Sunday, October 19, 2008

wanna do me a favor?

i headed over to amanda's blog over at the blissful bride the other day and spotted a post on a favor contest...


...over at darcy miller's the bride's guide blog...



...the contest is actually being hosted on the martha stewart website...


...anyway, all that is to say that i went over to the martha stewart site and uploaded the pictures of the favors i hand-made for our wedding last september...

...and now, if you so choose, you can go and vote for me :) unfortunately you have to sign up on the martha stewart website in order to vote. BUT you can opt to not receive ANY newsletters if you so choose OR you can pick and choose to receive things that you might actually find helpful...like other offers and contests and fun projects on every thing from halloween crafts to what to make for dinner.

i signed up under the moniker 'mzflounder' since that is who i was prior to opening my business. to see the actual post with my favors on it you can go here: http://url2it.com/jne.

in the upper right corner of the martha stewart site, you can opt to sign in and if you click on that it will let you sign up. once you have signed up, come back here and click on the link to go to my page again and then you can click on the stars at the bottom of the page and 'rate me'.

alternatively, if you just go to the site and look at the picture, it at least records how many people have looked at my favor.

thanks all! no worries if you don't want to do this...i just figured every little bit would help.

--miriam

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

it's opinion poll time

i am participating in the roslindale open studios in november and i thought i would make some cards showcasing some of our fine little village.

below are two sets of pictures, let me know which ones you think will look better on a set of four note cards. (click to enlarge)

option a:






option b:






Saturday, October 11, 2008

sweet thing

i had a wonderful time this week assembling a hostess treats groom's cake for Alanna.



Alanna's husband (as of today) saw a hostess cake and was really hoping to convince Alanna to have one just like it as their wedding cake. somewhere along the way, she was able to convince him to go more traditional for the wedding, but as a surprise, she had me make a hostess cake to use as a groom's cake at their rehearsal dinner last night.

this is the perfect example of the DIY Rescue services I offer. Alanna could have made this on her own, but was traveling from DC to boston and knew she couldn't travel that far with the cake. so we figured out the cost of materials and the time for production and a solution was made!

below is the original inspiration picture.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Invitation Inspiration, cont.

Ok, so I have had some time (actually, LOTS of time...I went away for the weekend) to dream up an invitation suite based on the three pictures I picked as my inspiration the other day.



The goal with this design was to evoke the classic simplicity of the venue while still retaining a sense of spontaneity and fun edge.

With that in mind, I kept the text of the invitation very classic in both layout and font, with the only embellishment being the names of the couple in script. (Another option to keep this portion of the invitation even more organic would be to hire a Calligrapher to write the names and then use the digital image of the names instead of a 'canned font'.)

The 4x6" invitation would be letter-pressed on thick, dye-free cotton paper which would then be layered on top of a gray linen fabric swatch which (in turn) would then be layered onto a piece of 5x7" thin wood veneer stationary. The entire piece would be wrapped together with a naturally dyed, gray, cotton grosgrain ribbon.

Click on image to enlarge

The best part about this design is how adaptable it is to a wide range of budgets. If you want to go all out, you can opt for letterpress, you can screen print the reception information onto the linen and then you can digitally print the map onto the wood stationary.

If you are looking for something a bit more inexpensive, you could opt for digital printing the invitation on natural paper and only use the linen and the wood veneer as layering pieces rather than printing on them directly.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

baby invites for susan

i've had a blast the past few weeks designing and making these super-cute baby shower invitations for susan.

she doesn't know if she's expecting a boy or a girl, but with the dainty blue polka dots and stiched detail, i think the overall design works either way.

each shower invitation was delivered in a chocolate brown envelope with a white-'stitched' butterfly detail hand drawn on the back of the envelope.



here's a close up of the butterfly detail:

inside, was a custom fabric pouch with a satin ribbon bow:


the stitching detail continues throughout the invitation, both susan's name and the border detail carry the theme:




these invites were very fun to make, especially considering how 'new' i am to the sewing world and considering how many amazingly adorable fabrics there are out there, the possibilities are endless!