Sunflower + Slate

New: residency graduation invitations for the Medical University of South Carolina – a clean, modern design in slate and sunflower. If you click on the image above, you'll get a better look at it.

This is the kind of work I do when I'm not at the press (or, let's face it, trying to wrangle these children along the path to civilisation).

I especially loved this project because it gave me an excuse to talk to my BFF (haha! I've never used that before!) Pauline on the phone three times in one day. Unheard of! She's a physician at MUSC so we felt entitled to make multiple work-related calls.

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{Dates have been digitally altered for privacy}

Un-Baby Shower

Baby showers can be fun (especially when you replace games with wine) and baby shower invitations can be fun too.

This is the latest custom shower invitation I've designed – it's flat printed, but it would be fantastic letterpress printed in just one or two colours.

{I hardly need to say it, but the actual invitation doesn't have gaps in the phone number or email address. That's just me bestowing privacy via Photoshop...}

Sweet Olive Press - monogram stationery

New custom monogram letterpress notes, printed this month!

(For more information about custom letterpress design and printing, visit the Sweet Olive Press web site...)

Winter Wedding: Chantal and Dave

At last I can show you all the pieces I designed for Chantal and Dave's wedding reception in D.C.!

I designed the invitations around their wedding theme: peonies, fuchsia, navy and lime, and then I created a complete wedding stationery suite to match. Chantal sent the photos from the reception this week.

These are the menus...


The sign for the Vice & Nice table, with chocolates, liqueurs and cigars...


The Bride and Groom seat signs...


Sign for the 'love notes' table...


Countless escort cards...


The menu again...


...and the table numbers.


It's such a thrill to see the way everything came together.

{Images: Roman Grinov Photography}

Cut and paste!

You don't even want to know (and nor do I) how many hours I spent on this design, but I was really happy with the way it turned out.

Kristen and Brian wanted another custom Christmas card reflecting their lives and pets and passions, and I was a long way down the making-a-collage path before I realised I was in pretty deep.

I spent days scrapping various drafts and living in a blizzard of paper bits. Eventually I dug my way out of the photos and magazines and catalogues – Crate & Barrel, J.Crew, Paper Source, Land of Nod – and put the finishing touches on this scene.


(I should say: these cards were finished back at Thanksgiving, but I didn't want to spoil any surprises by posting them here too soon.)

Peonies

Chantal and Dave tied the knot on Saturday – hooray!

I've been working on custom-designed pieces for their wedding all year, and now that they're married it won't spoil any surprises to show you some of their stationery here.


Chantal chose peonies as the inspiration for her entire wedding stationery suite, with her wedding theme colours of fushcia, navy and lime.


The picture above shows the wedding invitation and RSVP card... they were enclosed in navy folders along with menu selection cards and direction cards. Here is the menu...


It's so long that I didn't manage to fit the end with all the cakes in the photo!


Above – the escort cards... and here's the wedding program...


... the peony design extends on to the back cover, and the text inside is navy. And here's the sign for the groom's chair:


(There was also a Bride sign, which was much more ornate!) The sign below invited guests to write down their best advice for the newlyweds on small notecards...


The table numbers (below) were framed ...


...and Chantal had a brilliant idea for a "Vice And Nice" table, with cognac, cigars and chocolates. The sign below was framed and placed on the table.


There were Welcome stickers and Thank You stickers (I don't have pictures of those) as well as these little notes for the welcome baskets...


...and finally, the brunch invitations!


Hopefully when Chantal gets back to D.C., we can show you some pictures from the big day...

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Whiskers on kittens

I had to gaze at the walls and pace around nervously for a long time before I came up with this design.

It's a custom Christmas card project I completed earlier this month, and it needed to show: Kristen and Brian; their cats Dusty and Maisy; a lot of holiday spirit and some moving boxes (they're in the process of relocating from Manhattan to a riverside home of their own, north of the city).

Kristen loved my retro cards, so I pulled all the details into a 1950s-ish design full of off-register colours, melamine shades and boxes and kittens. We actually ended up with more kittens than originally planned — Kristen had sent me photos of herself and Brian and their two cats, and when the card was nearly done, one more photo came in. It was Oliver, a tiny little bit of a kitten they'd rescued.

Who can say no to a brand-new kitten at Christmas? So Oliver made his Christmas-card debut just in time, playing with an ornament near Kristen's feet (you can see him in the picture below).

Custom projects make me nervous at the start — every time. Staring at a blank page (well, screen) with every idea and option untouched is daunting. And sending the completed design to a client for the first time feels, to me, like walking out on a stage. But the process is inspiring, and the rewards are great. I love knowing that little drawings can help capture the spirit of a moment — big or small — in people's lives. I love the feeling of having done a great job, and breathing that sigh of relief.

It's always a little stress at the start and a lot of happiness at the end. A bit like Christmas.

Boxes, boxes

I made these.

Well, the stickers – not the boxes. Kateri from Leaves Of Glass needed hundreds of jewellery-box stickers for a big and fabulous gallery project she's involved in, and here they are in all their glory...

If you want to see Kateri's jewellery in all its glory, look here.

Urban Vintage

I kind of wanted to keep these... but since my business name isn't Leaves of Glass and since Kateri (whose business name is Leaves of Glass) had paid me to make them, I didn't.

I love custom design because I get inspired in completely unexpected directions. This project was so absorbing — coming up with a notecard design to reflect the "urban vintage" look of Leaves of Glass. (Kateri's jewellery is lovely, by the way — and when the earrings have names like "Invitation to the Dance", "Spring in my Step" and "I Call My Sugar Candy" — I want to run out and get my ears pierced.)

Australian Wedding

At last... here are the lovely antique-themed invitations created for Aaron and Sue's wedding on the Gold Coast. The invitation is printed on luxe textured card and tucked in its chocolate folder, with the reception card, reply card and directions.