Emily-Dan-Mid-Century-Modern-Wedding-Invitation-Houndstooth-Pattern

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Totally awesome.  Design by Erin, letterpress printing by Coeur Noir Specialty Printers – read and see more over on The Indigo Bunting.  I’ll be back a bit later with more gorgeous wedding invitations!

{image credits: Erin Jang}

Crane Stationery, A Tour – Part 3

As promised, I’m back with a third installment of our tour of Crane & Co stationery.  After visiting the platemaking and printing facilities at Crane Personalized Design Services, we moved over to the Crane Stationery Division, located in a separate building in Dalton.  This is where all of the non-custom stationery orders are filled, from boxed stationery sets to holiday cards to designs in the Crane Studio Collection, as well as where envelopes and packaging materials are assembled.

Crane Stationery Tour Crane Stationery Tour

Crane Stationery Tour

{I love that so many of these buildings date back to the 1800s – the building architecture alone is completely fascinating}

Crane Stationery Tour

Our first stop in this building was a large warehouse room, where Crane keeps all of the different sheets of paper used as envelope liners for stationery and wedding invitations:

Crane Stationery Tour

Crane Stationery Tour Crane Stationery Tour

{so many lovely envelope liner sheets!}

Crane Stationery Tour Crane Stationery Tour

From there, we went to the envelope room – with the biggest paper cutting machine I’ve ever seen!

Crane Stationery Tour

{stacks of paper waiting to be cut down to size}

Crane Stationery Tour Crane Stationery Tour

Crane Stationery Tour

{if you look closely, you should be able to see the outline of the envelope template above}

In the next room, another huge machine – this one takes the envelope-size paper and folds it into actual envelopes.  The envelope machines are truly enormous, I think each one was about 25-30 feet in length!

Crane Stationery Tour

Crane Stationery Tour

Crane Stationery Tour

Crane Stationery Tour

Crane Stationery Tour

{finished envelopes coming out of the machine and being counted}

From there, we went into a larger room, similar to the printing floor at Crane Personalized Design Services.  In this room, all of Crane’s boxed stationery sets and stationery collections are assembled and packaged for delivery.

Crane Stationery Tour

Crane Stationery Tour Crane Stationery Tour

{a cool installation and painting on the wall as you enter the main room}

Most of us probably don’t think much about the actual stationery packaging, but Crane makes all of its own boxes.  The box machine (I’m sure the machine has a formal name, but I didn’t catch it) is probably the biggest machine that we encountered during the entire tour!

Crane Stationery Tour Crane Stationery Tour

Crane Stationery Tour

Crane Stationery Tour

Crane Stationery Tour

{that’s all glue above!}

Crane Stationery Tour

I tried to capture the entire process, but static images just can’t really give you the full effect – luckily the folks at Crane have captured the process on video!

After gawking at the box machine for a few minutes, we moved on to another room where hand borderers create the colorful borders on personalized stationery and writing notes.  I took photos of a hand bordering demonstration at the National Stationery Show, which you can see here – it’s truly an amazing skill.  Again, Crane has helpfully provided a video of the process:

Up next, the final stop on our Crane & Co. tour – the museum!

{all photos by me | video courtesy of Crane & Co.}

Amy + Forrest’s Modern Illustrated Wedding Invitations

Today’s second set of real invitations comes from Amy Hardy, a freelance designer who was married in Nashville this past June!  Amy put together a fun, modern wedding invitation suite with hand lettering (and letters individually constructed from paper!) that also incorporates her husband’s background in landscape architecture.  So cool!

Modern-Illustrated-Wedding-Invitations

From Amy: I am an art director and graphic designer, and my husband Forrest is studying Landscape Architecture.  We met through a mutual friend in 2007 and got to know each other as running partners.  Once we finally started dating, our friendship quickly became romantic and real.  Within the first year of dating, we knew this was it.  On June 26, 2010 we made the promise of marriage to one another.  Our wedding was in Nashville, Tennessee.

Modern-Illustrated-Wedding-Invitations-Full-Suite

Our wedding stationery represented our creative and detail-oriented personalities, as well as our wedding’s charming Southern summer theme.  This included save-the-dates, invitations with a belly band and RSVP card, programs, favors, signage, and thank you cards.

Modern-Illustrated-Wedding-Invitations-Initials

I considered every detail in the stationery, from the stamps to the envelope liners. After constructing individual letters out of paper, I added vine details and Delicato as a secondary typeface.

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Modern-Illustrated-Wedding-Invitations-Programs

Modern-Illustrated-Wedding-Invitations-Programs

I love bright colored accents (note my husband’s bright red hair!) and hand-rendered typography, so we knew our stationery had to be typographic and colorful. Because of his blue eyes, red hair, and fun personality, Forrest wanted to wear a bright blue bow tie. That led to a bright, jewel blue as our founding color, with yellow as the accent.

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Because printing was digital, we used Mohawk Via Vellum to slightly raise the type.  The paper’s subtle and soft texture also complimented the cut paper typography.

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I was inspired by our unique obsessions and the details that define us as a couple.  For instance, Forrest has a plant background, so I detailed the typography with vines. For favors, we made packets of wildflower seeds.  Each packet read, “Wildflower Seeds: Please plant these to celebrate the beauty of this day.”

Modern-Illustrated-Wedding-Invitations-DrawingModern-Illustrated-Wedding-Invitations-Save-the-Date

We had a blast at our Save the Date photo shoot, as seen in the photo we chose.

Beautiful Amy, thank you so much for sharing your wedding invitations and stationery!  For more from Amy and Forrest’s gorgeous wedding just click right here, and you can check out more of Amy’s design work right here!

{image credits: invitation photos by Amy | reception photos by Kristyn Hogan}

*Mohawk Paper is one of our fantastic sponsors; for more on our editorial policies, please click here.

Vintage Bicycle Birthday Party Invitations

I wasn’t a particularly sporty child, but bike riding was my absolute favorite activity growing up.  So when Ashley from Lemon and Lavender sent over these cute bicycle birthday party invitations, the first thing that popped into my head was how much I would have loved to celebrate one of my own birthdays with these invitations!

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Ashley originally designed these invitations for her son’s first birthday party – complete with super-cute matching soda bottle labels:

bicycle-soda-bottle-labels bicycle-drink-labels

bicycle-drink-stirrers

You can find these invitations – this time with drink stirrers instead of soda bottle labels and fun striped envelope liners – in the Lemon & Lavender etsy shop.  Thanks Ashley!

{image credits: lemon & lavender}