Megan + Kevin’s Illustrated Family Crest Wedding Invitations

I love the idea of having a family crest – and there’s nothing to say that you can’t develop your own crest to pass down to future children and grandchildren.  That’s exactly what bride and groom Megan and Kevin decided to do for their wedding invitations!  They worked with Richele from Richie Designs to design the invitation suite, which includes a custom family crest created by illustrator Serena Chang.  So cool!

From Richele:  Megan and Kevin wanted to develop a custom family crest.  Each item in the illustration has special meaning for them, and the Latin term means “better together.”  We worked with illustrator Serena Chang to develop the family crest.  We chose to digitally print the invitation due to time constraints, while the thank you cards and envelopes were letterpress printed.

We brought Megan’s orange and blue color palette into play by using formal outer, inner, and rsvp envelopes.  The outer envelope was white with a letterpress printed fleur pattern, while the inner envelope was orange with a custom envelope liner.  Finally, the rsvp envelope was navy blue – a color used throughout the invitation suite – and was letterpress printed with silver ink.

Thanks Richele!

Design and Printing: Richie Designs

Illustration: Serena Chang

Richie Designs is a member of the Designer Rolodex – you can check out more of Richele’s work right here or visit the real invi­ta­tions gallery for more wedding invitation ideas!

Photo Credits: Richie Designs

Aaron + Harper’s Fingerprint Heart Wedding Invitations

Happy Monday everyone – I hope you all had a good weekend!  Fingerprints are such a sweet detail to incorporate into wedding invitations, so I was thrilled when husband-to-be Aaron Leshtz sent over the gorgeous invitations that he and his fiancée, Harper, designed for their upcoming wedding.  I’m also loving the playful RSVP card and fun kraft paper accents!

From Aaron and Harper: We designed our own wedding invitation suite.  We’re both architects and wanted to put together a clean, modern invitation suite that also had some playful elements (the “learning curve” font, overlapping fingerprints, etc.).  We’ve always loved brown kraft paper and the way it contrasts with crisp white paper, so we made sure to use it as an accent material in the suite.

 

For the fingerprints, we individually scanned our ring fingers and then traced the prints in AutoCAD (nerds, I know).  We overlayed the two fingerprints to create the heart and are using is as a graphic thread to tie together elements of the wedding.

Our wedding invitations were letterpress printed by Norman’s Printery in Wyckoff, New Jersey.  It is a 2-color design printed on cotton Lettra #110, ecru paper.

Thanks Aaron and Harper!

Design: Aaron Leshtz

Letterpress Printing: Norman’s Printery

Check out the Designer Rolodex for more tal­ented wed­ding invi­ta­tion design­ers and the real invi­ta­tions gallery for more wedding invitation ideas!

Photo Credits: Aaron Young Photography

Friday Happy Hour: The Mint Julep

Born and raised in the state of New York, I am a Yankee through and through – even though I now reside in the decidedly southern* city of Washington, DC.   That does not, however, preclude me from enjoying one of the South’s greatest culinary gifts to the world, the Mint Julep.

Read below for the full recipe!

The Mint Julep

2 oz Bourbon
1/2 oz + 1-2 Dashes Simple Syrup
Fresh Mint
Powdered Sugar

Fill a highball glass or, better yet, a silver julep cup a third to half full with fresh mint leaves (the smaller the better as these are the most fragrant).  Add 1/2 oz simple syrup and muddle gently – press down firmly but don’t grind up the leaves. Discard the mint, pressing out as much of the sugar and mint oils as you can. Fill the glass halfway with crushed ice, then add your Bourbon and a dash or two more of simple syrup, to replace what you lost with the mint leaves. Top with more crushed ice until there’s a nice mound on top.  Garnish with a sprig of mint (slap it against your palm a few times first to release the fragrance).  Get your straw, give it a bit of a stir, and dust it with some powdered sugar.

 

Sip slowly on the veranda.

The Mint Julep is a deeply refreshing drink.  Your Julep should taste, first, of Bourbon, but also minty, sweet, smooth, and ice cold.  Don’t skimp on the mint, but use it wisely: discard the mint once muddled, and don’t over-do it by grinding up the leaves.  You want to bruise the leaves to extract the flavorful oils, not unleash the leaves’ powerful and not-too-pleasant underlying vegetal flavors (much less end up with mint in your teeth).  Stop once the leaves start to change from bright green to brown or black.

Do not settle for Juleps with a paltry handful of mint leaves or, worse, artificial mint syrup.  You’re better than that!

 

The Julep goes back over a thousand years as a macerated, flavorful concoction, intended as medicinal but with dubious effect.  But the Julep we know and love today began to take shape in the late 1700s, and David Wonrich traced the first mention of mint in a Julep to 1802.  The Mint Julep was once widely popular throughout the country and widely imbibed in the North and the South, city and country.  Some time over the last century or so, the Mint Julep came to be closely associated with the rural, agrarian South – but that’s no reason we can’t enjoy them wherever we happen to be.  Especially in the summer.  Especially on a veranda.

Does it have to be Bourbon?  To a Southerner, anything else might be heresy.  But the earliest Mint Juleps were more likely to be made with Brandy than Bourbon.  Play around with this one: equal parts Brandy and Rye could be amazing in a drink like this.

*If it’s south of the Mason-Dixon Line (the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania), it’s in the South.  QED.

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper

{happy weekend!}

Happy Friday everyone!  I don’t know if it’s the time of year, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about simplifying – getting back to the things that I really love (and that make me the most happy), and making more time in my daily and weekly routine to enjoy my city and hang out with friends.  This has meant letting go of a few projects and saying no to some other ideas.  I’ve also been on a mission to declutter our apartment, which is a huge challenge for a natural pack rat like me!  As difficult as these things can be, I feel a million pounds lighter with each step.  Do any of you go through stages like this?  Anyway, we have family visiting this weekend and I’m looking forward to exploring more of DC with them.  But in the meantime…

Magnolia garland and tiding wall decal by Shanna Murray

…a few links for your weekend:

  • Gorgeous illustrated notebooks
  • A pretty new print from Christine Wisnieski
  • Yum!
  • A fun DIY project: silkscreened placemats
  • DC-area folks, help Pyramid Atlantic celebrate its 31st birthday this Saturday!
  • Another one just for DC folks – but as a Capitol Hill resident, I’m really excited about this
  • Lynn from Satsuma Press is offering a fantastic deal on her beautiful letterpress calling cards.  Use code 6LSY8L to order 250 two-color calling cards for just $195 (a 40% discount!), or code ZEA68L for 10% off 100 two-color calling cards.  Offers are good through the end of April.

This week on Oh So Beautiful Paper:

As usual, we have a fun cocktail coming up for you this afternoon, so check back a bit later for the recipe!  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you back here on Monday!  xoxo

Travel-Inspired Letterpress Business Cards from A Fine Press

Matthew from A Fine Press sent over the fabulous business identity and stationery that he recently designed for wedding photographer Karen Ard.  Karen loved the idea of incorporating a wax seal (such a great detail!) and doing something travel-inspired, so Matthew came up with an identity inspired by Southern California surf culture and business cards inspired by luggage tags.  The entire suite was letterpress printed on kraft paper in soft and beachy colors.  So lovely!

From Matthew: Karen was particularly drawn to the idea of a wax seal to bring her business stationery together.  She approached me with the idea of doing a travel-inspired visual identity and stationery suite that maintained a nod to her SoCal location.

For inspiration, we drew heavily from postage and postmarks from around the world.  We loved the idea of using the circle of a postmark as our starting point.  A friend’s surf video got me thinking about all the great surf-culture branding out there and the image of a hibiscus blossom on a longboard provided us with a clear direction.

Karen wanted colors to reflect the beach and had suggested we start with seaglass colors.  From there, we settled on teal, with brown as a second color along with cream and kraft-substrates.  For a typeface, we went with the Deco-styled Aviano Sans, which I found extremely evocative of vintage travel.

The print pieces were done on French Paper’s Muscletone Kraft with PopTone Whip Cream envelopes.  In addition to Karen’s official colors, I printed her 1-color logo in transparent white on her thank you cards to make it pop while keeping it neutral in color.  Her luggage tag-inspired business cards were printed with her handwriting filling in the important details.

Thank you so much Matthew!

Photo Credits: Karen Ard