Your wedding day story  told in in a sweet, folksy way.  I adore these wedding invitations by Rifle Paper Co. I recently sent these to my wedding invitation designer / bridesmaid of Alana Bailey Brand because they reminded me of her beautiful, color saturated poster work. I am still trying to decide how formal I want our wedding invitations to be. When I see these, I think maybe more playful. The feeling I get when I see these are that the couple is grounded to each other and the earth. I like this feeling.

Whenever anyone does something kind or thoughtful for someone else, they hope to receive at least an acknowledgement of this act. On an even larger scale a hearty “Thank You” should be offered without hesitation. In any social setting, acknowledging and saying thank you should be automatic. It is the only way to reward the giver for the time and/or thought they put into their good deed.

With this in mind, then whatever happened to the centuries old tradition of sending thank you cards for wedding gifts ? There is a very sad trend started a couple decades ago, of not bothering to send these all important notes to wedding guests who took time out of their busy lives to attend a friend’s or family member’s wedding. Those guests either gave a monetary gift or a gift specifically picked out for the couple. Not only did they deliver this gift of affection, but they marked their calender to be there to share and be a part of this couple’s big day.

There are several styles of notes that are available. Probably the most popular is the cute or formal graphic on the outside cover, and blank inside for your personal message: Blank Thank You’s. There are also photo insert styles where you can include a beautiful photo from your wedding with your personal note to your guests: Photo Thank You Cards .

Being from the “old school” of social manners, the very first thing I would be immediately inclined to do for any thoughtful act, would be to call with a heartfelt “thank you” or to write a note explaining how much I appreciated the gift. If they took the time to do something for me, the very LEAST I could do is take a moment to acknowledge and thank them.

I sincerely don’t know where this thoughtlessness came from. Somewhere in my generation we lost the respect & kindness of going out of our way for others. Thankfully I am not one of that particular mindset. Within one year’s time, I sent out hundreds of thank you cards for my bridal shower, wedding, baby shower, birth of my daughter & her christening. Talk about writers cramp ! But since everyone was there for me during these memorable times, more than anything I wanted to make them feel good. I wrote out the most detailed thank you’s I could and sent them out within a month or so of each event. No matter if I liked the gift or not, it was a generous gesture of the giver, and I appreciated it.

Not having the time is NO excuse. It doesn’t matter if you work one or two jobs, go to school, take care of a family or ALL of these…….spending even a few minutes a day writing out a couple of notes is entirely possible & should be made a priority. Your family & friends are worth those few sincere words. Thank you notes should be hand written and not a generic form letter. It should be directed specifically at the giver with an explanation of how much you liked the gift and what you plan to do with it. Be creative and make the reader feel they are very special to you. It really isn’t very hard.

If you need ideas of how to write out thank you notes, here is a page of suggestions you may find very helpful: Help With Thank You’s

Let’s bring back the old tradition of thank you notes. They make you look good, they make your guest feel good, and there is always a reason why traditions last for centuries……

jacki allen’s Kentucky Bride is doing a TON of photo shoots for our upcoming issues … and we can’t wait to show you the spreads, but you’ll have to wait just a tad longer.

Some of the shoots are about … shoes, boutonnieres, flower girls dresses, traditional vs. rock star hair and make up, etc …

One of the photo shoots that will be in the April 2010 issue is about TABLE SCAPES … i’m so excited!  I don’t want to give out all the details or tell you too much, but one of the products we used for a table designed by yours truly were these amazing name cards from Timeless Paper.  She was so excited that she already posted about it on her blog … HERE on October 18th … how fun! 

Here are a few of the designs she offers …

Don’t you just LOVE them?  What are you’re favorite designs?  There are so many ways that you can use them … how would you?  i’d love to hear all your thoughts …

celebrate with paper …

I stumbled across the most amazing website yesterday called dafont.com. It has hundreds of different fonts that you can download for free straight into ‘Word’ or whatever word processing program you use. Who needs a graphic designer! I downloaded the font above which I think will be perfect for all our wedding stationary.

Here’s some other examples from the site. You can type in any text you want to see how it will look in that particular font (I used mine and my fiancé’s names).

A gothic romantic theme

A retro wedding

A font using Jane Austen’s handwriting

This was used for the sweet labels at this wedding:

Source (Thanks Caitlin for pointing out this brilliant candy bar!)

This category is, not surprisingly, all about wedding invitations!  We will be posting articles, useful information and helpful hints, as well as hopefully some ‘how-to’ style pieces to help you with your stationery.

It has a subtle image of a rose set against a wedding veil. This image is exclusive to Justbyjulie.com as it has been created from my wife’s wedding veil and headdress.

The monogram on the card is customizable to any letter that you want as are the names.

So please take a look at our online store Justbyjulie.com for more details

This is our front page and it will open up with more info inside. The font is not quite right but you get the general idea!

A couple of helpful tips for wedding invitations.

If the decision to use the Cupcake wedding cake is not a traditional layer cake for the wedding, then you may be thinking about cool, cheap and easy solution to planning your wedding.

But like all aspects of wedding planning phase, you must stay on top of things to make sure the option you want to become a reality that is very good.

Here are some steps we suggest when going about choosing and ordering your wedding cake Cupcake:

Order Wedding Cupcakes

One of the things that make a wedding cake Cupcake easier than a layer cake is the traditional order. Traditional cake, you must be sure and order one slice per person, but that always depends on a great slice everything. Although Baker and baking cakes that injured service to you (such as a more general level for the end of this month cake) law of success depending on how well they estimate the size of each person. Marriage tells us how we where the first part of the cake is big and the small slivers and then!

Cupcake for the wedding cake, we recommend ordering a Cupcake Everyone, Cupcake and additional 10 for each visitor. If you have 100 visitors, which means you order 100 cupcakes, plus another 10. This will ensure that you have enough to interact, even for one or two guests who do not want to stop at one.

Decorating Wedding cakes

If you go to a traditional cake or Cupcake wedding cake, you want to be sure and certain about the type of decorations you want. You can choose something elegant, or exciting, or really unique. The only reason to use the largest Cupcake wedding cake is a craft that they offer. You can select only on the design, or even mix and match to create a variety of room and display.

Whatever you choose, be sure and see the first example, one made by Baker to you or one of the photographs of their past work.

Homecraft Cupcake wedding cake

Many of the other reasons we choose to use the Cupcake wedding cake is not a traditional layer cake will cost. Cake prices through the roof, the cost per slice anywhere from $ 5 to $ 25 more than industry standards. Cupcake wedding cakes are more affordable for some reason, at least in a way that they did order a case hassles in the past. One of the reasons Cupcake wedding cakes are an alternative to the more affordable for almost anyone can do it!

The first step is to get the idea. To do that, see pictures and find the right books. This is the easiest and most enjoyable. Some pictures of some more creative online bakeries out there. Martha Stewart Living Cupcake to produce a book several years ago to a fantastic display cupcakes, especially Cupcake wedding cakes. They also have a book just for the picture with the great Marriage. Home and Living magazine also jumping on the bandwagon Cupcake, and spent most of their water from a focus in Marriage or in other ways.

So you get the supplies and start to test your ability. Not too difficult to Cupcake cake if you are only a few practices. We recommend the purchase of regular cake mix to large supermarket and start the day. Duncan Hines, Betty Crocker or brand will do. If money is a problem, buy what is sold and remain cautious for the coupons. The same goes with the frosting. We recommend buying at least one heavy Cupcake pan for your business. This will make all the difference if you have to do much.

Of course, taste is the easy part, that we strive for decoration skills. Do not forget to practice well ahead of time and take notes about what works and what does not. There are many books and videos out there that tell how to make decorations, step-by-step Demonstration on how to make perfect Cupcake wedding cake.

Choosing your wedding invitations can seem like a daunting task so take a look at these great tips to help you make the right choice for your big day.

Wedding invitations can vary in price enormously. A good starting point in choosing your wedding invitations is to set a budget for your wedding stationery, then break that down into your wedding invitations and any other items of stationery that you might need. Printed invitations are generally at the cheaper end of the market, although there are some beautiful invitations on offer. Handmade invitations are next in line and for those of you with a big budget, bespoke wedding invitations are the most expensive on the market. And don’t forget that postage costs can add up quickly if you are sending a lot of invitations, so, this should also be accounted for in your budget.

Keep in mind that your wedding invitations are the first glimpse that your guests will have of your wedding style. If you are having a beach wedding, it might not be as appropriate to have formal wedding invitations.

If you are having a particular colour or theme for your wedding, this will really help you narrow down your choice of invitations. Or reflecting your wedding flowers is also a great idea. There are some beautiful flower wedding invitations on the market in a vast array of colours and flower types.

Or you could choose wedding invitations that reflect your personal style rather than your wedding. You could choose to reflect your hobbies or pick a photograph that has special memories. Or if you have any children in your family, ask them to draw you a picture to copy onto the front of your invitations. Whatever you choose make sure that it is unique to you.

Creating the insert to look like a professional has done it was the hardest task, that the ooutcome used to be do it yourself wedding stationery that looked like DIY, they didn’t appear smooth around the edges. After a lot of thought we decided to have a search for some do it yourself wedding stationery to see if it had improved with technology always moving forward.

We started on the internet, there is a huge amount of businesses offering their services to design and produce your wedding stationery for you, we also found companies who offer pre-printed mass produced stationery, unfortunately it was not unique and did not have the personal touch we were looking for.

After more searching we finally found the answer, a company called Syntego have eleven ranges of stunning quality card stock and everything comes with matching quality inserts and even matching envelopes! Eureka!!

You can find them at Syntego-co-uk once there you can type in your post code to find your nearest stockist. OK so what range to choose, we opted for the Ruby Red range, which I have to say is definitely one of the most amazing cards I have ever seen,the ruby red is a deep pure red that changes colour in the light and shimmers, we couldn’t help bout be drawn to this range, you have to look at the stationery to understand the quality. We didn’t want a normal looking invitation and once again Syntego came up trumps, they have produced “invitation Pockets” which are one of the classiest invitations we have ever seen.

Our Local stockist had some pockets in stock so we took them home and got ready to play, even at this stage we weren’t optimistic aboout producing invitations that looked professional bout after reading the leaflet that came with the invitations we followed the four simple steps that were clear to follow from the illustrations.

Step one:
Take the paper inserts oout of the packet and place them in your printer in-tray.

Step two:
Log on to specialdaytemplates-co-uk click on the product, then click on who the invitation is from, we selected from the bride and groom. We couldn’t believe our eyes, there it was all ready done with the right print parameters set up and the text all ready laid oout in the correct format.
All we had to do was change the words to the ones we wanted and we picked a different type face.

Step Three:
Attach the insert to the backing board, again dead simple we used a small piece of ribbon that was one of the wedding colours and tied it into a simple bow, then simply slid the insert into the pocket.

Step Four:
Admire your truly personal stunning invitation.

We did the wedding stationery turned out stunning!!! We had beaoutiful wedding invitations that looked as if we paid a fortune from a top designer, it really was the icing on the cake, in fact after this we decided to follow with the ruby red range and get all of our menus, favor boxes, evening invitations, syntefold wallets and order of service.

If you were full of fear of do it yourself wedding stationery, don’t be give Syntego a go, as their slogan tells you….

“It’s your day, do it your way”

For more information on creating your own wedding stationery or to get your free sample including free postage please go to Syntego Wedding Stationery, You can also have a look at the special day templates by clicking here

Personalizing your wedding is all about peppering the day with little details that speak to you as a couple.  Favorite foods, colors, flowers and even inside jokes can be incorporated into the wedding to make it a truly memorable experience. Though your third cousin twice-removed, John, might not know your relationship intimately enough to appreciate the cocktail napkins with trivia about how you met, the family and friends who are close to you certainly will. For this reason (as well as budgetary reasons!), I always recommend limiting the guests to those you really know well and love.  Even trying to spend quality time with over 100 people can be incredibly overwhelming on your wedding day, let along 250+… but I digress.

A unique way to personalize your wedding is to choose a particular font and carry it throughout the day with small touches – signs, labels, favors, menus, even the wedding invitations, save the dates and thank you notes.  Finding a great font to represent your day takes a bit of time, but it can also be free. Though many sites require payment for font downloads, visit sites like fonts101.com and dafont.com for free downloads on a plethora of fantastic fonts.

For the ultimate in personalization, Amanda at Fonts for Peas can even turn your own handwriting into a font. This would be a great way to make hang tags on favors look handwritten and personalized; perfect for a personalized, charming wedding. You can even use the font for placecards, to create printed menus, and for signs directing guests to a sign-in book, a photobooth or a dessert table. Be creative with your fonts, and incorporate them in many different ways throughout the day to create a pulled-together, cohesive look.

As for some of my personal favorites, I love Fonts for Peas’ Milk and Cereal font for casual events, Chopin Script for elegant occasions, and Porcelain for a cool vintage look with a touch of Gothic romance. My favorite font of all, of course, is the Feel Script font – which is The Stylish Soiree’s signature font.

What are some of your favorite fonts?

For brides who are just starting out in their wedding planning process, keeping an inspiration journal is one of the best ways to build your dream wedding. Though flipping through wedding magazines and websites definitely helps inspire, unless you tear out (or print out) what inspires you and organize it in one central place, it can easily disappear forever. I can’t recall how many times someone has said that they saw the most gorgeous idea…. and they can’t remember where they found it.

For this reason, I am a huge advocate of a planning journal / inspiration book / sketchbook. Photo cutouts, printouts and color inspirations can be quickly easily pasted into the inspiration journal for safekeeping. This way you have something on hand to show to vendors that can communicate your idea far clearer and easier than trying to describe what you saw. It’s true that a picture is worth a thousand words, so save your breath and use the perfect image instead.

Wiley Valentine is one of my favorite stationers – we even bought our wedding invitations from them.  So when I spotted their drool-worthy letterpress journals on Weddingbee Pro this morning, I knew I had to share. My eye is on the pretty “Imagine” journal, perfect for jotting down creative, imaginative  ideas for clients’ weddings. At only $9 per pop, they’re as affordable as they are lovely.

Being an event and wedding planner, I’ve developed a serious love affair for letterpress paper. The thick white paper, the care and craftsmanship involved in creating the deep indentations, and the overall effect of a letterpress card or invitation is simply stunning. So when it came time to order business cards, I was dead-set on finding a way to afford beautiful letterpress.

With much searching through Etsy, local paper stores and presses across the country, I weighed my options and inquired about the cost. My estimates ranged everywhere from $165 for 350 business cards to $400 for 100 (!), and I finally settled on working with Kristin from Twin Ravens Press. Having heard good reviews about her work on Wedding Bee as well, I have to chime in and say that working with her was an absolute pleasure.  Not only was she one of the most reasonably priced letterpress providers, she had an incredibly quick turnaround time and went above and beyond the call of duty.  My new business cards are on their way as I type this, and I am giddy with excitement to see them in person. For now I have the lovely picture above to drool over.

For any brides who have their heart set on beautiful letterpress at a great price, contact Kristin through her Etsy page (tell her I sent ya!).  She also does custom designs for those of you who want something personal for your fab fete. You just might be pleasantly surprised to find that letterpress invitations are within your budget after all.

WOW!!!  What a fabulous weekend!  Jacki and I had our first wedding of the season, and it couldn’t have been a better start …. Congrats Susan and Tom!

If you don’t already know, we are ALL about the details.  We love to bring the feel of a wedding together through small touches here and there.  One of those being the stationary – for everything to coordinate.  Susan had found her lovely invitation online and we coordinated all the other stationary pieces {welcome bag tags, weekend itinerary, programs, escort cards, menu cards} … with design, font, colors, etc all matching and completing her look throughout the wonderful wedding weekend!

please enjoy the photos to see Susan’s stationary ….

even if we are not your fabulous wedding planners, we would still be honored to bring all your stationary needs together…

celebrate your love …

I have decided to begin my own line of wedding products custom made to your wishes. Stay tuned for more product information.

How pretty! I really love beautifully designed and printed wedding and special events stationary. My favorite print method has always been letterpress. The issue is that letterpress is most often very pricey and lots of times needs to be custom made or purchased from a stationary store. Now, there are some online printing companies who provide the very elegant letterpress along with their thermography and flat digital designs for budget conscious brides. Who isn’t budget conscious nowadays anyway? We are all trying to save a bit of money and anything will really help. The best part is if you find a vendor online that is very competitive against traditional brick and mortar stores, why not go for your favorite invitations?

Check out the pretty designs from Wedding Paper Divas.

This is a two color letterpress design called Romantic Rosette by the popular William Arthur Design.

This is a digital flat press design called Roses Bloom 

Lastly, we have this really pretty persimmon Damask style. I think this color is really bold and terrific for a fall wedding.

The paper quality is really nice. The card stock on the digital prints are thick. The letterpress was printed on ecru paper to give it some texture and the antique-y feel of handmade paper.

I saw that the digital invitations were priced in the $2+ range. That is a really great price in my opinion. There is really something for everyone on Wedding Paper Divas.

I did a short stint as an intern at one of the bridal mags in my post-college/pre-real world days and completely and totally loved it. Obviously. While I was there, I had to file my way through countless stationary samples from invitation companies hoping to be featured in the next big article on paper goods. I’m a pretty simple girl, so it’s tough for me to differentiate between all the loopy, letterpress that’s out there, but there’s one thing I totally fell in love with while I was there…custom wedding maps.

I know they’re not SUPER necessary. But they’re kind of great. Especially if you’re having a destination wedding where most of your guest have no idea where to find you, the happy couple, the hotel their staying in, or the nearest happy hour.  If you have the funds to splurge on one more thing to shove into your envelopes…opt for these, and if there happens to be no more room left in those envelopes, they also fit nicely and look great in welcome baskets for guests upon arrival.

Calligraphics, on Etsy does custom drawn and digitally colored custom wedding maps. The price varies depending on the number of details you want to include and how many you’ll need. It’s best to contact them directly to discuss.

Custom Wedding Maps- Calligraphics- Etsy

For this custom map design it’s $25 and printing is either additional or on your own accord. Again…check with the seller at checkout.

GoAgainstTheGrain Custom Maps- Etsy

Laura Hooper Calligraphy and Lucky Orchid Invitations are Etsy sellers that offer some of the best custom wedding maps I’ve ever seen. She offers 100 custom drawn maps for $415 and for $150 you can have you map enlarged to a watercolor painting.

LH Calligraphy & Lucky Orchid Invitations (front)

LH Calligraphy & Lucky Orchid Invitations (back)

LH Calligraphy & Lucky Orchid Invitations- Etsy

LH Calligraphy & Lucky Orchid Invitations - Etsy

Mira Aster is one of the most amazing wedding invitation designers around, and her work has been featured just about everywhere.  They’ve been doing custom hand stitched invitations since 2000 and for some seriously incredible wedding maps Mira Aster teams up with the unbelievable Stephannie Barba of Couture Maps. Design starts at $400 for one color, but each order’s cost is different based on what you’re looking for as far as printing, paper and design go.   To get an estimate for what you’re looking for go to their order page and fill out a form to see what kind of cash you’re gonna have to lay down to get these in your possession.  Samples are available for $10 in the US and $15 internationally.

Couture Maps with hand stitching by Mira Aster

Couture Maps by Stephannie Barba

Couture Maps by Stephannie Barba

If you don’t have the funds to pay someone else to draw, paint and print your beautiful wedding maps, make your own! There are plenty of DIY templates out on the web, or you can get someone with some serious artistic ability to draw them for you and then scan and print.  Wedding Mappers offers custom DIY Map Guides so you can create your own map right online with icons and styles that match your wedding!

]]> http://emmasanderstextiles.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/who-am-i/ Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:20:08 +0000 emmasanderstextiles http://emmasanderstextiles.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/who-am-i/

Hi welcome to my blog site. I’m Emma Sanders and I’m a textiles student in the final year of my degree, at Cleveland College of Art and Design. At the moment I am working on my final major project where I am doing wedding stationary and table settings, which will then be exhibited at a degree show in June 2009, in Hartlepool Art Gallery. The theme for my project has been inspired by jewellery and florals, with bright colours, creating a enchanted, romantic, freeflowing feel to it.

20 GREAT PRODUCTS FROM
THE GREEN KANGAROO FOR UNDER $450!

Want beautiful invitations without breaking the bank? Check out The Green Kangaroo’s 20 hot products that are all priced at $450 and under for 100 invitations! All invites come with reply card, inner / outer envelope plus return and reply address printing. PLUS, all invites can be customized in any of our 32 ink colors and 40 font combinations. What a steal!

Not familiar with The Green Kangaroo? Your missing out on a great supplier of unique and personal wedding products, that can ship anywhere in the country, thanks to the wonderful world of technology! Check them out today at www.tgkdesigns.com.

Perfect for wedding invitations or bulletins, these stylish notices are a must for your wedding. Each card has the Irish sentiment: “may your hands be forever blessed in friendship and your hearts joined forever in love”. Fits in most printers and copiers!

Weddingstar Celtic Wedding Bulletins

I’m suspicious to talk about this invitation since it comes from my friend and blogger friend Clemens Designs but I was looking at her new work and samples and just fell in love with it. It’s so original and out of the blue … I’m in love … don’t u love out of the ordinary things? Well you are lucky to get a first glance since this have not been made public in her website YET!!!

It looks simple right … but it’s  not!!

So yeah … right now this is just on the top of all time favorite invite because it’s OUT OF THE BOX!! I’m so cheesy!!!

Silk Box Invitation

Wedding Invitations created by Spunsilk are beautifully handcrafted designs with luxury in mind

We can provide a wide range of invitations to combine with your wedding day theme. We have silk box designs and pocketfold invitations. We also provide wedding day accessories including favour boxes and guest books.

Our wedding invitations are hand made, using high quality card and embellishments including ribbons, crystals and butterflies. Most are available in a choice of colourways.

For further information please visit http://www.spunsilk.co.uk