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Janie + David’s Oversize Map Destination Wedding Invitations

The ladies at Ladyfingers Letterpress make the coolest wedding invitations.  You (hopefully) remember Arley-Rose and Morgan’s awesome neon and hand lettered wedding invitations for their own wedding last September, and today they’re back with an equally fabulous invitation suite designed for a destination wedding in Hawaii.  I love the oversize invitation (printed on the reverse side of a vintage map!) and all the fun hand lettering elements!

From Morgan and Arley-Rose:  Janie and David have an amazing destination wedding planned for a small group of family and friends in Hawaii.  As a lover of paper and stationery, Janie wanted to incorporate the idea of a love letter into the design for the invitation.

We started with a beautiful map from the year 1794.  We wanted to use something that was was historic and it turns out our printshop is down the street from a small map shop. We called and they had a map of Hawaii!  It was so breathtaking and since its design was within the public domain, all we had to do was some color separation and it was ready to be offset printed in four colors!

Almost all of the typography is hand drawn, written, or painted by Arley-Rose.  The actual invitation is printed on the back of the map, which is folded and serves as the vehicle for all of the other invitations pieces to travel within.  Morgan sourced the very last pallet of Crane’s 100% Cotton Coral Paper (sorry everyone) for the card detailing the story of Janie and David’s love.

The response card is a Mad Lib for guests and includes questions such as “dancing sandal size.”  The travel details are printed on a tiny sunshine yellow card are tucked in a gray envelope mounted on a much larger card declaring “A New Adventure Starts Here.”

Each invitation was folded with its accompanying pieces and wrapped in ribbon from Carta Inc., wax sealed with a heart, and stuffed in a gold envelope lined with wave patterned liners.

So awesome!  Thanks Arley-Rose and Morgan!

Ladyfingers Letterpress is a member of the Designer Rolodex – check out more of their beautiful work right here or visit the real invi­ta­tions gallery for more wedding invitation ideas!

Photo Credits: Ladyfingers Letterpress

Friday Happy Hour: The Boulevardier (aka: The Bittersweet Manhattan)

I am not the biggest fan of the Manhattan.  This is something of a terrible secret to confess in the world of cocktail aficionados.  The Manhattan is as classic a cocktail as they come; it’s a quintessentially masculine cocktail.  But it’s a little too rich for my taste.  So, I played around until I found a version I loved, which I dubbed the Bittersweet Manhattan.  Except it’s hard to invent anything truly new in the world of cocktails, and I found out that my recipe goes back at least to the 1920s as the Boulevardier.  Oh well.  It’s delicious no matter what you call it.

Read below for the full recipe!

The Boulevardier

2 oz Rye Whiskey
1/2 oz Sweet Vermouth
1/2 oz Campari
2 Dashes Bitters (optional)

Combine the ingredients and stir well with ice, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass or serve with an ample lump of ice.  Garnish with a lemon twist and enjoy.

 

A Manhattan, made with Rye, sweet vermouth, and bitters, is rich, spicy and oaky, sweet and sharp, icy cold and warming at the same time.  A Boulevardier is a Manhattan made with Campari – a very bitter Italian liqueur – in place of some of the vermouth, and is a little less sweet, a little more rounded, but just as sharp, aromatic, and complex.  With all that Campari, this version really doesn’t need any more bitters (though I found that Fee Brothers Cherry Bitters works well here).  I like a lemon twist for a garnish as the oils help balance the drink; you can go with a twist or the more common Manhattan garnish, a cherry.

 

Campari is one of the amari – Italian bitters – that also include Aperol, Punt e Mes, Cynar, and Zucca.  To be honest, its bitterness can be overwhelming.  I was ready to write it off until I read Jason Wilson’s fun and fascinating (and slightly self-impressed) spirits memoir Boozehound.  Wilson described happy hour in Milan as sipping amari and soda, munching on tramezzini and prosciutto and polenta covered in gorgonzola with coiffed men in red pants and brown belts or crisp blue suits, and lithe, tan, sunglassed women who drive Vespas in their high heels.  After that, I figured Campari was worth another try.  I may never love it, but I’m a fan when it’s mixed well in cocktails like the Boulevardier.

From whence the Boulevardier?  This drink belongs to Harry McElhone, proprietor of Harry’s New York Bar in Paris (and inventor of the French 75), and first appears in his 1927 cocktail guide.  It probably gets its name from a magazine published by Erskine Gwynne, an American expat who almost certainly patronized Harry’s.  Gwynne’s magazine, which featured the work of the likes of Hemingway, Lewis, Coward, and Joyce, was called – what else – The Boulevardier.

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper

{happy weekend!}

Happy Friday everyone!  We’ve had another gorgeous week here in DC – last weekend we finally made it down to Mount Vernon, where I couldn’t tear my eyes (or nose) away from the gorgeous dogwoods and lilacs blooming all around the estate.  Yay spring!  I’m looking forward to an even more beautiful weekend and a bit of relaxation.  But in the meantime…

…a few links for your weekend!

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

Photo by me, from a trip to Mount Vernon last weekend

Friday Happy Hour: The Widow’s Kiss

Something that Europeans do very well (that Americans don’t really do at all) is the digestif.  In a lot of places, any decent meal takes a long time and ends with a digestif, a drink designed to aid digestion.  Given the number and range of digestifs, you’d think that Europeans have lots of trouble with indigestion: brandy and whiskey; aromatic wines like port, sherry, and vermouth; French herbal liqueurs like Chartreuse and Benedictine; and all those wonderful Italian bitters like Cynar, Campari, and Zucca (not to mention the deliciously sweet, lemony Limoncello).  Digestifs are traditionally consumed neat or straight, but they also make for some amazing cocktails.  Here’s one you should try after your next big meal: The Widow’s Kiss.

Read below for the full recipe!

The Widow’s Kiss

1 1/2 oz Apple Brandy or Calvados
3/4 oz Yellow Chartruese
3/4 oz Benedictine
3 Dashes Angostura Bitters

 

Combine the ingredients and stir well with ice (or shake – which you normally shouldn’t do with an all-spirits drink – to give it a nice texture), then strain into a chilled cocktail glass and enjoy.  You can garnish with a lemon twist or a cherry, but this drink doesn’t really need one.

Here’s what you get: a deeply herbal drink with a warm apple finish from the brandy.  It’s rich and sweet, so save this one for sipping during a long, lingering conversation after dinner.  The Widow’s Kiss can be too sweet for some people, though I find its herbal complexity balances its sweetness.  If you prefer a dryer drink, try reducing both liqueurs to 1/2 oz or adding a few more dashes of bitters.

 

The Widow’s Kiss is the creation of George Kappeler, head bartender at the Holland House hotel on Fifth Avenue back in the 1890s.  This was right around the time that bartenders were starting to expand their ingredients to include liqueurs beyond the traditional maraschino and orange.  As David Wondrich notes: we don’t know if Kappeler had a particular widow in mind when he made this drink, but if he did, she must have been quite a lady.

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper

Meg + Bryan’s Plant Marker and Plantable Save the Dates

Happy Monday everyone!  We’re starting the week off with an unusual (and very cool) save the date from Meg at Belle + Union.  The bride and groom were inspired by the concept of putting down roots with their wedding, so they decided to incorporate handmade ceramic plant markers and letterpress printed text on plantable paper.  The bride also created a video of the printing and assembly process that you can watch below!

From the bride, Meg: Bryan and I had been dating for over six and half years when we got engaged.  Since we’ve been all over and done seemingly a thousand and one things in our six+ years together, the concept of “roots” and “growth” were really strong in our conversations, which paved the way for the entire aesthetic direction of our wedding.  We plan to incorporate a lot of natural elements and plants and herbs in lieu of cut flowers in the decor.

 

We really wanted the save the date to set the tone for the wedding.  I remembered something called seed paper, and Meg and I eventually decided on a rich french blue paper letterpress printed with gold ink, combined with handmade clay plant markers stamped with our date and tied to the paper with sparkly gold and white twine.  The idea was kind of perfect – you could actually plant the save the date and watch it grow roots.

After a weekend of printing and crafting,  I flew back home with a giant box of goodies and spent the next weekend cutting, tying, stuffing envelopes with my best friend and my fabulous mother.  All the while, I was documenting the process, which I edited into this video.  The video has become something really special for us – since we’re encouraging our friends and family to plant their save the dates and not keep them as mementos, we will all have this video and the flowers that grow from them instead.

Thanks Meg!  You can check out more from Belle + Union right here!

Design and Letterpress Printing: Belle + Union

Photo Credits: Pat Furey Photography