Mary + Ben’s Elegant and Rustic Wood Veneer Save the Dates

Mary and Ben’s save the dates are a wonderful mix of elegant and rustic, modern and classic.  Melissa and Amy from Atheneum Creative were inspired by Mary and Ben’s love of nature, pairing delicate blooms with simple and elegant text.  Once again, they partnered with Sideshow Press to letterpress print the save the dates on a thin sheet of wood veneer for a subtle rustic look.

From Melissa + Amy:  Mary and Ben love the outdoors and nature and the idea of bringing in natural textures, like wood and burlap, but did not want their wedding to come across as too earthy.  We developed a wedding logo that would really convey their love of nature while keeping it simple and personal, eventually deciding on a 4-color letter P (for the groom’s last name) intertwined with blooming flowers.  We kept the type very modern, giving us that subtle rustic look we wanted.

 

Thanks Melissa + Amy!

Design: Atheneum Creative

Letterpress Printing: Sideshow Press

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

Photo Credits: Chelsea Davis Photography

Shea’s Veuve Clicquot-Inspired 30th Birthday Party Invitations

These 30th birthday party invitations are so much fun!  Amy from the Brisbane, Australia-based St. Gertrude Design and Letterpress created the design around the client’s love for champagne – what better way to celebrate a thirtieth birthday?  The invitations combine letterpress and giclée printing, elegant flourishes, and a bright and happy color palette.

From Amy: My lovely client Shea is a self-confessed champagne fiend.  Her friends know her as quite the champagne connoisseur, so we worked with the theme to create a Veuve Clicquot-inspired invitation that set the tone for a sophisticated 30th birthday party.  The invitations were letterpress printed in two colours onto Pearl White Crane Lettra, then coloured in the very distinctive Veuve palette using a giclee printer.

The first little hint the recipient got was this happy, happy, happy burst of Veuve yellow peeking out from pearl white cotton envelopes.  In place of the grand widow’s red signature, a phrase was scribbled: “Trente est le vingt nouveaux” (“Thirty is the new Twenty”).  Those who spoke French laughed.  Those who didn’t Googled it.  Then laughed.

Thanks Amy!

Photo Credits: Structured Pieces

Caitlin + Andrew’s Historic Gettysburg Wedding Invitations

Happy Monday everyone!  My husband and I are back home after a quick weekend trip to upstate New York to visit family; it was a great trip, but I’m so happy to be back home with our cats!  We’re starting this week off with a suite of lovely invitations for a wedding in historic Gettysburg, Pennsylvania from Dianna and Emily at Fourth Year Studio.  Once Caitlin and Andrew settled on Gettysburg as their wedding location, Dianna and Emily set to work on the wedding invitations, save the dates, and rehearsal dinner invitations – drawing design inspiration from some of the unique historic features of the region.

From Dianna: As history buffs, Caitlin and Andrew were traveling in Gettysburg for a weekend visit when they first realized they were in love.  After getting engaged, they knew it was the perfect place to tie the knot.  The invitation design stemmed from the historic relevance of Gettysburg.  The battlefields are lined with wood fences that are unique to the area and the tree graphic was actually derived from an image of a witness tree (a tree that was witness to the civil war battles and is still standing today).  Their October wedding took place at sunset overlooking the historic battlefields.

 

For the main invitation, we letterpress printed three pieces in turquoise and brown ink onto thick cotton paper.  Coordinating fabric strips strung the three pieces together.  RSVP postcards were flat printed on wood veneer and enclosed in a fabric pocket.  The final invitations were packaged in kraft paper envelopes with a matching address label.

Like the RSVP postcard, the save the dates were also flat printed on wooden postcards.

The rehearsal dinner invitation was letterpress printed and backed with fabric.  All the fabrics used for the rehearsal dinner invitations made a reappearance at the reception in the form of little love birds handmade by Caitlin’s sister.  The RSVP portion of the rehearsal dinner invitation was printed front and back on extra heavy cotton paper.

Thanks Dianna and Emily!

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

Photo Credits: Dixie Pixel

Friday Happy Hour: The Robert Frost

Today’s cocktail is the Robert Frost, a bourbon-based cocktail with sherry and white port that is unbelievably tasty.  The drink was invented by none other than Derek Brown, DC’s cocktail master, for a 2009 White House holiday party.  While we sadly aren’t invited to parties at the White House, we had the pleasure of tasting Derek’s creation during a recent outing to the Columbia Room, one of his DC establishments.  Be careful with this one.  It goes down easily, and may disappear faster than you mean it to!

Cocktail-Recipe-The-Robert-Frost

Read below for the recipe!

The Robert Frost:

3/4 oz Bourbon
3/4 oz Dry Sherry (such as Amontillado)
3/4 oz White Port
1/4 oz Simple Syrup
1 dash Orange Bitters

Cocktail-Recipe-The-Robert-Frost Cocktail-Recipe-The-Robert-Frost

Combine the ingredients and shake gently with ice.  Strain into a chilled, wide-rimmed cocktail glass.  Garnish with thinly sliced orange and lemon wheels, and enjoy!

Cocktail-Recipe-The-Robert-Frost

This is a really fantastic and complex drink that showcases sherry without being overwhelmed by it (which I’ve discovered can easily happen with sherry in cocktails).  The bourbon lends an oaky, vanilla flavor but the real star of this drink is the Amontillado sherry, which is fruity, nutty, and grainy all at the same time.  The bourbon, sherry, and port all lend sweetness to the drink, so add simple syrup sparingly (and to taste).

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper

{happy weekend!}

Yet another week that flew by much too quickly (at least for me)!  This weekend my husband and I are heading to upstate New York to spend time with my husband’s family and visit our brand new niece!   I’m bracing myself for cold weather and hoping to catch a glimpse of the changing leaves that I’ve heard are so pretty in the region (although the leaves have been very pretty here in DC, too).  But in the meantime…

…a few links for your weekend!

This week on Oh So Beautiful Paper:

Welcome to the newest member of the Designer Rolodex!

That’s it for me this week!  Check back a bit later for this week’s cocktail recipe – it’s a seriously good one this week!  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you back here on Monday! xoxo

Photo by me (from Instagram), taken near the Washington Monument yesterday afternoon