Miranda + Matt’s Travel-Inspired Save the Dates

These save the dates are cute, quirky, and completely delightful.  Leslie from Lilly & Louise worked with bride and groom Miranda and Matt to create a unique and interactive save the date.  They paired a vintage map of California, where the wedding will take place, with baker’s twine and a bold striped envelope liner for a whimsical travel-inspired design.

From Leslie: Miranda and Matt wanted to excite guests with a unique and unexpected save the date… something tactile and textural that would leave an impression.  Both Miranda and Matt are from the East coast and their wedding will be in California, so it will be a destination wedding for many of their family and friends and they wanted to incorporate the idea of travel into the design.  With a palette of peach, navy, gray and cream, we mixed organic elements of a vintage map of Southern California and geometric elements of bold, thick stripes.

Because good mail is even better with an interactive element, we chose to include the actual save the date information inside a mini envelope.  Upon opening the envelope, guests find a classic quote from When Harry Met Sally, then unfold more details.  The entire save the date is bound by navy and white twine and two small tags.

Thanks Leslie!

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

Photo Credits: Leslie Lewis Sigler of Lilly & Louise

Amy + Mike’s Vintage-Inspired Gold Letterpress Wedding Invitations

Happy Monday everyone!  I find myself gravitating to all things shiny and metallic as the days get shorter and colder, so I was thrilled when Vici-Jane and Richard from the UK-based Artcadia sent over these fun vintage-inspired gold wedding invitations for New Zealand couple Amy and Mike.  Vici-Jane and Richard previously worked with Amy and Mike on an acrobat-inspired save the dates and carried the theme through to the invitations.

From Vici-Jane: Six months ago, Amy and Mike contacted us to commission a design for acrobat themed save the date cards, in ticket style.  We’ve continued this fun theme throughout their 2 colour letterpress invitation suite.  We used gold and black ink, giving the suite a real luxury feel.  The resulting look is perfect for their New Zealand wedding where they’ll be having an acrobat to entertain their guests!

 

Thanks Vici-Jane and Richard!  Check out more from Artcadia right here!

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

Photo Credits: Artcadia

Friday Happy Hour: Hot Apple Toddy

The Toddy is a drink that has stood the test of time, dating back to the American Colonial period.  It’s delicious, smooth, and – when made hot – keeps the cold at bay better than most anything else.  This version incorporates both apples, making it sweeter and fruitier, and apple brandy, a quintessentially American liquor.  Looking for something to keep you warm this fall?  A drink to follow Thanksgiving dinner?  This is your drink.

Read below for the recipe!

Hot Apple Toddy

2 oz Applejack or Apple Brandy
1/4 oz simple syrup
1/4 oz honey
1 splash lemon juice
4 oz boiling water
1/2 of a baked apple

Slice an apple in half and bake it in the oven at 350° for 30-45 minutes until soft.  Peel off the apple skin (it should come off easily once baked), combine the apple with all the liquid ingredients except the water and muddle together until the apple has dissolved into pulp.  A pinch of nutmeg or cinnamon can work well here.  Strain into a mug or a tempered glass and – the best part on a cold night – add the boiling water (a little at a time if you’re using a glass to avoid cracking).  Garnish with an apple slice or cinnamon stick and drink piping hot.  Enjoy the feeling of warmth returning to frozen limbs.

 

If you’re in a rush, you can always skip the baked apple.  A Hot Toddy, made from spirits, sugar, and hot water is pretty great with or without the fruit.

A note on spirits: You can make this drink with brandy or whiskey, but applejack or apple brandy make this a drink our earliest forebears would have enjoyed on a cold night on the frontier.  Pretty much everyone back then was making and drinking applejack.  Applejack was traditionally made by freeze distillation: fermented apple cider would be frozen in winter, the ice skimmed off periodically to reduce the water content and increase the proof until you had brandy.  When John Chapman, better known today as Johnny Appleseed, traveled around the country in the early 1800s planting apple orchards, he planned to sell them to settlers not so they could bake pies, but so they could make, sell, and drink applejack.

It’s not so easy to get real applejack these days.  Laird’s sells a liquor and calls it applejack, but it’s really a blend of apple brandy and (mostly) neutral spirits, which means a lot of the color and flavor is added artificially.  Look for an unblended, aged apple brandy or Calvados.  You’ll get pretty much the same flavor and body, though they’re not freeze distilled.

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper

{happy weekend!}

Happy Friday everyone!  This week was a lot of fun, from a date night with my husband to hanging out with Kyle from Power + Light Press in her Moveable Type Truck last night!  You might remember Kyle’s letterpress kickstarter project from last year, and she’s spending a few days in the DC area this week.  So if you want to see what this letterpress business is all about (and try out a couple of presses yourself), you can go visit Kyle near the Dupont Circle metro this afternoon from 4:30 – 7:30 p.m. or go see her in Baltimore this weekend!  For folks outside of the DC area, check out the rest of her tour dates right here.  But in the meantime…

This is the print that I made last night with Kyle.  Willie Nelson was playing a concert across the street.  Ha!

…a few links for your weekend!

This week on Oh So Beautiful Paper:

A big welcome to the newest Designer Rolodex members!

  • Spark
  • The Pressroom & Co.

That’s it for me this week!  We’ve got a fun cocktail recipe coming up a bit later this afternoon – but here’s a hint: it’ll help keep you warm!  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you back here on Monday! xoxo

{photo by me}

Melissa + Francisco’s Spanish Calligraphy Wedding Invitations

It’s always a good day when a wedding invitation from Kathryn at Black­bird Letterpress shows up in my inbox.  Kathryn created these gorgeous wedding invitations for an upcoming wedding in Uruguay; the invitation design was inspired by a lighthouse near the wedding venue.  The invitation features the beautiful hand lettering of Betsy Dun­lap (written in Spanish!), and I love that the bride and groom added a wax seal to the envelope prior to mailing the invitations out to their guests!

From Kathryn: The bride and groom are getting married in Uruguay.  Melissa, the bride, sent me a few photos of the shore and lighthouse where they were getting married and I designed from there.  The couple are originally from Argentina and Venezuela and live in Miami.  The invitation is written in Spanish in Betsy Dunlap’s beautiful calligraphy.  Melissa also wrote a sweet post about the invitations on her blog showing a beautiful wax seal detail they added to the envelope.

Thanks Kathryn!

Design and Print­ing: Black­bird Letterpress

Cal­lig­ra­phy: Betsy Dun­lap

Black­bird Let­ter­press is a mem­ber of the Designer Rolodex – you can see more of their beau­ti­ful work right here or visit the real invi­ta­tions gallery for more wedding invitation ideas!

Photo Credits: 1 – 3 by Ben Christensen Photography, Wax seal image by Melissa