I’m so excited to share one of our recent creations. Our client is celebrating her wedding at her parent’s property, and wanted something that felt earthy and tactile to suit the location as well as her personality. We incorporated her natural color palette of  chocolate brown, ivory, and khaki. My favorite detail on this invitation is the burlap ribbon assembled as a sort of vertical-style belly band with chocolate twine on the top. Too cute!

The invitation was letterpress printed in three runs: chocolate ink on the front, with an all-over pattern in khaki on the reverse side. Also, we added a vintage-style monogram with frame in chocolate ink to add some interest and personality to the backside. The invitation was letterpress printed on super thick 4ply letterpress stock. All of the pieces has rounded corners to add a modern detail. The invitation envelope was printed with a khaki all over pattern liner for a little fun surprise pop!

The reply card was printed in chocolate and khaki inks and was paired with a deep chocolate brown envelope for one punch of saturated color. The envelope was printed in silver ink and paired with a colorful aqua O’Henry stamp from the post office. (My other favorite American Author stamp is Mark Twain in a similar color palette).

The hang tag was the icing on the cake, letterpressed in chocolate brown ink and finished off with the rounded corner detail.

Everything was assembled together with a gorgeous fringed burlap ribbon. We tied a chocolate brown baker’s twine (in Cappuccino from The Twinery) on top with the hang-tag to seal the deal!

This invitation is a great way to showcase how “traditional” doesn’t have to be plain or uninspired. The type on the front is quite classic and simple, but with the lovely added details of printed liner, burlap ribbon, vintage monogram, and rounded corners, the package feels fresh, unique, and current.

Sometimes it’s fun just to talk shop. It’s fun to gather information and share information within your industry and with fellow paper lovers. It can be a joy to discuss the various pleasures of freshly printed ink, certain kinds of envelopes, and pantone chip matching. It is with this spirit that I’m happy to launch our new Tools of the Trade blog feature, where I’ll be sharing, analyzing, and explaining the ins and outs of invitation design. Today, I’m sharing some of our favorite twine resources. We do a whole lot of tying twine during wedding season—twine is a great way to package an invitation without the formal feel of a silk or satin ribbon. It can complement a more funky, casual invitation, and we often tie our little hang tags on with baker’s twine. Baker’s twine comes in so many different color options now, that it’s hard to pick a favorite. And with names like Brown Sugar, Melon, and Cappuccino, the colors seem downright tasty.

One of my favorite twine sellers is Divine Twine from Whisker Graphics. Divine Twine was introduced to me a few years ago by a client who had discovered it and thought I’d be interested. We keep a number of spools of Divine Twine around the studio, but my two favorites are the brown sugar (khaki and white mix) and the oyster (medium gray and white mix).

There have been a few colors that I’ve sought out for custom projects that Whisker Graphics (Divine Twine) just didn’t seem to cover (navy, for example). Divine Twine’s blue was more of a cobalt or royal blue, and I was looking for a solid navy and white… which is how I discovered The Twinery. Interestingly, they’ve recently added some pretty exciting metallic blends to their offerings, including Gunmetal Shimmer and Rainbow Teal Shimmer, both of which I’ll be sampling soon.

Finally, I stumbled upon an etsy shop called Knot and Bow with pretty great metallic twine options. They have a fantastic black twine with gold thread, which would be perfect for a totally glam event! We used it on a wedding invite once and it pulled everything together beautifully. Glitter twine is a great way to marry the “farm, rustic, casual” feel with the “this-is-a-wedding, not-a-barbecue” feel.

So, now don’t you want to just go tie something up? We often assemble our letterpress wedding invitations with twine to give that extra textural feel. The one I show assembled above has a burlap ribbon wrap with a gold glitter twine knotted on the top. Rustic marries Chic. Perfect!

Happy Friday everyone! I had the chance to chat with one of my dear designer friends, Susan from JPress Designs yesterday, which reminded me of how much I love her. Susan and I graduated from the University of Tennessee’s graphic design program together, and I often credit her with giving me the tools and knowledge I needed to get started in the stationery industry ten years ago. Susan started her own stationery company a few years back, naming it JPress Designs. We have a long design history together, and now we get to chat up all things paper, printing, and stationery every time we connect—it’s such a blessing to me. One thing that I love about Susan’s work is her quirky illustrative style. We were chatting up holiday cards this past season, and she mentioned that she had been selling quite a few of her House Portraits for folks to give as Christmas gifts. What is a House Portrait, you ask (as I did!)? Well, take a looksy at this adorable-ness!

Each home is custom drawn from a client-supplied photo. Susan adds her own touch, often including pets! She adds the family name if you’d like to include it. At just $99, this is a great gift for someone special, or a super way to have custom art made for your own special nest! She prints these goodies as an 8×10 on archival quality paper.

Purchase your own custom made House Portrait, or any of Susan’s other wonderful products on her etsy shop here.

In the meantime, have a super weekend, and we’ll see you back in action on Monday!

‘Tis the season for designing and printing wedding invitations! We have been busy little bees here in the studio, and I thought I’d address some common questions that people have when they are picking up their ‘hot off the press’ invitations and preparing to pop them in the post. Mailing invitations is a whole facet of the invitation process that needs to be thought of beforehand!

“When do I mail out my wedding invitations?”

Traditionally, wedding invitations are mailed out 6-8 weeks before the event. So, if you have a wedding date of June first, you’ll want to be mailing your invitations around the first of April. You could sneak by with mailing them out at the end of March, but not much before. Frankly, it starts to feel a little bit silly to mail your invitations out any more than 3 months before the event… Nobody’s thinking about things that are a solid SEASON away. While I fully understand the need to inform your guests about accommodations and travel arrangements (say, for a destination wedding in particular), that’s what the save the date is for. Remember—once you send the invitation out, there’s nothing coming later to remind guests about it, so if you send your invites out 6 months before the wedding, well… you’ve just given a really, really long gap for people to totally forget about your wedding.

Then when do I send out a save the date?

A save the date can be sent out 6-12 months in advance of your wedding. For destination weddings, it may be wise to do a save the date up to a year out as people will require plenty of time for planning their travel and accommodations. Here’s my word to the wise: There is no need to send out a save the date any later than 4 months before your wedding. If you’re frantically trying to get a save the date in the mail and then you’re going to turn around and mail out an invitation 4 weeks later, it feels a bit like an inundation of your guest’s mailbox. This said, the south has sort of turned me into a little bit of an etiquette nazi on wedding invitations, and I don’t feel like the save the date really has any hard and fast rules in terms of mailing.

How much postage will my invitation take?

I’m going to tell you a true story: Client A asks how much her invitation postage will be. I tell Client A it will probably be between .80-.90 per invitation, but I can’t make any guarantees because the post office is ridiculously inconsistent in their pricing. She takes her invitations in to the post office hub here in Knoxville, and they tell her it will be $1.50 each to mail. She goes back to the same post office two hours later and speaks to a different employee. She’s told it will cost $1.20 each to mail. I then take a sample of her invitation, walk it down to the local downtown post office and promptly mail it for .85. How much postage will your invitation take? You absolutely have to take a finished piece in to have it weighed and measured. And even then , just say a prayer that someone kind is behind the counter. Or, you can just have your stationery handle the entire thing from start to finish. We often purchase the stamps, assemble the invitations, handle the calligraphy, and then mail the invitations. This way, the client doesn’t have to worry about any of that mess.

Where can I find vintage stamps?

Image above from 100 Layer Cake

I love the look of vintage stamps. I always recommended The Paper Nickel Stamp Company online, but their website seems to be defunct, sadly. You can check them out on the Something Turquoise blog here. One of the best resources I’ve found for vintage stamps is off of an old 100 Layer Cake blog entry, which you can check out here. (PS 100 Layer Cake is a fab resource for weddings, just generally speaking). As a general rule, aesthetically I prefer to choose stamps according to a color palette rather than a theme. This said, if vintage stamps are hard to come by or out of your budget, here are some of my favorites from the good ol’ United States Post Office (USPS.com):

I love the colors of the Mark Twain stamp. Plus, who doesn’t love the Americana conjured up from a little Mississippi steamboat action?

The above is one of my favorites because of the neutral color palette and rustic appeal. I use these on reply cards all the time!

Finally, our second favorite American author, O. Henry is also in my personal top running for great looking wedding stamps. Again, the content isn’t super weird  (think, bonsai trees or Jazz artists from the 20′s), and the colors are pretty. I go with color almost every time.

Alrighty! I think that covers the basics for you now. Have a super deluxe weekend, folks… and get those invites out soon!!

If fab wedding blog Style Me Pretty is known for one thing, it’s beautiful, inspiring real weddings. One of our favorite brides, Laura, was recently featured with her adorable groom, Colby, on the lovely Style Me Pretty blog. Their Charleston plantation wedding is featured here. There’s one shot of the pretty gorgeous, lace-wrapped invitation that we created … If you’d like to see their suite in full, check it out here (vintage map of Charleston and all)! Also, we featured Laura’s real wedding on our own blog under our Happy Paper for Real People post if you’d like to see it.

In the meantime, here’s a little peek at some of my favorite images. Be sure to visit Style Me Pretty for the whole shebang.

Thanks, Style Me Pretty, for showcasing another stunning product from The Happy Envelope! We’re always proud as little mamas when one of our babies is shown some love…

Catherine and Foster just happened upon our studio while they were in town for the Tennessee/Arkansas football game. They were staying at the fab downtown boutique hotel, The Oliver (our neighbor) and they stumbled past our window… slowed down… slowed down some more… stood in front of the window…chatted amongst themselves… and finally walked on in. We sort of fell in love with each other, and when they headed back to Arkansas, we began creating beautiful long distance invitation. Recently, Arkansas Bride featured Catherine and Foster’s real wedding, so I’ve pulled a few teaser pics here for you. To see more, check out Arkansas Bride’s article here. Their ceremony and reception took place at a private residence (the bride’s parent’s home) in Cave Springs, Arkansas. The wedding colors were a cheerful, sunny yellow and a muted grey. Gorgeous!

Thank you, Catherine and Foster… Wishing you the best here from Tennessee!

Credits for Catherine and Foster’s big day:

• Photographer: Miles Witt Boyer Photography
• Event planner: Details Wedding & Events, Fort Smith
• Florist: Tanarah Luxe Floral & Event Styling, Little Rock
• Caterer: Ella’s at Inn at Carnall Hall, Fayetteville
• Band: Same As It Ever Was, Talking Heads Tribute, Knoxville, Tennessee
• Wedding stationery: The Happy Envelope, Knoxville, Tennessee
• Wedding gown: Ballew Bridal, Collierville, Tennessee & Allure Bridal, Memphis, Tennessee
• Bridesmaids attire: All About Weddings, Germantown, Tennessee
• Groom/groomsmen attire: Joseph A. Banks
• Jeweler: James Middleton Jewelers, Memphis, Tenn.
• Hair: Metropolis, Fayetteville
• Makeup: Glo, Fayetteville

In my humble opinion, there is nothing more worth the splurge than gorgeous calligraphy, especially on a wedding invitation. I’m always reminding clients that their invitation is the very first thing that guests will see regarding their wedding, which is why it is such an important part of their event. In actuality, before the invitation, guests lay their eyes on the envelope. With beautiful, hand-written calligraphy, this has the potential to be a “WOW!” moment, before the envelope is even opened.

Good calligraphy will range anywhere from $2 per envelope to $7 per envelope, depending on style and artist. (I call a calligrapher an artist because… indeed, they are. You try to pick up a nib and ink—watch what happens!) Most of the calligraphers we work with regularly tend to fall in the $3.50-ish range. Inner envelope will require additional payment, typically $.50 to $1 per inner. If you’re ordering 50 invitations, this isn’t a huge additional line in the budget, but if you’re ordering 250, then yikes! That will add up quickly. Often, there’s a small set-up fee or color ink fee, too.

Just can’t swing it? Understood! The only hard and fast rule that I will stand on is that your wedding envelopes be hand-written. You can get a friend with good hand-writing to help you out. You can call together all of your bridesmaids for an “SAS” party (Stuff, Address, Stamp). Always a good idea to provide pizza and a few bottles of wine for this kind of endeavor—but, make sure that the food and invites are in separate areas! Please, do not print labels or try to run your envelopes through a printer. It’s your wedding invitation, and Emily Post (as well as any other etiquette book) will tell you loud and clear that your envelopes should be hand-addressed. This makes it feel special and thoughtful.

But if you can budget for a professional calligrapher, please do! There is no more special feeling than receiving a gorgeous, artfully written piece of mail.  Lay your eyes on some really lovely calligraphy specimens here:

1. Silver ink on charcoal gray envelope (#10 size): Feast Fine Art and Calligraphy

2. Classic Black ink with Script + Block type mix: Kalligraphia

3. Casual, loose script: Angelique Ink

4. Whimsical “Daisy” Script on hot pink envelope: Angelique Ink

5. Thick and Thin Script: Holly Hollon

6. Gold ink on Eggplant envelope: Feast Fine Art and Calligraphy

7. Bickham Script Hand-written: Cheryl Tefft Calligraphy

8. Funky all-over script: Crystal Kluge Calligraphy

9. Simple, streamlined script: Hannah Holder

10. Curly Basic Script on kraft envelope: Kalligraphia

PS: These are just a few of my “go-to” calligraphers. There are tons of others with great work out there, including Betsy Dunlap, Meant To Be Calligraphy, Grace Edmands Calligraphy, and Neither Snow, for starters…. But keep in mind: calligraphy is truly an ART and therefore, it takes time! Contact your calligrapher well in advance (months!) to get on their calendars before your invitations are even ready. Giving yourself ample time will ensure a smooth process for everyone involved. In addition, we have many clients who want us to handle everything from start to finish, including the calligraphy. This is a service that can be well worth the minimal costs: you simply pull together your guest list with addresses and let us handle all of the go-between with the calligrapher (booking them, shipping envelopes back and forth, answering questions, etc). It’s can be a wonderful package deal!

Oh. My. Goodness. It was a busy, busy, busy holiday season for all here at our T.H.E. studio. Thanks to all who made this winter/Christmas/Hanukkah/holiday card season a big success for us… we so appreciate your support of our work. Looking ahead, it’s just a short few weeks before the ball drops and a New Year begins again. New Year’s always makes me think of silvery sparkle, late night celebration, and… confetti!

I’ve never been much of a polka dot person (sort of feels a little preppy/Kate Spade mixed with Sorority sister dorm room style), but I think I’m turning this ship around! I’ve been drawn to (tiny) polka dots lately, and what is confetti, if not just a bunch of polka dots? Enjoy this visual feast of dottiness….

There’s no denying that there’s something upbeat and light about polka dots! Check out the inspiration and creators below:

1. Confetti

http://www.designsponge.com/2011/02/whats-in-your-toolbox-bri-emery.html

2. Sprinkles

http://www.cupcakescouturemb.com/custom-cupcake-photo-gallery/specialty-cakes/

3. Balloons

http://ffffound.com/image/5fa2c9383b0aec21ea75de5f687e268885366d07

4. Whimsical hand-lettered confetti filled invitations

http://www.berinmade.com/

5. Bri Emery – Designlovefest – polka-dot pattern

http://www.designlovefest.com/?s=polka+dots

6. Party dot invitations by Rifle Paper Company

http://riflepaperco.com/index.php

7. Confetti inside transparent envelope

http://www.greylikesweddings.com/3-resources/stationery-resources/hey-brides-do-you-blog

8. Bold polka-dot pattern as envelope liner

http://fig2design.com/

9. DIY polka dot envelopes

http://fellowfellow.com/diy-envelopes/

10. Vintage Vogue polka dots!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vintagevogue/5095721757/in/faves-becktress/

In addition, here are a couple peeks of how we’ve used polka dots here in our studio over the holiday season:

Backside of a Christmas card. Front shows a group photo of sisters, while the back shows individual shots with dotty background in gray.

Envelope liner in red polka dot pattern. Seriously, adorable.

So, I may have to re-think my rash judgement on polka dots after all. You dotty lovers out there, UNITE. I’m on board!

Lately, I’ve seen a beautiful trend in color palettes that are geared toward the soft, natural, light, and airy. Lovely shades of blush, nude, silver, subtle gold, and cream or ivory are flooding wedding magazines and trend setting wedding blogs. The pastel colors have been so popular, that it downright made me pause and look up during a recent consultation, when my client told me that her colors were white, cobalt blue (think royal) and mustard yellow. Wow. Definitely a break in the norm!

The funny thing is, I started seeing cobalt blue and yellow everywhere… and I loved the visual pop I kept seeing.

First, I saw the parking spot in our garage and it caught my eye for that sunshine yellow and bright royal blue combo! Next time, I was walking down the sidewalk towards our studio when I stumbled across this fantastic fire hydrant. Finally, I spied blue and curry peeking out together from a color-packed palette of paint on a face painter’s tool box at a birthday party I attended with my girls.

After much work to create just the right piece for our client, we came up with a really fun finished product. The bride is a printmaking student at University of Tennessee, and the cathedral artwork is her own rendering which we scanned in and printed. We chose a spiky, calligraphy-style font to compliment her drawing. And of course, the whole thing was letterpressed in a rich royal blue ink, paired with a mustard yellow envelope!

Just goes to show… you never know what’s going to work until you try it!

Here at the studio, we are frenetically pacing about trying to wrap up our new holiday designs for the 2012 season. Get ready!—We’re launching some really exciting new additions to our holiday card line, including a new luxurious double-thick paper, printing on the reverse side, envelope liner options, and matching address label options… the possibilities are endless!

That’s right, you can now upgrade to our luxurious double-thick paper stock! If you’re looking for a card that really stands out, this is going to fit the bill. The double-thick paper is twice as thick as our standard 110# stock (which is already pretty durable!). If you’d like to upgrade your card to double-thick, simply place your order on our website as you normally would. All of the holiday orders placed via our website will be automatically printed on our double-thick stock with reverse side printing. However, if you want your card printed on the standard 110# smooth white, that option is still available through our shop on our sister website: www.BigLittleInk.com.

There will now be four avenues in which to order your holiday card from us!

ONLINE at The Happy Envelope’s website: www.thehappyenvelope.com/holiday. Your order will automatically enter into our work stream via our automated system, and you’ll have your proof within 48 business hours. Your card will be printed on luxurious double-thick paper, with printing on the reverse side.

ONLINE our shop at Big Little Ink: www.biglittleink.com. Your order will automatically enter into our work stream via our automated system, and you’ll have your proof within 48 business hours. Your card will be printed on our standard white 110# smooth paper and printed on one side only… the most cost-effective option.

IN-STUDIO by picking up the phone and calling or dropping in for a looksy! If you want to bypass the online system, this option is available for an additional $15 . We’ll manually add your order to our work flow, and you’ll still receive your proof within 48 business hours. You can order either our standard stock or our double-thick, and also upgrades such as liners or stickers are available. We have found that this option is very popular—just call and let us know which card you want to order, and we’ll take it from there!

CUSTOM by phone or consultation in-studio. Don’t have time to look around? Nothing saying, “This is it!” to you yet? Just say, “Go” and we will come up with something perfect for you. Want a little bit of this card and a little bit of that card? No problem—we can customize your card to make it uniquely yours. This total customization will add a $50 customization fee to your bill…and it’s worth every penny to get something ultra-special and totally “you!”

Phew… I think that’s it for now. Let The Happy Envelope “share your joy” this holiday season!

Getting in the spirit,

Thanks to the following photographers for your gorgeous work:

beall + thomas photography

Thelen Wright Photography

Angela Acker Photography

Island Love Photography