Internet Exposure: Brooklyn Bride

Yesterday I was so excited to discover that a project of mine was featured on Brooklyn Bride!

Graphic: Brooklyn Bride

The post was a roundup of the top 10 seating charts and escort cards.  I was honored to be included in this great list, especially since I recognized a few favorites.  And being considered alongside industry mega-giant Martha Stewart Weddings was pretty, freakin' spectacular too!  The bottom-right display has been a source of inspiration for a long time and I recently discovered the mini flag display on Pinterest and pinned the heck out of that image.  Love them!

My balloon escort cards were a DIY that I did as a guest post on Oh, Hello Friend in October.  I still really love this project and think it would be such a cute alternative for the fun couple wanting to capture a bit of that childhood whimsy.  I hadn't thought about this project in awhile so it was fun revisiting those images yesterday and remembering the shoot I did with my brother, the model.  

Thank you Brooklyn Bride for the feature!

Best Friend Save the Dates

Today I am SO excited to share the save the dates that I designed and packaged for my best friend Ashley's upcoming wedding!  Maybe you remember the bridesmaid booklets that I put together for her girls (including myself)?  The save the dates actually came before the booklets and they turned out really fabulous.  We decided to do a postcard style card (printed by Overnight Prints) which included pictures from Ashley and Scott's engagement session with photography by Stephany Fashempour. 

But it was just too boring to mail out a single postcard in an envelope so I put my crafty twist on things.  Each postcard got packaged in a glassine bag and tied with twine in Ashley's wedding colors, wine and royal blue.  For a decorative flourish I added some circle tags cut out of decorative paper.  These simple details gave the save the dates a little something extra and according to Ashley and her family, everything has been a big hit with all the guests.  Ya! 

So what do you guys think?  Do you like how everything turned out, including my crafty flair with the packaging?        

Crafted Bridesmaid Booklets

I am so excited to share a special project with you all today! 

Some of you may know that I am the maid of honor in my best friend's upcoming fall wedding.  I have known and been friends with Ashley since kindergarten so it is very special to be by her side for her big day.  But I was even more honored when she asked me to help design some elements for her wedding.  I designed and packaged her save the dates which turned out spectacular!  I plan on sharing pictures of those later this week so check back for that.  Today I want to share her bridesmaid's booklets.  Early on, Ashley and I started brainstorming about all the bridesmaid details: which girls Ashley wanted by her side (other than me!), what dress the girls would wear, what were the wedding colors, and where we wanted to party for the bachelorette weekend.  Even early on, we agreed on compiling a booklet to send to each girl.  Although emailing is easy, we wanted something a little more concrete and special.  I designed the booklet with pictures and Ashley wrote a personal message about each of her bridesmaids.  I think the girls will all really enjoy receiving this handmade gift in the mail and start to get excited about the upcoming festivities!

Here is what I came up with:

I'll start us off with some preliminary pictures that I took while finishing up the last little details yesterday.  I bound each book with book cloth and hand-stitched the binding.

The booklets were a little stiff at first and wanted to pop back open.  So I weighed them down with some books to keep them shut.  

My office assistant hard at work on her pillow.  The scary part about this pictures is that this is after my studio was cleaned.  Yes, this is organized or at least semi-organized for me.  You should have seen the disaster it was before.  I'm in the process of rearranging everything in my studio so right now, everything is kind of haywire.  I'm not loving it but hopefully soon everything will be fully organized and put back into place.

Ok, so back to those bridesmaid booklets...

I love button + string envelopes!  I just knew I had to use them here.  They make you feel like you're opening up something truly special and not just another regular envelope.

Each bridesmaid got her own little section in the book with a special message written by Ashley.  It was a personal touch that I loved.  Ashley wrote the nicest things about everyone.

I love maps and traveling (and Ashley is a huge traveler) so I designed this map to highlight everyone's journey to the wedding.  The red lines and dots represent Ashley and her fiancé's journey...so I marked their respective hometowns, the city where they met, where they are residing now, and where they got engaged.  The blue lines and dots represent where members of the bridal party will be traveling from to get to the wedding. 

And I used this great paper from Paper Source as the inside liner for the booklets.  It is a nice, subtle pattern and the color worked with Ashley's color scheme.  I am dreaming up ways I can use the scraps in some personal projects.  

What did you think of my booklets?  I think it was a great way to make something special for each of the girls.  I really enjoyed the bookbinding and definitely want to try more of that in the future.  Maybe try some mini books.  

Happy Tuesday everyone!  Check back in tomorrow with some big news! 

Vintage Hankies

Last year, I was fortunate enough to contribute this project to the amazing blog Oh, Hello Friend:

I sell these bridesmaid thank you hankies in my shop and am currently working on a custom order for an Etsy client.  The best part of this project is that I get to search around in antique stores looking for the cutest vintage hankies.  I have been searching for ones that would fit a blue and green color scheme and here are a few that I discovered:

Vintage hankies are oh so cute and not necessarily grandma-y.  Recently I have seen them used in all kinds of innovative ways that make them much more contemporary.  Here is some hankie inspiration that I found on Pinterest:

Framed hankies (yes, please!) found on Poppytalk via Pinterest

Hanging Handkerchief Vases found on Once Wed via Pinterest

Hankie Save-the-Dates found on The Wedding Chicks via Pinterest

Hankie garland found on Oh, Hello Friend, photographed by Simply Bloom (amazing photogs!) via Pinterest

Another hankie garland found on Style Me Pretty, photographed by Jill Thomas (another crazy amazing photog) via Pinterest

So are you a hankie fan?

Desert Valentine Inspiration

Happy Monday everyone!

How was your weekend?  Some of you might still be reveling in your weekend thanks to those great Presidents of ours.  I plan to spend my day answering some emails, designing, crafting, and shopping at Joanns and spending my President's Day coupon!  And it's not just any coupon, it is a 10% off your entire purchase coupon!  This is big time, they don't come around often.  Normally they do 40% off a single item coupons but these aren't too helpful when you're buying a bunch of inexpensive little things, something I frequently do.  I have to buy a handful of items for some upcoming DIYs so let the shopping begin!

Ok, enough about Joann's coupons, today I want to share pictures from my Desert Valentine inspiration shoot that was featured on The Knotty Bride before February 14th.  Alison's beautiful blog is definitely not the place to go if you're looking for the same-old, same-old so I wanted to make my Valentine's DIY unique.  Obviously you see a lot of pinks and reds and hearts around VDay so I wanted to avoid those for this particular shoot.  Don't get me wrong, I love pink and hearts but I wanted to appeal to the girl who craves something different.  My influences were desert colors and textures, burlap, jute twine, and kraft paper.  All are inexpensive materials that I paired with succulents and mason jars for a complete look.

If you follow my blog, you know that I went to Palm Springs with my bestie Elysse.  It was a girl's weekend away but also a chance for me to drag her along on one of my photoshoots.  We stayed at The Ace Hotel and also staged most of the pictures there.  Below is an example of how helpful she was...Elysse your arms are famous now!

My favorite detail from this shoot had to be the mason jars with the jute twine wrapped around them.  See the full DIY tutorial with pictures over on The Knotty Bride.  It was super simple to execute (it doesn't require any special skills or materials) and it could be used in all kinds of decor situations.  The jars would be perfect as table props for a rustic wedding.  Maybe I'll try styling a table mockup to show the versatility of these jars in the near future.  It definitely isn't just a Valentine's project, far from it! 

Definitely check out the rest of my images from this shoot (I'm in love with all of them) and enjoy your Monday and the start of your week!