Custom Recap: Emma's Birth Announcements Featured on Oh So Beautiful Paper

Oh my goodness, I'm not even sure where to start with this post. Last week was both a rough and an amazing week, all in one, and so many things have happened in such a short amount of time. First things first, thank you all SO much, from the bottom of my heart, for all of your love and support around my first newsletter. I cannot believe how many of you signed up and showed your support. The emails were pouring in, and it sounds like you're all almost as excited as I am about my new business name and logo! In fact, you all showed SO much support that my subscriber list doubled in the 12 hours after I sent the newsletter! I ended up sending a second email to everybody that signed up late and missed the first one. Wow, I am just so overwhelmed, thankful, and excited to be starting my new business chapter!

And in fact, the newsletter leads me into this here post. I wrote in the newsletter how I had submitted a special design to Oh So Beautiful Paper for feature, and that I had my fingers crossed that the design would be picked. I've submitted plenty of things to OSBP before - it's THE blog for stationery design, and it's also difficult to get a submission featured - so I know better than to get my hopes up. However, I was really hoping that the custom birth announcements I created for baby Emma would get picked.

Anyway, after the newsletter went out, somebody tweeted me to congratulate me on my Oh So Beautiful Paper feature. To be honest, I was mortified - I didn't mean for the newsletter to sound like I had actually been featured, and I was afraid my friend has mis-interpreted what I wrote in the letter. So I quickly tweeted back to her that I was not featured, but keeping my fingers crossed for a future feature. She quickly tweeted back with this link. I swear to you, I had NO idea that the design was picked up for the feature, and the timing of it couldn't be better/more ironic! I nearly fell off of my chair when I saw it!

My very first Oh So Beautiful Paper feature, and I am so, so, so excited - not only about the feature, but to share the design and story.

So without further adieu, please meet Emma.

These sweet announcements were inspired by both my Aerial and Falling in Love designs, and they were printed on shimmer paper and paired with lovely pink metallic envelopes.

Aside from how beautiful the invitations came out, the story behind them is even more beautiful. If you look really closely at the design, you'll see two dates, the date Emma was born, and the date she was brought home from the hospital. I asked Emma's mother to share her story, and here's what she wrote to me:

Emma Claire and her identical twin sister, Gabriella Hope, were born 16 weeks premature at 24 weeks gestation on Friday, July 13th, 2012. Gabriella’s lungs were too immature to survive and she passed away 2 hours after she was born in our arms. We were told it was not likely that Emma would make it, but she continued to defy all odds with each day she spent in the NICU. After 6 months in the NICU, Emma came home on January 11th, 2013. Since we were so consumed with having her in the hospital when she was first born, we didn’t get a chance to send out birth announcements. When she started getting close to coming home, we decided we would send out a coming home announcement. It was important to us that the announcement illustrated how far she had come in her first 6 months so we knew we wanted to include her birth stats as well as her coming home stats. Jackie took our ideas and created the perfect announcement to celebrate our brave little girl! - Karen, Emma's mother

After hearing little Emma's story, I sincerely think we created the perfect announcements. I'm not sure if Karen selected the Falling in Love design for this reason, but I absolutely love the way the top of the design starts out with teardrops, which slowly fade into falling hearts. I think it's such a sentimental and special way to really capture little Emma's journey and both the sadness and joy that the family has been through over the past year.

Please join me in sending lots of love and hugs to baby Emma!! And thank you, Karen, for letting me take, even just a small part, in little Emma's journey!

Custom Recap: Davis Family Branding

A few months ago I had the pleasure of working with a a member of my extended family, Gayle, who is my uncles mother, to create some really beautiful stationery for her and her husband, Ron. This past year, Ron and Gayle officially entered retirement, and decided to sell their home near Boston and split their year between a home in Florida and a home in Maine. Gayle was looking for a way to let family and friends know about their move, and how/where to contact them throughout the year.

The more Gayle and I chatted, the more I thought the project was along the lines of a family branding - so I went to work creating a style that we could use for calling cards, folded stationery and flat note cards. I came up with the idea of "Pine to Palm" since their year was spent half in the pines of Maine, and half in the palms of Florida.

I absolutely love the way everything turned out - the soft neutral colors, the gingham backer pattern and the blue envelope pull all of the different pieces together perfectly.

On their first drive down from Maine to Florida, Gayle spent a good portion of the multi-day drive writing notes to friends and family on her new folded cards - letting them know about the move.

She also keeps a stack of calling cards with her at all times, so that she can quickly give them to friends when they ask for her contact information. These cards might be my favorite part of the project, they are just so perfectly compact and pack a huge amount of information. These little cards clearly communicate what time of the year Ron and Gayle will be in Maine, and when they will be in Florida, plus their phone numbers and addresses for each location. What a great idea!

And the last element of the set is the flat stationery, which Gayle plans on using for special notes and correspondence. I love the idea of having an entire theme throughout all of the stationery you use, it's something that brands and businesses do - and I hope the trend catches on for families. It's such an organized, sophisticated way to represent yourself.

If you love the idea of family branding as much as I do, I would love to work with you and create your perfect set of stationery to represent all of the different aspect of your unique life. Contact me to start talking about making your ideas a reality.

Custom Recap - Baby Cruz's Birth Announcements

Today I'm sharing with you a really fun project that I worked on back in late 2012. There definitely seems to be a bit of a baby boom lately, and there isn't anything I enjoy more than helping first time parents announce their newest little addition!

I first met Mel when I became a Hand Pick Vendor for the Wedding Chicks. Mel and I were exchanging emails and small talk practically every day, and then, one day, I got an out-of-office reply from her that she had her baby! YAY! I quickly sent her another email to congratulate her and before I knew it we were talking birth announcements for her new baby boy, Cruz.

When I asked Mel for some inspiration - as I always do on custom projects - she sent me these gorgeous photos of Cruz's nursery. A neutral palette with bright pops of green and fun patterns - I was in designer inspiration heaven!

How awesome is his nursery! I love the clean lines, pops of color, and sophisticated neutrals. It was so easy to start designing on the birth announcements - I drew on all of the room elements, the colors, patterns, and lines, to create this modern, yet sophisticated announcement.

How adorable is baby Cruz?! And how perfectly do these announcements coordinate with his Nursery?! I loved the announcements so much, that I actually submitted a similar design into a recent Minted challenge, and it won and editor's pick! So now you can get your very own Cruz inspired announcement.

The Inline Announcement, below, is available in a variety of die cut shapes and paper options.

If you'd like to see more pictures of adorable baby Cruz and his nursery, head on over to On To Baby, where a sweet feature was posted.

Jackie and Mike's 2012 Holiday Card

Before the holidays are too far behind us, I wanted to share the cards I sent to friends and family this past year. With Designers Care and my busiest Believe Notes holiday season ever, there were a few weeks there that I just didn't think I'd be able to send cards at all. Luckily, inspiration struck and not only did I get to send cards, but I absolutely love the way they came out. I've been trying to practice my hand lettering lately, so I thought the holiday cards would be the perfect opportunity to test out my new skills.

I like for our cards to be really meaningful. but still fun and good-looking. Since a huge part of 2012 turned out to be Designers Care, I decided to go with a clean black and white design, and the backer pattern has a "stamped" effect. Something else that I do every year is create a pattern that features objects that were important to us throughout the year. Since this year marked the year of renovation (we did all of our floors plus the kitchen over) I decided to include hammers and stoves, along with paw prints (for Miss Juliet) an NYPD shield (for Mike's job) and apples since my husband and I are die hard Mac lovers.

I had my heart set on black envelopes, and since the only way to write/print addresses on them is either by hand (with a white, silver, or gold marker) or with an address label. I'm not typically a fan of address labels - they make me thing of those God-aweful ones that people print at home and then slap on cards. Since I was too lazy to hand write each address, I knew I needed labels, and so I though some round labels with hand lettering would spruce things up and turn them into an added design element. They also shaved a ton of time off, which was awesome, because these cards went out late. The labels were placed a little off-centered, which is exactly how I wanted them, and I love the way they came out! The finishing touch was the gold stamped return address (I used this stamp) and a little gold washi tape.The cards themselves were printed on super thick recycled stock with rounded corners.

The photo was taken by the super talented Jainé, of Brklyn View Photography, during my head shots for Believe Notes. Mike was there to help me keep Juliet out of the way, and Jainé was kind enough to snap this super fast family shot. I love the way the lighting fades off, and the beautiful NYC sky line in the background makes it even better.

I know it's a little late, but from my family to yours, I hope you had a great holiday & are off to a wonderful start in 2013!

Custom Recap + Brklyn View Photography

One of my goals for this year is to network more and send heartfelt notes to people I really admire.  Jainé, the photographer behind Brklyn View Photography, is one of those people. I had been following her blog for a while, and when I saw her get published on Style Me Pretty I was so darn excited that I finally decided to email her and introduce myself. After exchanging a few emails (and enjoying really awesome burgers and drinks together) we decided to collaborate on some stationery and head shots. Turns out that Jainé is a paper junkie, and I'm a picture nut, so we were like a match made in heaven!

Jainé loves all things pink and fun, so we decided to create two stationery looks for her. One features lively confetti with her logo on the back, and the other has a hand embossed "thank you" on the front in gold, with bright pink and red stripes on the back. Sounds awesome, right?! I've been playing around with hand-embossing lately and loved that Jainé was on board.

I know, I know, these cards are totally awesome. The icing on the cake is that both sets of cards were paired with hot pink envelopes and gold envelope liners! And I'm not going to lie, I think I'm in love with hand embossing, it's such a beautiful way to add an extra element to designs. Labor intensive, yes, but so very worth it!

Custom Recap: Pink & Grey Housewarming Invitation

Today I want to share a customized housewarming party invitation I created based on my House + Warming design. I love taking a design and giving it an update through color and specialty paper, so I was super excited when my client asked for the invitation to be done in grey + pink and then printed shimmer paper. How awesome did these come out?!

I'm so smitten with this color combo, that I'm now offering these exact invitations for sale in the shop! If you love them as much as I do, head on over and check them out.

Custom Recap: Summer Butterfly Engagement Invitations

These invitations are perfect for a summer engagement party! I created them for my cousin - who loves the beach, butterflies, and summer - and I think we nailed all three on just one piece of paper! I'm so thrilled for her and her fiancé - we're so lucky to have them as cousins and friends!

If you love these invitations, they are now for sale in the Etsy shop!

Custom Recap: Flourished Wedding Invitations

You might remember these Save the Date cards I designed, well, here is the invitation that followed! Lisa and Eric chose a bright, ocean blue as their accent color, which was paired perfectly with a cream shimmer pocketcard and yellow accents.

I love pocketcards with wedding invitations - I think they are the perfect way to get the convenience of a pocketfold, without the extra cost. It's a simple and elegant way for a budget bride to get the quality and design they want for their wedding invitations, while still staying within their budget!

Congratulations again to Lisa and Eric, we had so much fun celebrating your big day!

Custom Recap: Brooklyn Bridge Wedding Invitations

Here's a lovely wedding invitation I created for my friend, who got married on a yacht cruise around Manhattan. She was on a tight budget, and I was really glad to be able to bring her a beautiful design that fit into her price range!

Since the bride did an online RSVP, we were able to save on the budget by keeping the entire "suite" to just one piece. We printed the invitation on a beautiful linen textured paper - and the results were gorgeous! 


It's a reminder to all brides, that if you are flexible and creative, you can achieve your wedding invitation dreams on any budget! 


If you like these, go ahead and check out some other Custom Recaps:


Emily's Wedding Thank You Cards
Feminine Silhouette Note Cards
Charming Moving Announcements
Citron Save the Dates
Country Chic Moving Announcements

Custom Recap: Country Chic Moving Announcements

Over the past year I've been doing lots of moving announcements and this is definitely one of my favorites. My customer was moving from the city to the country and wanted a design that incorporated the theme of leaving the city behind. It was definitely a challenge to combine two totally different aesthetics into one design, but in the end, it came out beautifully!

The design features fun typography paired with a graphic showing a distant city behind corn husks. I love how the theme is so well shown without being too in-your-face.

If you like these, go ahead and check out some other Custom Recaps:

Emily's Wedding Thank You Cards
Feminine Silhouette Note Cards
Charming Moving Announcements
Citron Save the Dates

Enjoy!

Custom Recap - Citron Save the Dates

Who doesn't love a simple, full bleed Save the Date? When Lisa, who started as my husbands co-worker and has now become a friend, asked me to create her Save the Dates, we knew we wanted something super simple and super pretty. And when you have a beautiful photo (which was taken professionally at my wedding!) how can the design not be full bleed??

The entire design was created around the photo and the color yellow, which is one of Lisa's wedding colors. The cards were printed on 100% Recycled paper - which I personally love for photo cards. It adds just enough sheen while still being soft and luxurious. 

When the time came to create their wedding invitations, we made sure they coordinated with these Save the Dates. Nothing makes a stationery designer's heart flutter quite like a perfectly coordinating wedding suite!!! I cannot wait to share her beautiful wedding invitations sometime soon!

Custom Recap - Charming Moving Announcements

This custom recap isn't particularly old - actually, it's pretty darn new. My cousin Christine just bought her first house with her fiancé, Joe, and asked that I make their moving announcements. These two have become just as much friends to my husband and I as they are family, so it's been really exciting for us to watch them buy their first home and get engaged (YAY!! Another wedding!!).

They closed on their home in early November, but to say the home needed work would be an understatement. It was a total gut job. After nearly 5 months worth of almost totally DIY renovations, Christine and Joe finally got to move into their first home.

Since they did all of their home renovations themselves, with their own two hands, it only seemed appropriate that I hand draw their moving announcements. Christine loves all things purple, so I drew up a super charming rendition of their new home, using her favorite color as my inspiration.

I had these cards flat printed on 100% recycled stock, and they came out beautifully! I think my favorite part is the little heart coming out of the chimney - there's just a ton of love for Christine and Joe and their new home!

Custom Recap - Feminine Silhouette Cards for a Lovely Little One-Year-Old

Up next on my Custom Recap series are these beautiful cards I created for a little girl that was turning one. I was contacted by her interior decorator, who was charged with trying to find the perfect note cards that were super girly and had the perfect amount of bling.

I was provided with the silhouette and created the rest of the card from there. How adorably sweet are these cards?!

Not only were these cards a dream to design, but they also served as a huge learning experience. I had used crystal embellishments plenty of times in the past, but this was the first time I had to ship so many embellished cards cross country. For whatever reason (eventually I figured out it might have been a humidity issue) the crystals on the cards just didn't stay on. I reprinted & re-glued the crystals, and after mailing them cross country (fingers crossed) three different times, my poor customer kept getting cards where the crystals were all over the place. Harumph. Eventually I reprinted all of the cards (for like, the third or fourth time, I think!) and sent them crystal-free so that they could put the crystals on themselves. 

As a designer, it's always heartbreaking when you work so hard on something and it doesn't end up the way you expected, but bless my patient client, she stuck with me and at the end of the day the cards were amazing. 

Oh, and I spent almost a month after these cards working out all of the kinks with crystals on invitations. After quite a few phone calls, and test trials later, I've found a glue that, I kid you not, would be able to hold my big old butt to the ceiling if it had to! Haven't had a problem since :)

Custom Recap - Emily's Wedding Thank You Cards

It may only be the middle of March, but it seems that here in NYC Spring is in the air. Which means, to me at least, that it's time for Spring cleaning. I've been trying to clean up all of the folders on my computer, as well as all my pictures, designs, fonts etc. It's amazing how unruly things can become over time!

One good part of all this cleaning and organizing, is that I'm finding a lot of pictures of projects I did in the past and, for whatever reason, never ended up posting. So, as I clean up, I've decided to start a mini-series on my blog for "Custom Recaps" where I show off the custom projects I've created. I wish I could call the series "Recent Projects" but the truth is, some of these things are several years old now! 

Which brings me to my very first Custom Recap that I want to share. These thank you cards were designed for my husbands cousin, Emily and her husband Sal. You may remember them from the blog post where I shared the creative wedding gift I got them. Their wedding was amazing, and Emily was in my bridal party this past year, so I was honored and flattered when she asked me to create her wedding thank you cards. She asked for something simple, elegant and using hints of deep purple. We ended up with a simple photo card and accenting it with a lovely metallic envelope in a gorgeous eggplant color. 

I can't believe the wedding was nearly a year and a half ago! Time flies, but with Emily's amazing taste and this simple design, these thank you cards will still be amazing for years to come.