things are better with a parrott

Live Oak Wedding Invitation

Mindee & Christopher were married earlier this month under a live oak tree.  Mindee wanted to feature a live oak & magnolias on her wedding invitations & she loved the illustrations of Jennifer Judd-McGee.  I commissioned Jen to illustrate a simple line drawing of a live oak with more detailed illustraions of magnolias & roses.  Jen sent me pages of beautiful flowers which allowed me to include different flowers on the RSVP & direction cards. I love Jen's flowers & hoping a new bride will come along & want to fill her invitations with them {hint! hint!}.

The invitation suite was gocco screen printed* on smooth, 110% recycled paper in bright white with pink & black inks.  The envelopes were black & the suite was tied together with black & white twine {by Mindee}. 

*Please note I am no longer offering gocco screen printing.  You may read more here.  If you like this particular design or parts of it, it can easily be letterpress printed!

Garden Wedding Invitations + Farewell Gocco

Kelley & Patrick are getting married in the Rock Garden at The Hotel Hershey, a luxury hotel located on the hilltop overlooking Hershey, Pennsylvania, aka The Sweetest Place on Earth.  Kelley wanted to incorporate some lush blooms & swallows into their wedding invitation design.  I used a large garden rose bloom on the invitation as well as the cocktail insert card.  For the RSVP postcard & rehearsal dinner invitation I had two small swallows. 

Everything was gocco screenprinted on 100% cotton Lettra paper in white with coordinating envelopes in olive green & slate gray inks.  Jennifer Cota of Pretty Pen Jen created a custom address stamp for Kelley to stamp the back of the RSVP postcard & the main envelope.

With this invitation I have decided to finally announce that I will no longer be gocco screenprinting any type of announcements or invitations.  I have two more weddings to complete in the next few days & one final invitation to print later this fall, but once those are done, so is the gocco.  I have been saying "this is my last gocco invitation!" for the past year, but I have decided it is time to move on for a number of reasons. 

As most people know, gocco supplies are no longer being made.  Supplies are very low, but demand is higher than ever, therefore costs are higher than ever.  Since no new supplies are begin made, what is left is left...meaning to say some supplies are old.  Bulbs do not flash when they should.  Ink is starting to settle & separate in the tubes.  White ink is nearly impossible to find & when you do find it, the cost is outrageous.  Screens are beginning to cost as much as a magnesium letterpress plate?!  As time consuming & challenging my letterpress is, I would rather deal with that 1,000 lb. cast iron beast than 30 lbs. of plastic from Japan because my letterpress is much more predictable.  Is my screen going to burn?  When it does, will even come out right?  But when I receive a letterpress plate, I know it will print. 

This is not say that gocco has become harder than letterpress {not at all!}, but they each have their challenges.  Gocco used to be a lot of fun for me.  It is how my studio got its start. But somewhere in the past year it stopped being fun & started to become work.  A lot of work.  I finally stopped & asked myself why the heck was I still doing it?  Who was making me do this....?  When all I want to do is letterpress...

Perhaps I will do a little gocco here & there, but only for personal projects.  Once these wedding invitations are complete, supplies will be packed up & I will line my three goccos upon a shelf as a reminder of my studio's humble beginnings. 

Greetings from Maine Postcard Invitation

Rebecca & Steven are getting married this summer on Diamond Cove, a beautiful island off the coast of Portland, Maine.  Growing up in Portland, I was a frequent passenger on the Casco Bay Lines, taking many trips to Peaks Island, Little & Great Diamond Island, & Long Island. In addition to getting married in Maine, the couple is having a postcard-themed reception, with vintage postcards from each city they have visited together as the table markers.  Needless to say, I was super excited by the design possibilities!  Rebecca sent me this postcard as inspiration using the line "Greetings from Maine" instead of "Portland."  I had a similar postcard in my own collection which I used as a starting point.  

For the front of the invitation, I drew each of the iconic images within each letter of "Maine" along with the mountain, lake, & pine trees scene below it.  I created a border around the scene like that of an edge of perforated stamp.  Since the front looked like a postcard, the back needed to as well.  I have had this pre-gummed, perforated stamp paper in my studio for awhile, but never knew what to use it for until this invitation.  Rebecca also liked a vintage postcard with an image of a lobster on it.  We decided to use that for the front of the RSVP postcard, but I also thought the image would make a perfect "stamp" for the invitation.  I printed the image of the lobster on the stamp paper which I then stuck on the invitation.  I had a custom rubber stamp made with a "postmark" which was, of course, their wedding date!  I hand stamped each of the invitations with the "postmark."  The front of the RSVP postcard had the vintage lobster postcard image, which was digitally printed, & the back contained all of the pertinent RSVP information. 

Each piece, with the exception of the front of the RSVP postcard, was gocco screenprinted in turquoise blue & deep red inks on 100% cotton Lettra paper in Pearl white.  The envelopes were 100% recycled brown kraft envelopes with the return address printed in deep red. 

I really, really love these invitations & how they came out.  Of course...between a Maine wedding & vintage postcards, I may be a bit biased!

Wedding Aboard a Schooner

 

Karen & Eric are getting married aboard Schooner Zodiac this summer.  Zodiac is an authentic tall ship built in 1924, & was the last working pilot schooner in the U.S.  It is currently on the National Register of Historic places & sails the waters of the Puget Sound, San Juan & Gulf Islands.  What a unique wedding location! 

Karen was inspired by an invitation I did a couple years ago that utilized a map as the background of the invitation.  Karen sent me a large map of Bellingham Bay where Zodiac will be sailing during their ceremony, which I then scanned & incorporated into the design.  The suite included an RSVP featuring a compass rose & a two-sided information card featuring a small sanderling.  Select invitations also had an invitation to the rehearsal dinner which featured a border of the map & an RSVP featuring an image like Zodiac. 

Each piece was gocco screenprinted on 100% cotton Lettra paper in Pearl White with light & navy blue inks.  The invitations were a coordinating light blue.  I had a custom rubber stamp made for their return address which Karen stamped herself on the back flap of the main envelope & the front of the RSVP envelope {I generally have the rubber stamp sent directly to my clients, which is why I never have a photo of them!}.  I really love how all of the different nautical elements came together in this design.  It will certainly give all of the guests a taste of what Karen & Eric's wedding will be like!

Charming Victorian Mansion Wedding

Hello!  Marva & John are a creative couple getting married at the beautiful Patrick Haley Mansion, built in 1891 & full of Victorian decor, original wood carvings, stained glass windows, intricate friezes, ornate adornments, & six fireplaces {fancy!}.  The mansion is surrounded by beautiful stone patios & gardens. 

For their invitations, Marva was looking to continue the feeling of a laid-back Southern wedding full of historic charm.  Marva is planning to incorporate some wonderful details into her wedding including a display of her three living grandmothers' wedding dresses by their escort cards, the guest book is going to be a vintage typewrite with a long scroll of paper & the centerpieces are going to be gold metal votive holders. 

Using their color palette of ivory, gold, navy blue, & a peachy-pink, I designed an invitation with bold floral & leaf scrolls to mimic the interior of the mansion.  I paired the images with bold, serif typefaces accented with a swirling script typeface.  The suite included an invitation, RSVP, & information card which included the couples website.  Everything was gocco screenprinted on 100% cotton Lettra paper in pearl with navy blue and peachy-pink inks with a coordinating envelope.  For the return address I had a custom rubber stamp made & Marva stamped them herself.

I have some fun news to share! So, some people who have been reading this blog for quite sometime may have known {or, if you know me in real life, of course!} that I was working for a local non-profit doing event planning & marketing.  I started working there in 2005 & then started my studio in 2007.  I continued both...for three years!  My daily routine has basically consisted of 9 - 5ish work at the non-profit, come home, eat super quick, 6ish - whenever I was done, usually 1 - 2 am work in my studio, sleep for 5 - 6 hours...do it again!  Weekends were spent entirely in the studio as well. 

The last year of my life has been, in a word, crazy.  Notice there is no mention of: spend quality time with Rich, walk the dogs, see friends....plan my own wedding!!  So, after my last big event was over in April, I finally gave my notice & started working in my studio full-time last Monday.  Now my days look like this: Yesterday - shopped for wedding-related things including a veil with my mom & sister, came home, worked on some designs; Today - walked the dogs {for the first time since I fell three weeks ago, yay!}, worked on a few invitation designs & revisions, buying a new copier, & printing a wedding invitation & baby announcement followed by...a date with Rich...in the middle of the week. I think this is going to be a very good thing!