I am so excited to show you the results of the collaboration between Sarah of Hip Ink’s studio and mine (see post on sketches awhile back here). We do create custom illustrations on request for specialty purposes outside the studio but this is the first one that is actually a wedding invitation, and it was so much fun to do!

(Image above: Originals wrapped in glassine ready to be shipped out to the client in Canada.) I love the romantic, wintry wedding setting in Chateau Frontenac, Quebec City. When Sarah and Lorrain first showed me pictures of the venue and time of year, I instantly fell in love with the idea and couldn’t resist visions of vintage watercolor illustrations of the 1800s with their cobbled town streets, horse and carriage, women in fur coats and men in top hats! I envisioned it as an evening scene blanketed in snowflakes with an almost ethereal feel from another time, the warm glow of light from indoors bathing the sidewalks sparkling with snow.

HIP INK has a modern, clean and delightfully fresh approach to invitations and stationery in a style that is very different from mine and I was really excited to see what Sarah’s approach was going to be in the final suite. It was worth the wait-I love the gorgeous letterpress and combination of fonts that she chose and the paper is simply beautiful, thick and luxurious! All in all, a really elegant, classic, timeless suite that her clients must have been thrilled with, great job Sarah!!

Here’s what Sarah has to say…

(Excerpted from her HIP INK blog post, photo captions are my own thoughts)

Lovely soft winter colors; Photos by Corina V. Photography

Danielle and Stephen’s Chateau Frontenac/Old Quebec winter-themed pocketfold invitation, featuring a mix of letterpress printing and beautiful hand-painted illustrations by Amy Tan of The TreeSpace Studio.

They were immediately drawn to our Paris invitation at a bridal show in January, and knew they wanted something with a similar feeling, that would incorporate two specific illustrations – one of the Fairmont Le Cheateau Frontenac (where Danielle and Stephen’s wedding was taking place) and one of a wintery streetscape of Old Quebec. They wanted something soft and romantic, with a pen and ink/watercolour feeling, and I knew exactly who to call – in fact, I remember blurting out in our first meeting, “I know the perfect illustrator!”.

The perfect illustrator was Amy Tan from The Treespace Studio - Amy is an invitation designer in her own right as well, creating some of the most personal and beautiful invitations out there, and I knew her amazing style was perfect for this project (and I was right!).

We had used letterpress to create Danielle and Stephen’s save-the-dates, and I thought it was the perfect mix of modern and old-world for the wedding invitation as well. But…I knew that letterpress was definitely not going to work for the illustration portion of the invite. So, just like peanut butter and jelly, we made two very different printing methods the best of friends – first we sent off the invites and inserts to be letterpress printed (on Crane Lettra cotton stock), and then once we had them in studio we reproduced Amy’s beautiful illustrations on our in-house photo printer (and I caught up on Pinterest while I hand fed each one!). And here is the result:

Sarah is so good at typeface selection! Her font combination is flawless and elegant.

The illustrations so beautifully captured the Chateau in winter, with a warm glow emanating from the windows and a snowy Old Quebec street scene, with the bride and groom making a special appearance.

Loving the letterpressed light grey....!

While the colour scheme was a very traditional silver, white and dark blue, we added in shades of lavender to both the illustrations and the belly band, as well as the warm yellow-orange that added warmth to the illustrations and overall piece. Read the rest of the post here on Sarah’s HIP INK blog!

Hello everyone, some big news today from our wedding invitation studio for those of you who just got engaged or are about to get engaged. (Congratulations for taking this big beautiful step!)

It’s been about a year since we launched our Storybooklets wedding invitations (click on diagram above on how to personalize it) and they have been hands down our MOST popular style of wedding invitations. (Take a look at some examples here and here in our previous posts and some past ones here at the Etsy shop) We have been so fortunate and grateful for all the beautiful weddings we have created Storybooklets for so far. However, there are some exciting events in the horizon and a little bit of a bittersweet announcement:

What if upon the launch you think, ” Hey I would like to change from the Storybooklet style to one of the cool new styles above?” but you’ve already booked a storybooklet with us? No worries, we’ll just adjust the price for you, as long as your design process hasn’t started.

A little introduction for those who are not familiar with the Storybooklet (from our Etsy Store):

Get your own storybooklet now, a few days left at the old prices!

Happy 2012 everyone! We are back in full swing and our first painting of the year is from our ‘dream BIG’ series featuring the lucky Water Dragon which promises a prosperous year to come. The lunar New Year falls on January 23rd this year and lasts for 15 days.  The painting is available as greeting cards and fine art prints at our Etsy store, check it out!

The Chinese zodiac has 12 signs, a creature for each year, resetting itself every 12 years. In addition to the creature of the year, each creature is also of an element, and this year’s Dragon is the Water Dragon, occuring only once every 60 years! Dragons are special within the zodiac because of the 12 creatures, it is the only one of mythical origin.

Here is an interesting excerpt written on the Water Dragon year. Believer or not, who can resist its promise of luck and good fortune?

We were so thrilled when Diana of Casa De Perrin, a former wedding invitation client, (see their project here) told us that their beautiful home was featured in Design Sponge, along with the framed original painting I created for their invitations, stylishly hung above a metal cabinet in their bedroom. I love how they hung it off center.

It means so much to us that the original invitation paintings that we create for our wedding clients have a special place in their home, this is why we do it!

Josh, Diana’s husband is an architectural photographer and he took the beautiful images of their home. Check out the original Design Sponge article to see how their unique styles merge. Thank you for sharing this, Diana and Josh!

Not really but that’s how it feels toting around my hand-crafted Julian easel filled to the brim with my hand-painted hand-made paper holiday goodies! It reminds me of the much-anticipated gypsy peddler in period films and novels- a wooden thingamajig on wheels that sells everything from ribbons and laces to the latest quirky mechanical device!

I spent Sunday with my pop-up Holiday easel at a local shoe store in town, Bare Sole in Studio City with Janine from Green Wave check them out for gorgeous hand-crafted shoes and accessories.

Does your local store or holiday party need a vintage-style peddler? Let us know! Sign up for our mailing list if you’d like to be kept informed on fun joint events like these!

If you missed out last week’s storybooklet real wedding, see it here.

Imagine a wedding ceremony tucked inside a wonderfully exotic and dreamy alcove filled to the brim with rare succulents and lovely greenery.

Angela and Wing made that ceremony a reality when they chose to tie the knot at Shelldance Orchid Gardens in Pacifica.

Since their choice of venue was so unique and special, we crafted their invitations based around a greenhouse theme, focusing on lush illustrations filled with vibrant plants and whimsical details.

The front of the invitation featured a romantic, arch-framed illustration of the greenhouse where their vows took place. We kept the font beautifully simple, with a mix of typewriter-like text and a whimsically loopy, almost childish script.

In one of the inner folds of the booklet, we included a hand-painted map with directions to ensure that all the guests would be able to find their way up the windy road to the gardens. This was matched with a wonderfully textured envelope, stamped with Angela and Wing’s address on the back flap.

While creating the invitations for such a charming wedding was fun, it became magical once we saw how it all fit together with the ceremony!

Sarah Layne Photography captured every moment beautifully, and just by taking a look at these photos, you can see how all the details reflected the beautiful couple and their attention to making a memorable experience for all their guests.

Their cake was curiously adorable- just look at those tiny toadstools!

Please visit our Etsy shop to check out storybooklets like this one, as well as our other personalized, handcrafted wedding invitations! Listed prices are good through the end of the year, so be sure to visit soon. To learn more about the studio, please visit our main site to read about what we do and how we do it!

Don’t forget to stay tuned for the upcoming storybooklet final roundup post and announcement very soon!

Happy Middle of the Week everyone! One of my favorite Storybooklet-style invitations, created for Danielle and Jimmy’s boathouse wedding in New York, was recently featured in the lovely Bridal Musings blog:

It is always so touching to hear from happy couples just how phenomenal their wedding day was (read on further for some amazing pictures of the day):

“The wedding day was very important to us and we really wanted it to be as personal and intimate as possible from start to end. We tried to stay away from traditions and had a short but oh so sweet ceremony lead by our friend… Instead of saying “I do” we each read lines we selected from a poem. The last line said was “I will choose you, over all others, every day for all the days of my life”.

Congratulations to Danielle and Jimmy on making their dreams a reality!

With their invitations we were easily on the same page right from the start as they were so sweet and easy to work and wonderfully inspired: they referenced the nostalgia of classic Coca Cola advertisements, combined with the leisure of spending a day by the lake. The result was a painterly, almost impressionistic rendering of their venue, articulated with delicate black ink.

We played with Coca Cola’s branding to determine the smooth, strong font, and Coca Cola’s signature round icon featured the bride and groom’s names. The dotted line framing the second and fourth panels added to the charm and playfulness of the design, and the bold reds combined with turquoise added a touch of youthful pop and vibrancy.

Danielle and Jimmy’s wedding truly was delightful and intimate; set at the picturesque Loeb’s Boathouse in Central Park, one could easily forget that they were in the middle of New York City.

Sunflowers, hydrangea’s and craspedias adorned the tables, and guests were invited to indulge their inner child with a spread of candies, cake pops, and cupcakes that carried the turquoise theme.

Check out the rest of the gorgeous photographs by Sweet Little Photographs here!

My favorite detail from Danielle and Jimmy’s wedding? Their “guestbook”:

“I’m a painter and instead of having a “guest book” where people sign their names, I wanted it to be a piece of art. What better way to cherish our day and who we shared it with than having a big masterpiece made by all our close friends and family? Once it was complete, I added a little twist to it myself and we have it hung in our apartment now. It’s beautiful.”

To get started on your own custom or semi-custom invites, please visit our store. Prices are good through the end of the year!

Feel free to explore around the main site as well, to see what else goes on in the studio!

Check out the rest of the images and story at Bridal Musings here and here. Be sure to stay tuned in the upcoming weeks for more Storybooklet Real Weddings and a special roundup post and announcement!

Vendors:

Hello everyone, the mad mad season has officially begun! In addition to a slew of new goodies that hit our shop today, I want to share a cute little project we just completed. Remember the launch of our hand-painted graphics package promotion recently?

Here’s a way you can personalize one of these graphic+tags packages for the upcoming holiday gifting or even your own handmade goody shop.

This was for an event at a blue jeans store, and would serve really nicely as a hang tag or a gift bag tag to thank your visitors for attending the event.

They can be single sided or double sided with a little personal hand-lettered message at the back. All illustrations are completely original and unique to your requirements, they are done in watercolors, pen and ink and gouache and you can request them in any color combinations!

They are printed on gorgeous EXTRA-THICK handmade fair trade jute paper and you’ll even get to choose from 4 different die-cut designs. Get your own set HERE today, 2-for-1 graphic promotion is good till end of the year only!

In case you missed out on the last post:

Kicking off the season with more new goodies, hand-painted tags, personalized gift tags, new dream BIG card and more! Check out our Etsy store and for today only, get 15% off all your purchases. Stock up today with locally hand-crafted holiday items, click on image to go our shop!

I love it when it’s blooming season for our Japanese camellia trees, these are from our smaller tree…..look at all those delicate veins on the petals and lovely yellow centers. They are currently sitting on my painting table against a wall of inks in a gorgeous ceramic tea cup I bought from a talented pottery artist at the Melrose Flea Market. Can’t wait to do a few watercolor sketches of them.

Above: A little peak into the sketchbook and my travel palette (hand-crafted inlaid wooden box found at a thrift store that I filled with half-pans!)