They are so pretty I wanna hug them!

I got contacted a few weeks ago by Rene' "the story keeper", this ridiculously AMAZING wedding photographer in Orange County. I mean, her pictures make you want to get married over and over again. For some reason every single wedding she photographs should be featured on Martha Stewart. She has a way of taking the simplest detail at a wedding and photographing it in a way that makes you feel enchanted. And if you ever read her blog get ready to cry people. Anyways, back from my tangent, she contacted me because she wanted me to send her a few samples of my wedding invitations for her to use on a blog post.

She has noticed that brides tend to choose their invites to quickly, without really thinking about their personality and the style of the wedding. I, honestly, have noticed that too many brides are getting their wedding invitations from certain online printers which shall remain nameless...cough vistaprint! cough. Sorry, I had something in my throat. And are choosing poorly (i'm being nice) designed invitations to announce one of the most important days of their life... hopefully.

She thought my invitations were the type of invitations brides should be getting. Uber flattered and in shock someone thinks about my invitations like that, I sent her anything and everything she asked for.

So a few days ago she emailed me some of the pictures she had taken. I opened my email and was floored. Never could I imagine my invitations looking so pretty. I just stared at the pictures, and kept opening my email to look at them, they made me so happy. So without further adieu, here they are... in all their glory. Now I have to figure out how to take pictures like this at home... sigh.

Lets get some things straight...

sta·tion·er·y [stey-shuh-ner-ee]
1. writing paper.
2. writing materials, as pens, pencils, paper, and envelopes.

AND...

sta·tion·ar·y [stey-shuh-ner-ee]

1. standing still; not moving.

2. having a fixed position; not movable.

3. established in one place; not itinerant or migratory.

Very different.

Zazzle Crazy!!!

So, I just opened a Zazzle store... maybe the funnest thing ever!!!! I haven't had this much fun in weeks! I know, sad, I lead a simple life. So I started looking for illustrations or fun designs I have done and placing them on mugs, stickers, even dog shirts! Its pretty cool all the things you can print your designs on. I even took designs from my cards and used them on some things. I cant wait to keep creating things and seeing how they would look on pretty much anything and everything. I even found this really pretty bride illustration I had created and made this super cute binder...

Whats cool about Zazzle is that I only have to upload my designs, and they take care of printing it on whatever you want. Its going to be great to be able to offer brides and customers all these things using their wedding suite design. Here are a few others I created...

Its soooo fun!!!!

I love Pancakes...

There are very few fonts that I absolutely LOVE. And the ones that I do love you can see all over my designs (Helvetica, Garamond, Bebas, etc.). My typography teacher used to say a good designer should be able to work his entire life using the same 5 fonts... emphasis on good. He was also from the times where there were very few fonts out there in the world, and to create a new font took years of hand drawing and perfecting. Unlike now where fonts are everywhere, and anyone can "design" them using software. A lot of the new ones don't even have all the characters...those you know you shouldn't use since they probably took 2 days to create. Moving on to the reason for this post. There is a font that came out a bit ago by a woman named Jessica Hische that I am sooooo very much INLOVE with. Its called Buttermilk. It has such a beautiful vintage christmas feel to it with a mix of feminine and a dash of modern. I don't own it yet, but if I sell a few invitations I will! haha! Enjoy.

Just a little something...

I just did this save the date and absolutely love it!!! I hope I can find a good home for it... let me know what you think!

I would like to thank the academy...

Every day Etsy picks a few treasuries to feature on their front page. Its amazing exposure if your item is on that treasury, and also somewhat if you were the one who created it. I don't create many treasuries because A- its a bit of a tedious thing to to, and B- i never really found the point since the ones I always created only got a few views. But the other day, as I added more over priced things from Crate and Barrel to our wedding registry I was thinking... wouldn't it be awesome if Etsy had a wedding registry. The idea of being able to register for one of a kind, handmade, and beautiful vintage items made my shopaholic self aflutter and unable to focus on what spatula to register for. So I went onto Etsy and searched through all of my favorites, all of those items that I day dream about one day purchasing for our home. And I made a treasury named "If Etsy had a wedding registry", I thought it was so pretty and I was actually proud of my little treasury. It got a few views and nods of approval the first day. I was happy just to be nominated, haha! But never would I have thought in my wildest dreams that it would make it to the front page!!!!! Whatttttt?!?!? Here it is in all its glory, and yes I printed this and stuck it on my wall...tadaaaaaaa!!!!

You can see the treasury here...

Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away...

I try and create new invitation designs every day... emphasis on try. Some are more my style than others, by my style I mean something I would use for my actual wedding. The other day, for some weird reason unbeknownst to me (please pause for the fact that I am amazed I just used the word unbeknownst) I had the Frank Sinatra song "Come fly with me" in my mind. It kept playing like a broken record. And I sat in front of my computer and brainstormed... and brainstormed... read some TMZ... and brainstormed... and then! Aha! A GE energy efficient light bulb went off in my brain... or is it on? I wanted to design something not just pretty, but that it made you think of that song. Something a bride wearing a tea-length dress with yellow heels just had to have to announce her wedding. A wedding with a multi-colored candy buffet, yellow and sorbet orange macaroons, and a cupcake tower. Can you tell Im hungry?

So here is the design I came up with, and I am inloooovvveee with it. It makes me happy. And hopefully it will be chosen my a lovely couple that will love them as much as I do. My designs are my children, and even though all parents say they love all their kids equally...Im looking at you mom... some are just special.