Origami Crane Cards featured on Etsy!

I hope everyone out there (in the US) had a very Happy Thanksgiving! If you haven't checked out our etsy store lately, you should, as you will find several lovely holiday cards for sale there. We are going to be listing even more holiday card designs over the next two weeks, so please check back frequently!

In other, etsy-related news, one of our letterpress printed Origami Crane cards was featured in an etsy treasury today entitled Blue Lue. Check out the treasury here. If you'd like to purchase one of these cards they are currently available as singles, sets of six, or sets of ten. These cards are also available in other colors and patterns, so go check them out! Have a great weekend!

Holiday Meet Your Maker Show & Sale this Sunday!

Happy Friday Everyone! If you're in the Eugene/Springfield, Oregon area this weekend and are looking for something fun to do, come out to the Meet Your Maker Holiday Show + Sale this Sunday at the Fenario Gallery in downtown Eugene! The Fenario Gallery is located at 881 Willamette Street and the show will run from 11:00-5:00. The Fenario Gallery is a much larger space than the show has been in before, so there will be many more vendors and lots of holiday goodies to check out! I've been busy this week printing up lots and lots of holiday cards, all of which will be available on Sunday!

In other (related) news, I was recently interviewed by the ladies of Meet Your Maker about letterpress, Twin Ravens Press, how we got our start, etc. If you'd like to read the interview, it's posted on their blog here.

Have a Happy Weekend and I hope to see you Sunday!

Save the Date: Erica & Noah are Getting Married!

Check out these super-cute Save-the-Date cards that I finished earlier this week for a couple in Syracuse, New York who are getting married next June! Erica & Noah's save-the-date card is an A6 size card measuring 4.5"x6.25", printed in Navy Blue ink on a custom-made, 100% cotton, recycled, light pink paper that is embedded with wildflower seeds from Porridge Papers. The cards were printed and then affixed with a small photograph of Erica and Noah. They came with coordinating cream-colored envelopes from Waste Not Paper company that were printed with the couples' return address in navy blue ink.

I love how gorgeous and textural the papers from Porridge Papers are! They are so pretty, unique, and absolutely wonderful for letterpress printing. They take letterpress impression beautifully and are so fabulous to the touch. Check out these close-up photos for a better look:

Aren't they cute and beautiful all at the same time?!? I love that Erica had us print on a light pink paper too - it's not a color that my clients ask for too often, but I think this paper would be lovely for other wedding stationery or for some really sweet baby shower invitations or baby announcements too! Erica, Noah and I are currently working on the designs for the rest of their invitation suite which will be printed shortly after the first of the new year. If you like this design, make sure you check back to see the rest! It's going to be pretty!

Tamera & Trevor's Wedding Photos!

Shortly after I wrote this post earlier this morning about the stationery we created for Tamera & Trevor's Montana wedding last July, Tamera e-mailed me and shared some photos from their wedding day! She gave me permission to share some of them with you and I figured you might like to see the gorgeous celebration that their gorgeous stationery was for! Tamera and Trevor are such a cute couple. I really love the photo of them in the canoe, and make sure your scroll down and check out their cake. Gorgeous! All wedding photos are courtesy of Lauren Brown Photography.

Tamera & Trevor are Married!

(Image courtesy of Lauren Brown Photography)

I have to preface this post by saying that I feel pretty lucky. I get to work with a lot of amazing people, all over the country (and world!) doing something that I love, almost every day. So when I tell you that the wedding invitation suite that I'm about to show you, is quite possibly one of my favorite invitation suites that we did this year, it's not to say that I wasn't totally excited about the others, it's just that this suite and the couple it was created for, were just really awesome.

Tamera and her now-husband Trevor are from a small town in North Dakota and were planning their wedding at a lodge in Montana, just south of Glacier National Park for this past July. Let's just say that while I create stationery for a lot of different types of weddings (rustic to high-class, casual to formal, etc.), I felt that Tamera's sensibility and style, as well as what she was planning for her wedding, would be right in line with the sort of ceremony I would plan for my own. After all, she and I have quite a bit in common: she's from a small western town and so am I, she was planning a casual outdoor ceremony in a beautiful place, which is probably what I would do for my own wedding, her wedding was small with just her closest friends and family, etc. Let's just say that when we started talking and she told me what she wanted, everything just sort of clicked. I completely understood her style and vision, and I loved it! Here's what we created:

Tamera and Trevor's invitation suite included a slightly-smaller-than-A7 size wedding invitation that was double-matted on Nepalese Lokta paper in olive green and plum purple and attached to a chocolate brown pocket folder. Inside the pocket folder were five insert cards: a registry/website card, a map card, a reply card with corresponding envelope, an accommodations card and a directions card. All of the interior cards were printed on a custom, handmade, 100% cotton, recycled paper from Porridge Paper in their birchy dirt color that was embedded with mixed wildflower seeds. Porridge's seeded paper is really neat in that, while it is one of the most environmentally-friendly papers I've ever found, it will also actually grow flowers if the paper gets wet. Pretty neat, don't you think?!? As you can see above, all of the little cards and inserts fit inside a chocolate brown pocket folder that looked like this when it was all closed up:

Each folder was sealed shut with a band of the same Nepalese Lokta paper in both the olive and plum colors that we used to matt the invitation and then tied with a piece of natural raffia. I love how earthy and beautiful each of these little packages looked! Each folder fit inside of an A7 size envelope in Khaki from Waste Not Paper Company.

Each envelope had the couple's return address and a small flying bird printed in chocolate brown ink on the back flap and their bird design that we used throughout the suite printed in three colors (3 colors!!) on the front of the envelope. Most envelopes that I print are only printed with one ink color, so it was really a treat to get to print these envelopes with all three. Each invitation envelope was also lined with Nepalese Lokta paper in either the olive or plum color that you've seen above. We did half in one and half in the other, just to mix things up!

Let's look at the main piece in the suite: the invitation.

As I mentioned above, Tamera and Trevor's invitation was slightly smaller than a standard A7 size so that it could be matted with both of their lokta paper colors and then attached to the inside of their chocolate brown pocket folders. We used a classic serif font for the majority of the text of their invitation and printed the couple's names in a more fancy script font in a lime green ink. The bottom of the invitation features a small wild grass motif and the top features a lovely design of plum purple birds in branches with little green flowers. I've used elements of this design on a few other invitations since Tamera and Trevor's, and let me tell you, it really is gorgeous in several different color combinations and layouts.

I love the way that all of the small details in this design worked together so harmoniously and how the fine lines and gorgeous colors created such a beautiful and crisp impression in the wildflower seeded paper! Aren't the too close-up photos above just lovely?!?

Since their wedding was a destination wedding, Tamera and Trevor had quite a bit of information that they wanted to convey to their guests. In order to do this, we created five separate insert cards in different sizes that fit into the pocket of their pocket folder. Each insert was printed in three ink colors on the same paper as their invitation.

The tallest insert was their directions card which featured directions to their wedding venue, Holland Lake Lodge, from all different parts of Montana.

The second tallest was their accommodations card. Tamera actually had me design and print two separate, but similar accommodations cards. One was for the family and wedding party that would be staying at the lodge with the couple, and the other was one for their other guests, which gave other accommodation information for people who wouldn't be staying at the lodge.

The card for the family and wedding party was single-sided and featured fill-in the blanks that Tamera used to tell them where they would be staying. The other accommodations card was double-sided and gave guests lots of choices for places to stay, from hotels to campsites, that were near the couple's wedding venue.

The middle card was Tamera and Trevor's reply card. This was the only card in the suite that was horizontal rather than vertical. It featured a standard accepts/regrets option as well as a question about what other wedding events guests might be attending. Tamera and Trevor planned a red bus tour of Glacier National Park and a whitewater rafting trip as other wedding events! Each reply card came with it's own corresponding envelope that had Tamera and Trevor's return address printed on the front in chocolate brown ink with their bird motif in three ink colors in the top left corner.

The second shortest insert was their map card. Originally this was going to be part of the directions card, but Tamera had directions from so many different places that we ended up creating a separate card just for her map.

A map like this is more decorative than anything else, but I think it adds a wonderful and whimsical touch to any wedding suite!

Last, but not least is their tiny combined registry/website card.

Sometimes you just need one extra little card for all of that "extra" information that doesn't seem to fit anywhere else. This card gave guests information on where Tamera and Trevor were registered as well as an address to their wedding website.

Isn't their invitation suite just stunning!?! I absolutely love how it turned out and think that it was a gorgeous beginning to what I imagine was an absolutely gorgeous outdoor summer wedding! Tamera also had me print one small piece for their wedding reception:

I designed a set of coasters like this for another couple, Lynn & Matthew almost a year before, but Tamera loved them so much that she wanted to use them for her own wedding, in her colors. Each coaster was 3.5" round and printed with two ink colors: chocolate brown and plum purple. Aren't they cute?!?

Working with Tamera and Trevor was an absolute joy and I hope that their wedding ceremony this past July was everything they had hoped it would be!

Congratulations Tamera and Trevor! All the best!

Emily & Stephen are Married!

(Photo courtesy of Emily G Photography)

Happy Friday, everybody! It's been kind of cold, rainy, and wintery in Western Oregon today, so I thought I would share with you a really bright and cheery wedding invitation suite I printed earlier this summer for a very cute couple who were married in Portland, Oregon in late September. Emily and Stephen are good friends of mine. Shortly after college I met both of them while we all worked at the same University bookstore. Emily and I worked in the graphic design/marketing department and Stephen was working in IT. I can remember talking to Emily constantly about how one day I was going to quit doing design for marketing and advertising and open up my very own letterpress shop (she and I used to have our desks about three feet from each other after all). At that point, she and Stephen had recently started dating, so it was really fun when she got in touch with me earlier this year about letterpress printing her wedding invitations, and it was really fun in September to get to go to their wedding!!

Anyway, being the über-talented designer that she is, Emily designed her invitations herself! Check them out:

Emily and Stephen's invitation suite included an A7 size invitation and envelope and an A2 size RSVP postcard. They were printed in two ink colors on Crane Lettra Pearl White 100% cotton paper and came with a coordinating white envelope from Waste Not Paper company. Emily and Stephen also had me print some really cute, matching wedding coasters for their reception as well!

Emily's stationery as well as her wedding, was bright, cheery and colorful. They had their ceremony and reception in Portland, Oregon at the McMennamin's Kennedy School - an old-fashioned school house that has been converted into a hotel/restaurant/bar/event space. I love how she was able to incorporate so many pretty colors into everything from her invitations to her reception without the whole thing being overwhelming. Here is her invitation by itself:

Emily chose to print her invitation in deep red and light pink inks. I love the fun and whimsical floral pattern she designed which adorned all of the pieces.

Their reception coasters were printed in the same ink colors with their names and the wedding date and some of the cute floral pattern. These are a 4" round coaster, which is perfect for beer, cocktail, wine and other beverage glasses!

I wish I had taken some photos of how cute these looked at the reception, but, I actually forgot to bring my real camera to their wedding and the only photos I have were taken with a cell phone (and they weren't very good ones). Let me tell you though, they were super-cute!

Here is the coordinating Waste Not Paper invitation envelope that Emily picked out:

We used a very pretty reddish-purple ink to print the return address on the flap. Then, for their reply cards, Emily chose to do a postcard to save on reply card envelope printing and postage. We used the same reddish-purple ink on this card as well as a bright and cheery yellow!

I absolutely love how Emily and Stephen's personality and sense of humor shines through on the reply card. Take a look at their accepts/regrets options: "Sure" and "Nah...". Aren't they just too cute?!? I think they're just about as cute as the couple they were created for. Here are some photos from Emily and Stephen's big day, taken by Portland-based wedding and portrait photographer Emily G.

(All Wedding Photos courtesy of Emily G Photography)

If you'd like to see more photos from their wedding, check them out on their photographer's blog, here.

Congratulations Emily & Stephen!

Vespagraphics Business Cards

Check out these awesome business cards we printed for owner/creative director of Vespagraphics, Keith Van Norman, last Friday! Vespagraphics is a graphic design company in Eugene, Oregon that focuses predominantly on print media, so it was quite the compliment that the owner, Keith, hired me to design and print his new cards, rather than designing them himself. Keith's company focuses on creating socially, environmentally and fiscally responsible design solutions within their own work, and he wanted to keep up this responsibility with his business cards by using an environmentally responsible (recycled, tree-free) paper and soy/linseed oil-based inks.

Keith's cards were printed on a custom, seeded, 100% recycled, 100% cotton paper by Porridge Papers in a cream color. The paper is embedded with wildflower seeds that will actually grow! They were printed with two ink colors: chocolate brown and deep burgundy-red. Design-wise we chose to go with a more antique-looking layout, with a vintage-inspired rendition of a Vespa in the center of the card, and all of Keith's relevant contact information thoughtfully placed around the Vespa in a slab-serif font. I really love the wood-type inspired typeface that we used for the actual business name. I've used this typeface on a few other projects before, and I absolutely love how crisp and classy it looks letterpress printed!

Then, to be extra-fancy and unique, rather than keeping this card a standard rectangular shape, we die-cut the cards on the letterpress into a unique and more organic shape! I find die-cutting to be a really satisfying process that can really add a lot of character to certain designs. For Keith, it was the perfect finishing touch to make his cards really unique and interesting!

Keith was an absolutely wonderful client to work with and it was so much fun getting to show him the actual process of printing his cards from start to finish! He actually came and hung out in my studio on Friday morning while I was printing his cards, just so he could check it out. It's really fun for me when a client takes as much interest in the process of creating their cards, as well as in the outcome! If you've ever wanted to see more photos of my shop, Keith took quite a few while I was printing, which you can see on his flickr stream. Check them out! Also, if you've ever wanted to see a 1912 Chandler & Price Letterpress in action, Keith took a short video of me as I was printing and die-cutting his cards. Check it out here:

If you are interested in having new business cards designed and printed for your company, please feel free to contact me anytime! Also, if you are in, or are willing to travel to the Eugene/Springfield, Oregon area and would like to visit our studio to check out the actual printing process, you are more than welcome to do so! (Just make sure you make an appointment first).

Thanks so much Keith! You rock!