The elephant in the room

While wedding stationery is our main bag, every now and then we get to produce stationery for life's other special occasions. This little guy (and a bunch of his friends) will be heading east to celebrate the birth of a special little boy soon, and he'll be sorely missed around here. Nothing better than seeing a pack of sweet blue elephants in the midst of our summer wedding blitz!

Hardy (and hearty!)

Worked on a big project last week. Really big. My normal canvas of choice measures 5" x 7", but my latest project came in at a whopping 4 feet by 6 feet. Here's the story of how it came to be.

PREFACE
A couple of weeks ago, I chatted with Mona Hirata of Weddings by Grace and Mona about her upcoming workshop @ The Wedding Cafe. Mona had an idea for her table and asked if I could help her execute it. Now, the one thing I can always count on happening during any meeting with Mona is that she'll challenge me as a designer. This was no exception.

CHAPTER 1: Mona's BIG Idea
A 4-ft x 6-ft foam core board that would hang from the pipe and drape behind her table. She referred me to a couple of Ed Hardy prints as inspiration and wanted something to pop against the black drape and linen. Mona envisioned a vine with three large roses in purple, pink, and red...and, uh, no thorns and no dripping blood, please. Turnaround on design and printing would have to be QUICK, QUICK, QUICK as she would then turn the board over to Jae Yoo at My Florist for embellishment.

CHAPTER 2: The Basics
Here's the initial concept as I sketched it out during our meeting:

CHAPTER 3: This Is Gonna Be HUGE
We quickly realized that a piece this large with only three flowers would mean a lot of empty white space. Normally, I love white space but the first design concept looked too bare, too simple.

CHAPTER 4: Less Is More...Unless It's Not Enough
With 24 square feet of space to fill up, the first thing I did was add some leaves. The vine needed a little more life, too. Added in some curly cues here and there, a few more roses, and a few more colors.

CHAPTER 5: Off To Print And A Tiny Hiccup
A few rounds of revisions, and the design was approved for print. Successfully submitted my artwork and got it in the print queue. Delivering a piece this large proved to be a challenge for the print shop,though, so we arranged to have Jae (aka florist extraordinaire) pick up the piece in his van. Small hiccup, no biggie.

CHAPTER 6: If I Can't See It, It Doesn't Exist
It's hard for a designer to produce something and not see the finished piece. The turnaround at the print shop was less than 24 hours (yippee!) and since Jae picked up the piece himself, I didn't get to see what the board looked like. Were the colors right? Did they put the grommets in the right place? Did it have the glossy finish that I asked for? I had to hope for the best and wait patiently while Jae performed his magic.

CHAPTER 7: Success!
Here is the finished product with a happy Mona standing next to it:

And a close-up shot of the crystals that Jae laboriously added to each and every petal. Amazing...

CHAPTER 8: Oh, There's More?

In addition to producing this larger than life display board, Mona asked me to create a suite of custom stationery to hand out as prize giveaways during the workshop. To my delight, she gave me carte blanche to come up with something fabulous.

The first set came in a silk portfolio embellished with a large crystal buckle on the front:

Tucked into the interior portfolio pockets were four color-coordinated notecards with smaller rhinestone buckles and Swarovski crystals.

The second stationery set included ten notecards with hot pink and clear Swarovski crystals, pearl metallic envelopes, and a chocolate brown silk pouch.

The final set included pretty floral patterned cards with one super fancy showcase piece finished with a fabric flower and feathers...all housed in a flip-top silk box.

EPILOGUE

I love it when I'm afforded the opportunity to flex my design muscles a bit. I love it even more when I can collaborate with talented individuals and breathe life into someone's fantastic vision. Thanks, Mona!

Photos courtesy of Kris Labang Photography

the handwritten note

Does anyone write notes anymore? Emails, IMs, and Twitter updates don't count. I'm talking about the "old school" pen in hand, simple words from the heart, lick the envelope, hunt for a stamp kind of note. I'm guilty of using Ecards and Evites despite the evergrowing stash of stationery that I've amassed throughout the years, but there's something so sweet and simple (and unexpected!) about sending and receiving notes via snail mail.

Pictured above is a sneak peek at some notecard sets that I'll be selling at The Wedding Cafe. The cards are made with imported paper (many are handmade and recycled!) and adorned with Swarovski crystals. Six cards per set and pearl white or silver metallic envelopes are included. There's a limited number of sets per design and some of these papers are no longer in print, so if you see something you like head over to the cafe to snatch it up.

Fair wrap-up

Have you noticed my sparse blogging lately? It's no coincidence that there's a direct correlation between the number of days left in 2008 to the number of days that I can have a quiet 20-minute break to tend to my blog. It's downright scary!

But I did want to share a few photos of the goodies that I created for the East-West Center craft fair last week. I was a bit worried about how my sales would fare given the gloomy economy, but I was happy to bid adieu to so many of my products that are undoubtedly finding nice new homes this Christmas.

Scalloped gift tags:

Note card sets (these were made with the beautiful washi paper that I picked up in Japan this year!):

Mini desk calendars:

I also created a bunch of butterfly notecards, whimsical tree notecards, blinged out notecards...but unfortunately I didn't take any photos of these before they sold out. Oh, and the other hot item at my table was my mother's infamous steamed mochi. Yes, it was a mother-daughter tag-team event with my childhood friend pitching in as our star salesperson.

Thanks Mom and L for a fun fair!

Take note

For a couple of years now, I've been creating small batches of stationery items for craft fairs and for personal gifts for family and friends. At the same time, I've been amassing a huge collection of imported papers. To my husband's dismay, I don't always have a specific purpose in mind when purchasing paper. I guess I'm just a sucker for vibrant colors and pretty prints.

But my ever-growing paper collection came in handy recently when I decided to create a small collection of notecards that will be sold at The Wedding Cafe. After having designed wedding stationery for three years, it's my first step into retail. Perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit when I say "step"...it's more like I'm dipping my baby toe into the shallow end of the retail world while wearing water wings. It's a start.

All of the notecards are made with imported paper (most from handmade paper) and are paired with pretty metallic envelopes. Half of my collection is accented with Swarovski crystals for a little extra sparkle, while the other half is au naturel. Some of the papers are no longer available for purchase so handing over my completed cards meant saying goodbye to some of my all-time favorite prints. Well, that just gives me a good excuse to look for more paper, doesn't it?