12/12/2017

Beautiful Hanukkah Cards

You’re getting a double dose of holiday from me today â€“ because Hanukkah starts tonight! I grew up celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah in observance of both sides of my heritage, and I’m excited to continue that tradition with my own children. We’ll be lighting candles, making latkes with sour cream and applesauce, eating chocolate Hanukkah gelt, and indulging in sufganiyot (we get ours locally from District Doughnuts). For those of you looking for the perfect card to celebrate the festival of lights (or even buying ahead for next year), here are twelve beautiful Hanukkah cards!

From top right:

1. Such a beautiful illustrated Hanukkah card by Wild Hart Paper

2. Even I have trouble keeping it straight! Send some laughs with this Near Modern Disaster card, which also makes the perfect slightly belated Hanukkah card.

3. Shout-out to all the folks in a joint Hanukkah-Christmas household by Dahlia Press

4. Send holiday wishes in classic, elegant style with this card from Sugar Paper

5. The perfect Hanukkah card for your millennial cousins/nieces/nephews from Party Sally

6. This card from Mr. Boddington’s Studio just cracks me up. I’m totally sending this card to my dad this year.

7. This Hanukkah card from Hello!Lucky was one of my favorites at the National Stationery Show back in May â€“ and it has shiny copper foil details!

8. Latkes of love! This card from Meeschmosh is totally speaking my language.

9. I never really mastered the art of spinning a dreidel, but that doesn’t stop me from appreciating this card by Egg Press

10. I always appreciate cards that incorporate music lyrics from the 1980s (from ilootpaperie â€“ the masters of puns!)

11. Cats celebrate Hanukkah, too! Illustrated card by The Dancing Cat, naturally.

12. You can’t go wrong with a gold foil menorah from Red Cap Cards

p.s. Twelve beautiful Christmas cards for those of you celebrating both holidays!

12/12/2017

Twelve Beautiful Christmas Cards

Only two weeks to go before Christmas! So, I’m curious: how do you handle holiday cards? Do you send out custom family photo cards, or do you buy box sets of non-custom holiday cards and personalize them with a hand written message? Do you include a hand written card when you exchange gifts? Before I had children, I went with non-custom box sets for our holiday cards and hand wrote a message to each recipient inside. Once I became a parent, I switched over to custom photo cards, but we typically wait until New Year’s or even Valentine’s Day to send them out. I like to think of it as kind of a fun post-holiday surprise! But I miss the fun of picking out the most beautiful holiday cards each year, so this year I thought I’d switch things up a bit! Here are twelve beautiful Christmas cards that I’m totally in love with this year:

From top right:

1. The prettiest hand painted holiday cards from Moglea. Each one is individually hand painted, so they’re all unique!

2. Fun graphic lettering and bright pops of color from Egg Press

3. I’m such a fan of this color dot series from Mr. Boddington’s Studio â€“ the color names are always so creative!

4. Classic holiday beauty from Sugar Paper

5. Vibrant red and neon pink in this illustrated card from And Here We Are!

6. This chipmunk holiday card from Dear Hancock just cracks me up. Those cheeks!

7. This embroidered dove design from Hello!Lucky has a wonderful folk art vibe about it that I’m really loving this year! If you’re embracing hygge and Scandinavian vibes this holiday season, this card would be a perfect fit!

8. Loving this full color letterpress printed design from Lucky Horse Press

9. This delicate design from Ramona & Ruth is just seriously stunning (and how pretty are those gold foil accents on blush pink paper?)

10. I mean, I couldn’t resist a cat holiday card! From The Good Twin, who totally gets my crazy cat lady vibes.

11. Colorful shapes and a non-traditional modern design by Kate Pugsley for Red Cap Cards

12. Wishing all of you peace and joy this holiday season and in 2018, from One Canoe Two

12/11/2017

Eucalyptus and Vellum Birthday Party Invitations

With the winter months upon us, these fresh and whimsical invitations are a fun deviation from the usual deeper hues of this season. Juliann Ford of Mint for Hue designed these eucalyptus and vellum birthday party invitations to celebrate her daughter’s first birthday. Don’t you simply love all the small details, especially the stamp and address formatting on the envelopes? The embossed details and gold leaf accents are perfect finishing touches!

From Juliann: For my daughter’s first birthday, I wanted to create an elegant yet chic invitation collection that was simple, youthful, and whimsical. Since her birthday lands on November 3rd, it’s the final days of fall leaves in Wisconsin, but not quite winter. Knowing I wanted to stay away from everything Fall, I chose to use bright whites, deep greens, and a pop of peachy-pink and dark purple to welcome the colder days ahead of us.

For the birthday invitations, I knew immediately that I wanted to include embossing to some degree and showcase my love of calligraphy and hand-lettering. Therefore, I kept the rest of the invite simple, only utilizing fonts and lettering on the actual invitation. I added a simple embossed border to the top and bottom of the invite to frame the content. To add interest to the whole piece, I wrapped the invitation in a vellum overlay with a soft hand-drawn eucalyptus wreath.

Since the invitation itself did not have any fancy wording, and I wanted to specifically include that it was her first birthday, I embossed a “1” on a tag and accented the corners with gold leaf foil detailing. I secured the tag to the invitation with a metallic gold thread to hold the entire invitation set together. I chose a soft peachy-pink envelope and designed floral blooms for the custom postage. To keep the entire piece clean & elegant, guest addresses were printed on each envelope, adjacent to the custom stamp. Lastly, I included a simple design on the back flap of the envelope, highlighting my daughter’s first birthday.

I love the simplicity of this invitation set, but there is also a lot of texture and depth that creates so much interest to this piece. These invitations are an exact representation of who my daughter is, and I couldn’t be happier with how they turned out.

Thanks, Juliann!

Design, calligraphy, & printing: Mint for Hue
Paper: Paper and Moore
Envelopes: Cards and Pockets
Custom Stamps: Zazzle

Photo Credits: Juliann Ford

12/11/2017

Happy Monday!

Happy Monday everyone! Normally I do these link round ups on Fridays, but we had an assembly at my girls’ school and the day got away from me. So I thought I’d save it for Monday instead! Did you have a good weekend? We got our first little snowfall on Saturday afternoon, and my girls were in HEAVEN. There’s a chance we might get a bit more later this week â€“ fingers crossed! But in the meantime…

…a few links for your Monday!

This California ranch is home to over 500 animals, and they just lost their entire ranch to the fires in the area. All the animals and people made it out safely, but you can support their recovery and rebuilding effort here.

Baby2Baby has also organized an Amazon registry so you can help by purchasing items for families that lost everything in the fires.

This DIY “gingerbread” house idea is absolutely genius

My dream winter coat! It’s pink! There are ruffles on the sleeves! Be still my heart.

Pantone’s Color of the Year for 2018. What are your thoughts?

Can’t stop watching this hilarious video

This dress would be so pretty for New Year’s Eve

Did you catch my little DIY advent calendar on Instagram? All you need is some watercolor paper, paint, and a star craft punch or a pair of scissors!

YOU GUYS. Have you seen this rainbow Christmas tree??? It’s incredible!

MAKE: Creamy sweet potato agnolotti

Last week on Oh So Beautiful Paper:

New illustrated wallpapers for December!

Vintage-inspired dusty blue wedding invitations

Sweet and simple calligraphy baby announcements by Bourne Paper Co. and Anne Robin!

Winter wedding stationery ideas

Beautiful envelope inspiration

12/07/2017

Envelope Inspiration

I realized that I often share envelope inspiration from the #dailydoseofpaper hashtag on Instagram â€“ but I don’t really share those envelopes here. So today I’m fixing that! It’s such a joy to open up our mailboxes and find a hand addressed envelope â€“ even if you don’t have the skills of a professional calligrapher â€“ among all the bills, junk mail, and catalogues. Any time I see a colorful envelope, I know it’s going to be something good! And even when I’m browsing through envelopes on Instagram, I’m probably more likely to stop and comment on an envelope post than any other type of image. Envelopes jump out at me for different reasons: sometimes it’s color palette, sometimes it’s the gorgeously curated vintage stamps, sometimes it’s the lettering style, or even something else completely. Today I’m definitely noticing a color theme in this round up, from terra cotta envelopes (so obsessed with this color right now) and brown walnut ink to deep navy and dark green. So much pretty!

Gorgeous walnut ink on handmade paper envelopes â€“ just look at those deckled edges! â€“ by Hello Maurelle

Ooooh copper envelopes with white brush lettering by Bare Ink Co.

Gorgeous green brush lettering with floral stamps for these baby shower invitations by Mary Kate Moon

Navy blue and lilac has to be one of my all-time favorite color combinations â€“ and that wax seal! Calligraphy by Alison Vaz Designs with art direction by Sincerely, Jackie Paper