Naughty or Nice?

"Naughty" favor boxes (Photo by Derek Wong Photography)

"Nice" favor boxes (Photo by Derek Wong Photography)

Continuing on with Erin and Matt's holiday-inspired wedding extravaganza...

They presented their guests with a choice of "Naughty" or "Nice" gourmet chocolates packaged in red and white pillow boxes. We designed corresponding tags and a framed sign that invited guests to make their selection at the end of the evening. Love bringing clients' creative ideas to life!

Holiday-Inspired Invitation...the nose knows

Holiday-inspired invitation (Photo by Derek Wong Photography)

If only my blog came with a scratch-n-sniff feature.

This invitation was for a winter wedding back in December. There were so many fun elements to this wedding, that I decided to cover them all in multiple posts. (When you've taken a break from writing as long as I have, you gotta ease back into a little at a time. I don't want to sprain a muscle or anything.)

So, back to the invitation shown above. My clients, Erin and Matt, wanted a festive piece that tied in with their Christmas themed extravaganza. (I refer to it as an "extravaganza" because, well, you'll see why after I'm done writing about it.) A color scheme of red and white and touches of silver worked seamlessly with the printed Christmas ornaments that festooned the invitation and response card. The outside of the invitation was wrapped with a red and white striped paper band and a little "no peeking 'til Christmas" sign...the "no" was crossed out, so technically it was a "NO no peeking 'til Christmas" sign which gets a little confusing when you think about it too long. So don't think about it too long.

The hidden gem of the invitation, though, was the scent. Yes, I said scent. Erin and Matt's uber creative wedding coordinator, Mona Hirata from Weddings by Grace and Mona, suggested that we add a holiday scent to the invitation to drum up even more excitement for their guests. Why not? I love trying new things and scent was definitely a new thing.

Erin and Matt's scent of choice was pine. Great! Little did I know that finding pine-scented anything in the month of August was near impossible. Sure, I could order something online but without the benefit of sniffing something firsthand (first nose?), online shopping was my last resort. I decided to hit up some local stores in search of essential oils. Bingo. The very first store I visited had pine...too bad it was too earthy. (It actually smelled like a rotting tree, but I think "earthy" sounds classier.) The second store I visited also had pine...well, they had an empty slot reserved for pine but they were sold out. Lots of other tree scents like sandalwood and eucalyptus were perched in their slots, but no pine.

Out of desperation, my husband and I took a spin by an auto parts store. Yes, the idea of shredding the hanging Christmas tree car fresheners sounded ridiculous, but how awesome would it be if that worked? IT DID NOT WORK. IT WAS NOT AWESOME. Lesson #1: Christmas trees that dangle from your rear view mirror do not smell anything like Christmas trees. Lesson #2: Don't tear open the package of Christmas tree air fresheners in a confined space (like your car) unless you're prepared to go rogue and toss it out of the window while driving down the highway (for the record, I didn't litter...but I did hang my arm out of the window the whole ride home).

Scarred from the whole pine fiasco, I suggested to my clients that we go with a peppermint scent. A nice, refreshing, easy-to-find peppermint scent. This was my first custom invitation that smelled as good as it looked.

Island beauty

I apologize for the amount of metaphors I'm about to use.

Sometimes, creating custom stationery is like blindly throwing darts. You throw out a bunch of darts (aka design concepts) and hope one of them hits the target (aka matches up with what the client wants).

Other times, creating custom stationery is like a fire drill. A last-minute request comes in and you need to stop whatever you're doing and tend to the fire ASAP.

And still other times, creating custom stationery is like Iron Chef. You know the mystery ingredient (aka theme of the event) and have a general idea of what you want to cook (aka design), but it's not until your food is plated and sitting in front of the judges that you'll know if everything worked (aka presented to the client).

Ok, that's enough bad metaphors for one day.

The menu card shown above was designed for the Ko'olau Ballrooms open house event held in late 2012. The direction I got was exactly as follows: vintage/Hawaiian/earthy + moss green/brown + textural. With only a couple of days to pull this together, the design ended up being a 3-layered card with the bottom layer faintly resembling tightly woven lauhala, a middle layer of chocolate brown, and the top ivory layer accented with a pair of ferns. All in all, a successful dart-throwing, fire drill-inspired, Iron Chef presentation...and I couldn't be happier with the way the table was staged!

(Photo by Kris Labang Photography)

Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Seabert!

 

 I love it when my clients are quick to respond to emails. I love it when they are kind and unassuming. I love it when they appreciate the little details just as much as I do.

And I am over the moon when I have clients who encompass all those things and so much more. Meet Michele and Chris Seabert...newlyweds (aka awesome clients)!

Interesting fact...my "relationship" with Michele and Chris came down to this:

5 months + 1 in-person consultation + 107 email messages = 1 happy couple and 1 happy designer

Because of busy work schedules and challenging logistics, we relied heavily on email communication to get everything done quickly and efficiently: ideas exchanged, proposals sent and accepted, proofs reviewed and approved, delivery and pick-up times scheduled. 107 emails sounds like a lot, but it really wasn't considering how much we got accomplished. Michele and Chris ordered invitations, table number cards, favor tags, thank you cards...

For their "fall romance" wedding, I incorporated a spray of phalaenopsis orchids, an antique gold backing clear Swarovski crystal accents, and rich purple pocket fold.

Pocket fold invitation with phalaenopsis orchids

The response and outer envelopes were a pale metallic gold.

Printed return address on back flap

And a bonus photo of Michele's gorgeous bouquet...just because

Thank you to Michele and Chris for allowing me to be a part of your special day!

Photo credit: T. Goda Media

I spy...Emi Ink in the news!

I'm not ashamed to say that I let out a little squeal of excitement at the sight of my invitations in the Sunday newspaper. I may have even jumped out of bed and done a little happy dance in my PJs. But it's not like I told my husband to run out immediately and pick up 10 copies of the paper...we agreed that 3 copies was more than sufficient.

But seeing my designs -- vague ideas that once lived in my head that are now in print -- surrounded by my comments (eloquently translated by Nadine Kam, Style Editor for Honolulu Star-Advertiser), has left me with a feeling of...oh, what do you call it...something similar to and vaguely resembling...validation.

I love this job more than I thought I could love any job. I love my clients, love the design process, and I love the fact that everything that's cranked out in my studio will be part of a celebration of love, a milestone event, a fond remembrance, a very special occasion. But this job is also a lot of work and so often, the required multi-tasking is overwhelming and the days start to blend together with no beginning and no end.

It is such a nice boost to my energy (and mood) when I'm reminded of all the reasons I love what I do. ♥

Goodbye Tangerine Tango

With the announcement of Emerald as the Pantone color of the year, "going green" will have a whole new meaning for 2013. In terms of island weddings at least, Emerald has never been a dominant hue in my stationery designs. I'm curious to see how many of my brides will be incorporating this color into their weddings, and even more curious to find out what other colors they'll be pairing it with. I'm favoring the cooler colors like turquoise and mint green, or a crisp, bright white.

Only time will tell if Emerald will be embraced in wedding decor as passionately as Tangerine Tango was in 2012!

Courtesy of Mother Nature

I spent the last day of 2012 flying from Chicago to Denver to Honolulu. I wasn't particularly looking forward to 12+ hours of travel, even with a free upgrade to first class, but somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, I realized that I'd be treated to some amazing inflight entertainment via Mother Nature.

I snapped my first photo shortly after take-off, about 2 seconds after we were allowed to turn on our electronic devices. Then I proceeded to take photos just about every five minutes thereafter because I wanted to capture every moment of the spectacular sunset unfolding outside my window. Yes, I'm sure my dork factor went up a couple of notches but I just couldn't look away (unlike Mr. Seat 2A behind me who pulled his window shade down just as the clouds turned a fiery red-orange).

So, between the color explosion outside and the local celebrity spotting across the aisle from me, it was a pretty enjoyable flight. I will keep said celebrity's identity a secret out of respect for his privacy...and the fact that I have absolutely nothing juicy to reveal (i.e. he requested only one topping for his ice cream sundae, among the dozen or so that were available). Perez Hilton, I am not.

A beautiful send off to 2012.