You might remember Kristy and Adam’s watercolor invitations and letterpress save the dates for their 10-year vow renewal earlier this year – the combination of Kristy’s amazing watercolor paintings with letterpress is still one of my absolute favorites.  Kristy and Adam decided to throw a party at their home in Pennsylvania for friends and family who couldn’t attend the ceremony out at Zion National Park.  And this time Kristy created the invitations using vintage hardcover books!

From Kristy: After a magical time in Zion National Park renewing our vows we could hardly wait for the big party in Pennsylvania to celebrate with those who were unable to travel.  Bringing a touch of the southwest to our party in PA was really important, so when I found this collection of Zane Grey Novels I knew I had to include them somehow.

Zane Grey was a prolific western adventure author who spent the later years of his life in Pennsylvania.  The historical landmark that once was his home is 45 minutes from ours!  The symbolism was perfect; western writer who spends his later years near our hometown….and the price wasn’t too shabby either; only $0.65 per book at a local vintage shop!

Betsy Dunlap‘s work has been present throughout our renewal invitations and save the dates so I saw it fitting to have her create an image that I could have turned into a rubber stamp.  I knew hand painting 75 books would be a chore but didn’t want to make it an impossible task.

Betsy penned a frame of text that repeated the words “Kristy and Adam 10 Years.”  I then imposed one of my Cosmo illustrations and sent the image off to a stamp maker.  White acrylic was brushed onto the stamp and – voila, our altered book invitations were begun!

Each bloom was then painted with various color inks; four shades of orange and red, a touch of gold, and three shades of green.  Rich, heavy strokes of color were added to each bloom to contrast the rough, water-stained shape the books were in when we found them.

Black velvet ribbon acted as a simple bookmark to discover the page in the book where the actual invitation was adhered.

Betsy also created the calligraphy for the kraft paper address labels, which were adhered to boxes that contained the party invitation and Zane Grey novels.

You can check out Kristy’s watercolor vow renewal invitations and letterpress save the dates here and here, and you can see lots more of her beautiful work over on Momental Designs.  Thank you so much Kristy!

{image credits: photo of kristy and adam from green apple photography, all other images by kristy rice}