Psssssssst...

There's some design activity over on my design blog..... Go check it out. Sorry for the self-promotion, but I need to drive some traffic over there;)

Other posts, to come:)

Time for something new

I decided it was time to separate my design work from my personal life. I figured that not everyone interested in my design work wants to hear about the misadventures of Anne K. in L.A. Conversely, people who are trying to keep up my life can only view but so many invitations and announcements. Without further ado, I present my other blog.

Please click on the logo to check it out

If the link doesn't work, it's thepaperstylist.blogspot.com

A small sample of things to come....

Friday August 8, 2008 (Part 1)

Mia contacted me a few weeks ago. She had fallen in love with the mason jar cookie favors Janice, Debra and I had created for Wendy's shower.

She initially was inquiring about how we put the favors together and how we made the cookies. After a short discussion, she admitted she was a tad bit burnt out on DIY wedding projects and asked if I would be interested in creating the tags for her. I happily obliged. And after careful consideration, she decided to add her escort cards to that list.

Her only stipulations were I match both items to the monogram she created. The flower in the monogram are two eights placed together, which represents their 08/08 wedding.
Here's what I created for her.

Escort Cards

Each card was color coded to indicate each guest's menu choice

Favor Tags

I only created the tags. Mia baked all the cookies enclosed, which were delcious. Her mom sewed the fabric wrap around the jar because she said she didn't want the jars to be "naked".

Special Thanks to my friend Keren who helped me glue and assemble all of these.

An extra set of hands really made things go quick.

This isn't all I had to contribute to this wedding. There's more. Stay tuned for Part 2.

Wedding Date Twins

Thursday August 7, 2008

I really have been busy with design work. I have a first. This is the first time I've been asked to design invitations for weddings that are on the same day. These couples are in essence wedding date twins. Their wedding dates are the only thing they have in common. The style and feel of each wedding was radically different from the other. This gave me the opportunity to really flex my "design muscles".

Pam & Geoff

Pam and Geoff were referred to me by the very talented coordinating duo - Jill and Stephanie of Style and Grace Events. When I met them, they told me that their wedding colors were inspired by cymbidium orchids, only in reverse. They wanted burgundy as the dominant color with spring green/chartreuse as an accent color.



Additionally, they said they really liked the look of the dahlias in my wedding invitations from last year.


Here is what I came up with...

Burgundy Pocketfold with Chinese Symbol for "Love" printed on a Stardream Enclosure

Invitation and Inserts printed with Raised Thermography

Close-up of Invitation

Close-up of RSVP Card

Close-up of Map Card

Janice & J.D.

I have worked with Janice previously. She had me design bridal shower invites a couple of months back. This time it was a little more exciting because I was working on her wedding invitation suite. The extra challenge for this job was that Janice wanted to Gocco print all of her stationery. I had the very daunting task of creating a design that would translate well for that style of printing.

She and her fiance J.D. wanted invitations that evoked the rustic romance of their reception venue, The Firestone Vineyards' Crossroads Estate.

They also sent me these photos as a frame of reference. My apologies for not knowing the origins of these invitations.

They were very much interested in an invitation suite that was a deck of cards.
Here is my design coupled with Janice's painstaking printing and invitation assembly. Janice is quite a trooper. She spent over a week Gocco printing these babies. To not leave anyone out, her fiance J.D., rounded the corners of each card and added the wax seals to the belly bands.

Invitation Bundle

Invitation, Reception Card, and Directions Card

RSVP Card and Envelope

Both suites were a lot of fun to work on. I'm looking forward to designing the rest of their wedding paper paraphernalia.

Little Things Add Up

I have my very fun Sunday to recap and I will get to that a little bit later. I have been remiss in blogging about my design projects. This is not for lack of work. Thankfully, I have been fairly busy. Over the last month, I have been working on 2 invites suites and a plethora of small projects. It's these small projects that have really kept me busy. In the last couple of days, I have delivered 3 of them.

The first of these to be delivered were personalized notecards. These were requested by Melissa. Melissa wanted to give them as gifts for the hostesses of her bridal shower. She described one hostess as funky and the other as a girly girl. This is what I created for her.


The second project I delivered was for Wendy. She requested Bridal Shower invites for Janice. For this job, I was able to resurrect a design that another client had decided was not in keeping with the style and theme of their wedding. To add a teeny bit of flair, I created a matching envelope liner.



The latest project to be delivered was custom table numbers for Frances. Frances and her fiance Michael wanted to incorporate pictures of themselves growing up as part of their table numbers. Frances emailed her photos to me and I created a simple design. They had a whopping 17 tables! So, this could probably be classified as a medium-sized project. I didn't want to bombard this post with too many photos.






That was a preview of my small projects. I'll be debuting the two invite suites shortly.

Playing catch up

Disclaimer: I actually started this post last week. I didn't get around to posting this because of a family emergency. Don't worry. All is well now.

If idle hands are the devil's instruments, than I should be very close to God right now. I have been toiling on this particular invite suite for over a week. This is one of the largest and most comprehensive projects I've taken on. The order was for 200 invites - designed, printed, assembled and addressed.

Jenny and Kenny - photo by Ellice Schwartz

I met Jenny a few months ago at one of our monthly dinners. Shortly thereafter, she found this blog and asked me to design her wedding invites. She said that she wanted something classic, elegant, and formal. Her colors were gold, ivory and champagne. Her brother had created a monogram for them. Lastly, she didn't want any graphics and minimal color. [Sound of record skipping.] What?! This project was going to be really easy or really difficult.

I treated this design like one of my design projects from Art School. I focused on using classic well-known typefaces. To create visual interest without relying on color or graphics, I decided to use texture as a design element. I used a Stardream paper, handmade paper, and classic linen cardstock.

Here is my finished product.

Invitation Pocketfold

Close-up of belly band and seal featuring monogram designed by Jenny's brother

Overview of Invite Suite

RSVP Card with matching envelope

Custom Map

More invitation love...

Aside from Michael's and Frances' wedding invitation, I have been feverishly working on Daniella's and Josue's wedding invitation.

Daniella is another person that I have meet through the knot. She has always been very sweet and genuine. In order to include as much of their family and friends in their celebration, Daniella and Josue have opted to put themselves on a very strict budget to ensure they could afford to include everyone. Because of this, Daniella had considered DIYing her invitations. I got that sense that she and Josue had their hearts in the right place. Did I mention they met while working at a retirement home? I felt inspired to do something nice for them. I offered to design and assemble her invites for her.

photo by Square Eye Photography

When I first spoke to Daniella about her invitations, she had a few small requests. She wanted me to use her existing monogram, her color scheme of red & black, and a damask pattern.

Here is what I designed for her.



I hope that Daniella & Josue like them as much as I enjoyed making them.

A design challenge

This is Michael & Frances.Photo by Louis Palos

Frances is another person I have met through the knot, where she is known as PinkCheese. She contacted me a few weeks ago to design her invites. She had initially planned to DIY her invites and purchased all the materials to create them. However, after careful consideration she decided that it was more work than she had time for. At present, she is juggling a full-time job and graduate school.

This turned out to be a challenging project. Not because my client was difficult, but because I inadvertently put too much pressure on myself. Frances had provided me a blueprint of how she would like her invites assembled. This should have made the job a piece of cake, but in a twisted way ended up being more difficult. I ran into a bit of designer's block. I was afraid that I would not be able to produce a design that would work with Frances' blueprint or live up to what she had envisioned.

Frances' Blueprint - Part 1

Frances' Blueprint - Part 2

After a few sleepless nights, I was able to come up with a design that she liked. Here are photos of the finished product.

Front of the Invitation

Gocco'ed Envelope & Invitation Interior


Custom Map


Gocco'ed RSVP Envelope and RSVP Card