This invitation was designed for my dear friend Katie, who asked me if I would create a shower invitation with a coordinating thank-you note.  I usually like to take inspiration from the expectant mother’s nursery design ideas to create baby stationery, and I knew she was putting together a beautiful room for her baby girl with crystals, white wrought iron, and delicate shades of gray and blue.  We shifted from blue to pink for the shower invite but kept the gray, and the end result was stunning!

The invitation, a triple-layered panel with a ribbon detail and embellishment.

A closer look at the belly band and embellishment, which is a vintage-inspired button. I broke the loop off the back so it would lay flat.

The coordinating thank-you note, with a printed gray and pink stripe across the front and a simple Swarovski crystal embellishment in the middle.

The whole suite looks gorgeous all together! Both the invite and the thank-you were paired with pink metallic envelopes for an extra little bit of sparkle.

It was a joy creating these custom pieces for Katie and her sweet little girl Abby, who made her appearance on September 4th!  Stay tuned for Part Two – more baby showers tomorrow!

I knew that Stacy wanted some sparkle in her invites, so we paired up three gorgeous metallic cardstocks and a handful of crystal embellishments for these lovely gatefolds.  Take a look at how it all came together!

I used the monogram I'd created previously on the oval seal for the tucked-ribbon belly band.

A closer look at the belly band and seal. I love the tucked-ribbon look; it's a ton of extra work, but it's worth it.

The invitation panel was mounted to a pink metallic cardstock mat inside the gold metallic gatefold.

There were five crystal accents on each invitation panel - a pink one in each corner and an amber one in the center.

The inserts all maintained the graphics and fonts from the invitation panel and were mounted to pink metallic cardstock.

The only insert that didn't get a cardstock mat was the RSVP card, because it's paired with a coordinating pink envelope (not pictured).

It was so much fun designing such an elegant set of wedding invitations for what was undoubtedly a gorgeous and detail-rich affair this past June.  Stacy and Shannon, I wish you all the best in your marriage – thank you for the opportunity to create these pieces for you!

Stacy and her friend had already designed and printed magnets for the save-the-dates, and she was looking for a card to attach them to that gave her guests some additional information.  This was an interesting challenge, as I had to find a way to coordinate with her existing design and introduce the monogram and color scheme.

We started with the monogram.  I presented her with three different options:

Monogram #1 - the colors look different on screen, but it prints out as a lovely rose pink/beige combination.

Monogram #2 - a little more sleek and modern

Monogram #3 - a slight variation on #2, more pink, less brown, and capital letters.

Stacy and Shannon chose Monogram #1.  I love the ornate swirls – they give you so many opportunities to embellish with rhinestones or hand-painted accents!

From there, I worked out a design for the A2-sized save-the-date card that incorporated the monogram and used the font from the existing magnet.  Since the monogram is fairly tiny on the card, I changed the text in it to a chocolate brown for more contrast.  The design was printed on my favorite natural white linen pearl cardstock and paired with a beautiful pink metallic euro-flap envelope.  Here’s the end result:

The card, with the attached magnet and coordinating envelope.

A closer look. So shimmery and pretty!

Stacy, I hope all of your guests love them!  I’m looking forward to working with you on the invitations in the coming months as well.

Erin is a dear friend of mine whose daughter Sophia is due in December.  I was so thrilled to be able to do the invitations for her upcoming shower!  She chose one of my favorite color schemes (pink and brown) and let me be creative with the design.

Inspiration comes from the strangest places sometimes.  I opened the trunk of my car and saw a box of leftover decorations from my wedding – these cute little pink and brown birds that I used to decorate my manzanita placecard trees:

Photo by the lovely and talented Zenia of Zenia Photography

(Yes, I know my wedding was almost a year ago, and there is no excuse to still have decorations in my trunk.)

But with that in my head, I created this invitation:

Erin's shower invitation, with coordinating printed envelope.

The double-layered panel, sans envelope.

A closer look at the illustration. I hand-traced elements from four different photos to put it together.

The invitation panel was printed on an ivory metallic linen cardstock and mounted to a 5×7 piece of pink metallic cardstock.  I was worried it would be sparkle overload, but it’s lovely in person, especially with the matching envelope.

I’m adding it to my Etsy shop and offering customization of colors as well as text, so the mommies-to-be who are having boys won’t feel left out.

Erin, it was a joy to create these for you, and I’m looking forward to meeting Sophia soon!

The invitation in its lined envelope

The pocketfolder was handmade from leather-textured paper with a satin ribbon bellyband and monogram.

The inside of the pocketfolder, with three inserts and a double-matted invitation panel with a rhinestone accent.

Closer view of the panel and inserts. Two of the inserts were matted on chocolate brown cardstock; the RSVP card used the chocolate brown envelope as a backing piece.

All the pieces of the invitation. The Directions card included a map created in Photoshop; the RSVP cards were personalized for each guest attending. and the RSVP envelopes were lined with the same paper as the outer envelope.

I put some serious blood/sweat/tears into the invitations for our wedding, and the response from our guests was overwhelmingly positive.  People wrote notes on our RSVP cards raving about how gorgeous they were, and I had a number of friends ask if I could design items for them.

I never intended to make my own pocketfolders, but I found paper that I just couldn’t resist.  The pocketfolders were made from a double-sided, leather-textured 12″x12″ sheet of scrapbooking paper; the panel and inserts were printed on text-weight ivory linen paper and mounted on chocolate brown cardstock.  I added one Swarovski crystal accent on each invitation and closed the whole thing with a satin ribbon bellyband and a triple-layered monogram square.  The envelopes (both the outer and the RSVP) were lined by hand.

I spent a LOT of time on theknot.com’s message boards while planning my wedding, and I got a lot of inspiration and assistance from the fabulous ladies on the Los Angeles and DIY boards.  In light of that, I created a “married bio” that included templates for the vast majority of the paper products I created for my own wedding.

The templates for each piece of my own wedding invitation (as well as many of my other projects) are still available for free download in my bio for anyone who wants them, and I am going to leave it that way as a sort of thank-you to the community who provided so much inspiration when I was starting out.  If you don’t have Photoshop and/or don’t want or know how to customize these files, I can very easily do that for you for a small fee and send you the customized digital files, or I can go the full-service route and print, cut, and assemble it all.

I have been a Martha Stewart Weddings junkie since long before I was even engaged, and I saw this idea in her magazine that I thought was super cute.   DIY calendar stickers!  So adorable!

Martha Stewart Save The Dates with calendar stickers

When it actually came time to make my own Save-the-Date cards, though, I couldn’t resist the appeal of the standard magnet-with-our-picture on it.  I still couldn’t get the idea of the calendar stickers out of my head, though, and I finally decided to just do both.

Here is the result – a business-card sized magnet and two 1″ round stickers, attached to a standard postcard with clear photo corners.  Our guests LOVED them!

Our completed Save-the-Date card.