My husband was a history major in college, so we have quite the collection of vintage maps and antique globes going on in our apartment. Â Our love for maps doesn’t stop with the antique variety, however, and these personalized map prints from JHill Design are pretty cool!
The prints can be customized with names, a date, and details like longitude and short sentimental memories from an occasion. Â Wouldn’t they make lovely gifts for weddings, anniversaries, or even new babies?
I’m usually more likely to get really excited about a great wedding guestbook idea, but when Justine Ungaro sent over this amazing (and eco-friendly) wedding photo album that she created for her friends and recent clients, with beautiful cotton pages and embossed details, I knew it was just way too beautiful not to share!
The photographs in the album are actually matted, giving the album a more classic and archival feel than some of the more recent flush mount albums.
Of course, Justine’s lovely images make the album even more beautiful! Â Justine did a little write-up about this album on her blog, and you can see more of her beautiful work right here!
These birthday party invitations from Rise and Shine are beyond adorable – a modern take on lions, tigers, and bears all befitting a first birthday celebration!
Oh my indeed – check out more from Rise and Shine right here!
As I mentioned in my first post, Crane & Co. was founded in 1801 and has been producing paper and stationery in western Massachusetts ever since.  As you can imagine, the company has quite a history.  So it’s only fitting that Crane would have a public museum to help tell its story – and I’m sharing a few photos from the museum for the final installment in our tour.
{a portrait of founder Zenas Crane}
{a short explanation and model of the paper making process}
{I thought these watermark portraits were amazing}
{all of the Crane social occasions albums}
In addition to making paper for personal stationery, Crane supplies the United States and other countries with currency paper.  Crane has supplied U.S. currency paper since 1879.  If you ever visit the Crane museum, make sure to ask about how to identify counterfeit bills – there’s a neat little demo.
{entries in the Crane ledger book date back to the American Revolution and Civil War}
{an old scale}
{a model of a paper mill}
A Crane museum wouldn’t be complete without examples of the various stationery, invitations, and announcements the company has printed over the years.  The invitation below features a 7-color engraved monogram at the top.  Seven colors!
Did you know that Crane does all the printing for Tiffany & Co.?  In addition to the collections with Kate Spade and Martha Stewart Weddings, Crane also prints all the stationery and invitations for Cartier  (check out a few photos from our stop at Cartier last year right here)
That just about does it for the tour!  I hope you enjoyed the photos – and a big thanks to Crane for the opportunity to visit their facilities!
{all photos by me}
*DisÂclaimer – Crane & Co. proÂvided my accomÂmoÂdaÂtions durÂing this visit; but this is not a sponÂsored post.  For more on my ediÂtoÂrÂial poliÂcies, please click here.
As promised, I’m back with a third installment of our tour of Crane & Co stationery. Â After visiting the platemaking and printing facilities at Crane Personalized Design Services, we moved over to the Crane Stationery Division, located in a separate building in Dalton. Â This is where all of the non-custom stationery orders are filled, from boxed stationery sets to holiday cards to designs in the Crane Studio Collection, as well as where envelopes and packaging materials are assembled.
{I love that so many of these buildings date back to the 1800s – the building architecture alone is completely fascinating}
Our first stop in this building was a large warehouse room, where Crane keeps all of the different sheets of paper used as envelope liners for stationery and wedding invitations:
{so many lovely envelope liner sheets!}
From there, we went to the envelope room – with the biggest paper cutting machine I’ve ever seen!
{stacks of paper waiting to be cut down to size}
{if you look closely, you should be able to see the outline of the envelope template above}
In the next room, another huge machine – this one takes the envelope-size paper and folds it into actual envelopes.  The envelope machines are truly enormous, I think each one was about 25-30 feet in length!
{finished envelopes coming out of the machine and being counted}
From there, we went into a larger room, similar to the printing floor at Crane Personalized Design Services. Â In this room, all of Crane’s boxed stationery sets and stationery collections are assembled and packaged for delivery.
{a cool installation and painting on the wall as you enter the main room}
Most of us probably don’t think much about the actual stationery packaging, but Crane makes all of its own boxes. Â The box machine (I’m sure the machine has a formal name, but I didn’t catch it) is probably the biggest machine that we encountered during the entire tour!
{that’s all glue above!}
I tried to capture the entire process, but static images just can’t really give you the full effect – luckily the folks at Crane have captured the process on video!
After gawking at the box machine for a few minutes, we moved on to another room where hand borderers create the colorful borders on personalized stationery and writing notes.  I took photos of a hand bordering demonstration at the National Stationery Show, which you can see here – it’s truly an amazing skill.  Again, Crane has helpfully provided a video of the process:
Up next, the final stop on our Crane & Co. tour – the museum!
{all photos by me | video courtesy of Crane & Co.}
