Twin Ravens Press

We Moved!!

2010-05-24T16:37:00.001-07:00

That's right - if you've been wondering about the sudden, prolonged lack of blogging activity on this site, worry and wonder no longer! The reason it's been so quiet around here for (Eep!) over a month is that while we've been designing, letterpress printing, going to a trade show in New York City, and creating awesome stuff, we've also been in the middle of moving our blog to a brand new host. Ladies and gents, I present to you the new online home of Twin Ravens Press: www.twinravenspress.com. Here you will find not only a much cooler blog, but contact forms, archives, pages about our studio and what we do, and eventually there will be a portfolio of our favorite designs over there as well! The new site is still a work-in-progress, but I'm sure you're going to love it! So, what are you waiting for?!?! Update your bookmarks and your RSS feeds, and come check out our new digs. Cheers!

Save the Date | Lauren & Warren are Getting Married!

2010-04-11T08:07:00.001-07:00

Check out this gorgeous set of Save-the-Date cards we designed and printed for a North Carolina couple back in January! Lauren and Warren's Save-the-Dates are fairly simple, but feature all of the necessary information (names, date, place and web address) in a very clean and gorgeous design. Lauren and Warren are using a tree motif on this piece and throughout the rest of their invitation suite, so we decided to make that a very central element on the Save-the-Date card. This card is an A2 size, measuring 5.5"x4.25" and was printed in two ink colors: copper and aubergine, and paired with a purple envelope from Waste Not Paper Company.

Above is the Save-the-Date card all by itself. I love how simple, yet elegant this design is, and the tree motif we used turned out just stunning. The copper ink that was used for their names and the tree gives the design a little extra sparkle, without being overwhelming. The paper Lauren chose is 100% cotton Crane Lettra Duplex, which is twice as thick as standard Lettra. This made for a really thick and substantial card, and a fantastic letterpress impression. Here are some close-ups so you can see all of the little details better:

For the envelope, as I mentioned above, we chose to go with purple shade from Waste Not Paper Company. Lauren and Warren's address and a much smaller version of their tree motif were letterpress printed on the back flap using copper ink and a small, framed motif with an infinity symbol and their upcoming wedding date was printed in the top left corner on the front of the envelope.

Aren't those just stunning?!? I'm currently in the process of working with Lauren and Warren on the designs for their main invitation suite, so if you like this design, check back soon to see their actual invitations! Thanks so much Lauren and Warren!

Featured! | Junebug Real Weddings

2010-04-10T16:44:00.000-07:00

It was lovely to discover that we recently got a lovely little mention over on Junebug Real Weddings for a wedding invitation suite we designed and printed for a lovely couple, Allison & Ryan, who were married on the Oregon Coast this past September. If you missed the post about their invitations on this blog, you should go and check it out here. A friend of mine, Kathryn Speyer, at Persimmon Images, photographed Allison and Ryan's wedding and it was through her that I discovered the mention on Junebug! I hadn't heard of Junebug until just recently, but their site seems to be a fabulous source for wedding inspiration, both on the actual site and on their blog. Go check out the feature here to see some of Kat's fabulous photos and to read more about Allison and Ryan's awesome wedding! Cheers!

Thirty-Three Pounds of Epic-Win.

2010-04-08T20:37:00.000-07:00

From a recent phone conversation I had with one of my favorite paper-makers, Samantha, at Porridge Papers:

Me: So, you remember that huge box of custom seeded paper you made for us that you wrote "33 lbs. of Awesome" on the outside of?
Samantha: Yeah.
Me: Well, I've finally finished the project that we needed thirty-three pounds of paper for. Let me tell you, it's pretty much awesome. I mean, the paper it's printed on is, in and of itself, thirty-three pounds of awesome...
Samantha: So, now that it's printed, it's like, Thirty-Three Pounds of Epic-Win, right?!?
Me: Yeah. Exactly.

So, why am I sharing this all with you? I had posted about the awesome box of paper we received from Porridge Papers a few weeks ago here, and I'm totally excited to say, that the project the paper was for (which was the largest, most complex, project I've ever taken on, to date) is finished! And it is, truly, 33 lbs. of epic-win. This project is the reason I've been so absent from blogging the past several days, but trust me folks, it was worth it! Below are some sneak-peak photos of the booklets that were created for this project (220 of them in all). They are truly wonderful, I'm totally proud, and the lovely bride that they were created for in upstate New York, was pretty ecstatic as well! I'm going to be sharing more with you on this project in a day or two, but I just had to give you a teaser for tonight. Cheers!

Julian's Bar Mitzvah

2010-03-31T21:34:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't noticed, this week I've been featuring tree-themed invitations on the blog. This wasn't totally intentional, I just happened to realize earlier this week that we've been doing a lot of tree-themed designs lately and I figured it would be a good opportunity to show them off, all together, so you could see how many different possibilities can come out of one, simple theme. The designs I've been showing off so far have been for wedding invitations and Save-the-Date cards, but we also recently printed a fabulous set of Bar Mitzvah invitations, for a young man named Julian, in the Los Angeles area.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, a Bar Mitzvah is a Jewish ceremony celebrating a boy's coming-of-age in the Jewish community. The Bar Mitzvah ceremony is typically an ordinary Sabbath service in which the boy participates for the first time as an adult. Typically a boy becomes a Bar Mitzvah at the age of 13. There is also an equivalent celebration for Jewish girls, called a Bat Mitzvah, which happens typically when the girl turns 12. Following the service there is often a celebratory meal or other type of party with family, friends and other members of the Jewish community. If you'd like to read more about Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, you can here.

Julian and his mom, Suzanne, had seen some of the Bar and Bat Mitzvah invitations I had designed and printed, here, on this blog, and decided to contact me about designing and printing Julian's. Julian and his family wanted some sort of Tree of Life theme and imagery when it came to the invitations, but were open to having that tree image be fairly modern and more organic than other more traditional depictions. Julian also expressed to me when we talked that he liked more antique-looking typefaces, so I made sure to take that into account when coming up with his design. Julian's Bar Mitzvah invitation suite, which you can see all together at the top of this post, included an A7 size invitation, a 4bar size reply postcard and an A7 envelope.

Julian's invitation was printed on Crane Lettra 100% cotton Ecru paper in two ink colors: a very light, sagey green and chocolate brown. I created a very organic, natural, Tree of Life that surrounds the text of Julian's invite and bleeds off of both the left-hand side and top of the invitation. If you look at the detail photo below you can see all of the amazing detail that went into this tree - particularly in the leaves. It turned out so great letterpress printed! All of the text was printed in chocolate brown ink. I used a classic, serif typeface that reminded me of old wooden letterpress type for Julian's and his parent's names, and a different, classic, roman typeface for the rest of the text. Julian's family chose to include information about both the actual service at the temple that is going to happen in the morning, and information about the evening party at a downtown hotel, on the invite. Here is a close-up so you can see some of the details better:

Julian and his family chose to pair the invitation with a simple, matching, ecru, square-flap envelope, also from Crane. The envelope had their return address letterpress printed in chocolate brown ink on the back flap.

For the reply card, Julian and his family chose to do a postcard, rather than a traditional card with an envelope. This is an awesome option as it saves both money on printing, as well as paper. The reply postcard was double-sided and looked like this:

Like the main invitation envelope, we kept the back of the postcard very simple and printed just the family's address on it in brown ink.

The front of the reply postcard was very similar to the invite, and featured the Tree of Life image on the left-hand side, with text printed in chocolate ink to the right of it.

Like the reply card for a wedding, Julian's Bar Mitzvah reply card featured a line where guests could write in their names and a place to indicate whether or not they planned to attend. This particular reply also included a portion where adult guests could choose an entree selection for the party in the evening. Isn't it just great?!? I love the way this set turned out!!

Julian and his family were really fun to work with. I honestly loved getting phone calls from Julian about the designs when we were in the middle of the design process, especially because most of my clients are quite a bit older. It was especially fun to get to work with someone so young, who was so interested in having a say in how his invitations came out! If you'd like to see some more examples of Bar and Bat Mitzvah invitations I've designed and printed in the past, you can check them out on this blog here, here and here. Thanks so much again, Julian, Suzanne and Randy! You guys are awesome!!

Save the Date: Whitney and Naysa are Getting Married!

2010-03-29T00:23:00.000-07:00

Check out these absolutely adorable Save-the-Date cards we printed recently for a lovely couple in New York City who are getting married in Connecticut this September! Naysa and Whitney already had their design (it was designed by the bride's brother) when they contacted me, but were looking for someone to letterpress print it! I absolutely loved their design and had a wonderful time bringing it to fruition.

Naysa & Whitney's Save-the-Date cards are a #10 size, which measures 3.875"x9.25" and were printed on Crane Lettra Pearl White 100% cotton paper in two ink colors: chocolate brown and a deep violet-burgundy. These were paired with corresponding #10 square flap envelopes, with the couple's return address, also printed in two ink colors on the back flap.

I'm sure most all of you have read Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree" (or at least had someone else read it to you) at some point in your life. I don't know for sure if Naysa and Whitney's Save-the-Date idea took inspiration from this book at all, but I have a hard time looking at the design and imagining that it didn't.* In the book, Silverstein's illustrations of The Giving Tree are very similar in style to the tree featured on Naysa & Whit's Save-the-Date. They also incorporated a very sweet use of a handwriting-like typeface, to give the design a more fun, casual and playful vibe. I also LOVE all of the small violet-burgundy accents throughout the design: the leaves on the tree, the circle around their wedding date on the calendar, and the heart around their initials that were "carved" into the tree trunk. The whole design is just so thoughtful and cute. Check out the detail photos below to see the colors, type, letterpress impression and cute little details of the design even better!

*Edit: After putting up this post, Naysa e-mailed me to say that yes, their design was, in fact, inspired by The Giving Tree, and actually, while her brother modified the design a bit for them, they found the original idea on merrimentdesign.com, here. I haven't seen much else from Merriment Design, but based on how this turned out, it seems like a great place for inspiration!

Aren't they just too cute?!? I almost can't get over it... I totally LOVE them! And, as if they couldn't get any sweeter, the envelopes that Naysa chose to pair with her cards are perfectly complimentary, and the design of their address totally matches the design of their Save-the-Date.

As I mentioned above, the envelope they chose is also from Crane and is a #10 Lettra envelope with a square flap. The fact that it's a nice, soft 100% cotton envelope allows us to get the letterpress impression to show, even on a surface as thin as the envelope flap. For the address, Naysa's brother used the same handwriting-like font from the card and used one single tree leaf as an accent motif below the actual address. We printed the type in chocolate brown and the leaf in the violet-burgundy color for a perfectly matching set.

These turned out so beautifully and I'm so excited to show them off! Naysa and Whitney are also working with us on the design and printing for their actual invitations, so you'll get to see those in a few months as well! Thanks so much Naysa & Whitney, you guys are awesome!

If you'd like more information about our custom letterpress printing and design services, please don't hesitate to contact us!

Joanna & Ian are Getting Married!

2010-03-28T14:54:00.000-07:00

Over a month ago (wow - I can't believe it's been that long already), I finished this lovely wedding invitation suite for a couple currently living in New York City, who are getting married in Hawaii this upcoming May. The bride, Joanna, is originally from Hawaii and her fiancee, Ian, is originally from New Zealand. They wanted to incorporate a little bit of their roots into their invitations, without the invitations seeming too tropical. You can see the entire suite at the top of this post. It included a 5.5" square invitation and 4bar reply card both printed in one ink color (a sagey, turquoise-y green) and blind embossing on Crane Lettra 100% cotton Ecru Paper and corresponding, matching envelopes for both pieces, also from Crane.

Here is the invitation and invitation envelope together.

Joanna chose a cute, square shape and square flap envelopes for her design. The envelopes were printed with her return address in the center of the flap.

For the design of the invite itself, we chose to keep things pretty traditional and elegant, but add a few modern and whimsical elements to make it unique.

Joanna had liked the blind embossing she had seen on some of our other invitations, so in order to incorporate this into her design we chose to do a pretty simple blind embossed border all around the design. For the text we used a pretty and modern script face that wasn't too flourish-y for their names and a nice serif typeface in all-caps for the rest of the information. In order to incorporate a little of their roots I mentioned above, Joanna had us create a small palm tree and kiwi bird graphic element for both the invite and reply card. The palm trees were meant to represent Joanna's Hawaiian background and the kiwi was meant to represent Ian's roots in New Zealand. Here is a close-up of the motif:

Isn't that cute?!? Below are a couple of other detail photos that I took so you can see the blind embossing, impression from the letterpress, fonts and colors a little bit closer.

For the reply cards, we chose to go with a matching design that incorporated both the palm trees/kiwi motif and the blind embossing. This card is a traditional 4bar shape and incorporated both the script and roman fonts we had used previously on the invitation.

This card also came with a matching ecru envelope that was printed with Joanna & Ian's address on the front.

This suite came together so beautifully and Joanna and Ian were an absolute joy to work with! I know that their tropical Hawaiian wedding in May is going to be just spectacular! Congratulations Joanna & Ian!

Erin & Andrew are Getting Married!

2010-03-19T22:34:00.000-07:00

It always amazes me how time does fly here at Twin Ravens during the early parts of spring. It seems like almost all (not all, but almost all) of our clients this time of year are having us design and print stationery for their upcoming weddings in the early spring and summer. We do have quite a few other projects in the works this time of year, including some very sweet baby announcements, an awesome set of Bar Mitzvah invitations, and several different sets of business cards and other business-related stationery, but by and large, this time of year seems to be dominated by weddings. While I truly enjoy this time of year and getting to work with so many amazing people, I must admit, it does make things very busy, which would explain my extremely inconsistent blogging. However, I do have some absolutely lovely things to show you in the next few weeks, starting with this.

Nearly a month ago we finished a really fun, yet classic set of invitations for a couple in North Carolina who are getting married at the end of April. Erin and Andrew had seen some invitations I had designed and printed previously on this blog and chose to combine/modify a couple of them to create their own unique invitation suite! Their suite included an A7 size invite with matching envelope, a 4bar size reply card envelope and a combined A7 size reply card and accommodations card that were perforated down the middle so that the reply card could be detached and mailed back. You can see all of the pieces in this suite together at the top of this post.

Erin and Andrew's wedding colors are navy blue and a light green and we chose to incorporate these into her suite with both her ink colors and her paper choices. Here is Erin and Andrew's invitation all by itself:

This invitation is an A7 size, measuring 5"x7" and has a fun, organic frame surrounding a mix of a classic serif typeface and a fun, modern script, all printed in navy blue ink. To give the invitation some additional texture, we blind embossed a series of vertical lines in the background behind the framed portion of the invitation. I love how a little bit of blind embossing can add some wonderful texture to a design, without being too overwhelming! Below are some detail images so you can see the texture of the embossing and printing better.

We had originally planned to pair this invitation with a green envelope (Erin and Andrew's other wedding color), but due to a very long backorder of the green from our supplier, we ended up going with a matching white envelope, printed with navy ink instead. Check out the cute heart detail below their address! Isn't that adorable?!?

For their reply card envelopes, we did end up using the green. This green is a light green color called "Balsam Fir" from Green Paper Company. Not only are these envelopes a fabulous green color, because they are made from 30% post-consumer waste, they are also "green" environmentally-speaking too!

For Erin and Andrew's two insert cards, we did something that I absolutely love, but have only done a few times before: we combined them. There are, in fact, two separate cards here, but they were designed and printed to be mailed as a single card (5"x7"), but perforated down the middle so that the reply card could be detached and mailed back.

As you can see in the above photo, an accommodations card that is similar in design to Erin and Andrew's wedding invitation is the top half of the joined card, and a cute, navy-blue-on-white reply card is the bottom half.

The accommodations portion of this card also featured some blind-embossing: this time diagonal lines behind our cute frame. The interior of the frame featured information about where to stay and were to find Erin & Andrew's website. If you look closely at the above photo, you can see the perforation in the card right below where the blind embossing ends. Isn't this just cool?!?

The lower portion of this card is their detachable reply card.

Erin and Andrew included a space for guests to write in their names, check-box options for the actual response and an area for guests to initial what their meal preference is for the reception. I just love this combined-card idea. It saves money for the couple on printing (by printing effectively one card instead of two) and it's a great way to keep all of the enclosure information together until the reply is ready to be sent back.

Erin and Andrew were wonderful clients and I thoroughly enjoyed working with them on this suite! Thanks so much Erin and Andrew and congratulations on your upcoming big day!

Katie & Michael are Getting Married!

2010-03-11T16:49:00.000-08:00

Right before I left for Minnesota a couple of weeks ago, I printed this lovely set of invitations for a couple in Texas who are getting married in May. The bride, Katie, designed these invitations herself and I just love the pretty flowers and sweet, whimsical grey hummingbird at the bottom. This suite includes a #10 size invitation, letterpress printed in two colors on Crane Lettra Pearl White paper, a #10 invitation envelope from Waste Not Paper Company in gravel grey and a 4bar size postcard that was digitally printed on a matching flat stock also from Waste Not Paper. At the top of this post you can see the whole suite together and below are photos of each of the pieces in detail.

Here is Katie's invitation by itself. She chose a really nice, light green ink for her floral details and names and a medium grey ink to match her envelopes for the rest of the text and for her hummingbird. I just love how whimsical and sweet this design is! Below are some detail photos so you can see the ink colors, fonts and letterpress impression a little better.

The reply postcards that went with these were a little bit simpler - no flowers or birdies, but the same great fonts Katie used were carried throughout. In order to save some money on printing, we chose to have this card printed digitally on a white card stock from Waste Not Paper that was a near-match to the 100% cotton stock we used for the invitation. Here it is below, front and back:

And, last but not least, come the envelopes. For her invitation envelopes, Katie chose a #10 size, long, skinny, grey envelope from Waste Not Paper. We printed her return address on the flap of it in a slightly darker grey than the invitation and envelope color.

Pretty sweet, don't you think?!? Working with Katie was a pleasure and I hope that their wedding this May is just as wonderful as their invitations! Thanks so much and congratulations Katie & Michael!

Francie & Greg are getting Married!

2010-03-10T15:39:00.001-08:00

Check out these beauties that I printed last week for a lovely couple who are getting married in Massachusetts this spring. The bride, Francie, already had her invitation design all laid out when she hired Twin Ravens Press to do her letterpress printing, but looked to us for a way to make her invitation really stand out. Our solution: create a custom-made, absolutely beautiful, handmade paper in a unique, French Blue color and letterpress print her design on it in pewter grey ink. The paper we had made is really luscious and thick (about 220 lb. actually) and was created by the wonderful folks at Porridge Papers, and the letterpress printing was done by us. Below are a few more images so you can see the printing and the gorgeous paper a little closer.

Aren't they just lovely?!? If you're interested in learning more about custom paper or custom letterpress printing, please feel free to contact us. Congratulations Francie & Greg!!

Thirty-Three Pounds of Awesome.

2010-03-08T22:05:00.000-08:00

Hi all! I must apologize again for my lengthy absence from the blog world. I returned from my trip to Minnesota last Monday (I'll have some awesome things to share about my trip here soon) , and it's been pretty much non-stop ever since I got back. I'm working on some truly awesome stuff though, so keep your eyes peeled over the next few weeks if you want to see some of the awesomeness I've been working on. And, speaking of awesome things, I received, literally, 33 lbs. of awesome in the form of handmade, wildflower seeded paper from Porridge Papers last week shortly after my return. The awesome paper maker out there that I've been working with, Samantha, even dubbed it so on the outside of the UPS box. She doesn't lie. The paper we received and the project we are in the midst of printing with it, is indeed, 33 lbs. of pure awesome. More on that soon!

Out of Town

2010-02-25T22:45:00.000-08:00

To all of my wonderful clients and readers: I wanted to let you know that I am going to be out of town this week, Thursday (today) through Sunday. I am traveling to Minneapolis to go to one of my younger cousin's weddings. This trip is both kind of exciting and making me a little nervous, because I haven't seen this particular part of my family for 15 years. I spent a little bit of time last weekend going through some old photos and found the photo at the top of this post. This photo was taken during the summer of 1995, which was the last time that I saw any of them in person. I'm the girl in the pink shirt on the far right, and was 11 years old at the time. My cousin Heidi who is getting married on Saturday is the one standing right behind me in the plaid shirt and overalls. She was 9 when this photo was taken, and the other three girls are also cousins who are in Minneapolis, who I will get to see at the wedding.

Aside from seeing my family that I haven't seen in a while and attending Heidi's wedding, I'm hoping to do some awesome Minneapolis work-related things while I am there, including meeting the uber-talented calligrapher/illustrator/designer, Crystal Kluge, in person. Crystal and I have been working together for a little while now on a few different collaborative projects including a few wedding invitations suites and some really cute holiday gift tags this last Christmas, but have never actually met in person, so I'm super-excited to finally meet her! (Click on the tag at the bottom of this post to see some of these projects! They are awesome!) A trip to one of the letterpress studios that I idolize, Studio On Fire, may also be in order, as they are located in Minneapolis as well.

If any of you out there are waiting to hear back from me on a print job or design work, or have recently made an inquiry about my services, I will be back to work on Monday morning (March 1st) and will answer your e-mails as soon as I can! Wish me luck and have a great weekend!

Stalked: Origami Crane Cards Featured on Etsy Stalker!

2010-02-24T14:12:00.000-08:00

I received a lovely e-mail this morning that our Origami Crane Cards were featured on Etsy Stalker yesterday. Check out the feature here and the cards in our etsy shop!

Fabulous Eco-Friendly Business Cards for Trees Creation & Happy Grow Lucky

2010-02-23T10:00:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I created a couple of lovely sets of business cards for a wonderful client and good friend, Teresa Ennis. Teresa is a business owner two-times-over, and wanted brand new, totally awesome business cards for both of her businesses. Both of her businesses are somewhat nature-oriented in one way or another and we wanted to really express that in her branding and in the design and execution of her cards. Here is what we came up with:

The first of Teresa's businesses is called Happy Grow Lucky, a local landscaping business she runs here in Eugene. I loved her business name as well as her tag line: "Dig Deep, Reach High!". For the design of this card we used a gorgeous tree image that has tons of roots spreading out across the bottom of the card. The trunk and branches of the tree twist around moving up the card vertically and accent the shape of the logo I created for her. The tree was printed in a very pale green and all of the typography on this card was printed in a darker evergreen color. These cards were printed on a custom seeded cream paper from Porridge Papers that will actually grow wildflowers if the paper gets wet. How cool is that?!?

I'm pretty proud of this design: it's perfect for Teresa's business and the whole concept really just kicks ass.

Besides having tons of talent for landscape design and making things grow happily, Teresa is also a talented artist. She creates everything from hand-bound books and journals, to jewelry, to found object art pieces. Her shop, Trees Creation, is up and running over on etsy. Go check it out by clicking here. Teresa's Trees Creation cards were also printed on cream colored Porridge Paper with wildflower seeds, this time in three ink colors: chocolate brown, green and plum purple. We continued the tree theme for this card, but created a different tree image and used some different fonts. Check it out:

Aren't they pretty? I just love how we can take the tree theme and create two business cards that are totally different, with a lot of the same elements. Below are a few detail photos of the Trees Creation cards so you can see the letterpress impression, ink colors, fonts and the details of the lovely Porridge Paper a little bit better.

Make sure to go and check out Teresa's etsy shop, and if you're in need of any landscaping in Eugene, give her a call at Happy Grow Lucky. Thanks so much Teresa! You are awesome!

Love is Sweet: Leia & Tyler are Married (continued)!

2010-02-20T15:28:00.000-08:00

(Photo Courtesy of Emily G Photography)

Last weekend I posted some pictures of one of my favorite stationery suites that was created for one of my favorite couples from 2009, Leia & Tyler. Not too long after their wedding, Tyler sent me a link to some of the photos from their special day. They gave me permission to share them with you here, and I am stoked to do so! I'm also excited to show you the awesome favor boxes I letterpress printed for their wedding, as well as their thank you cards that we printed just last month.

Let's start with the photos though! Leia & Tyler's photographer was the fabulous Emily of Emily G Photography in Portland, Oregon. I don't know Emily personally, but I do enjoy reading her blog, and ironically enough, she was the photographer for another friend's wedding, who I did stationery for, that was held the weekend before Leia & Tyler's wedding. If you'd like to see that couple's stationery (Emily & Stephen), as well as photos from their wedding taken by Emily G, check it out in my earlier post here.

I love the photos that were taken of Leia, Tyler and their ceremony on the beach! It was such a gorgeous, sunny day too for an Oregon wedding in October! They were really lucky!

I love Leia's green shoes in the foreground in this photo - so cute!!

Aren't they just an adorable, couple?!? And, here are a couple of photos of a few details from their reception:

(All wedding photos above courtesy of Emily G Photography)

See that last photo of all of the brown and light green boxes? Twin Ravens Press totally made those. These were kind of a last-minute project that we did the week before Leia & Tyler's wedding. You see, there is this great little chocolate shop in Eugene called Euphoria, and for their wedding favors, Leia & Tyler had gotten some really tasty little confections for their guests. They hadn't figured out yet though, how to package or display them at the wedding. Leia and Tyler contacted me to help them out with this last little detail. To package their chocolates as favors for their guests, we created a set of paper pillow boxes with a paper band around them, letterpress printed with Leia & Tyler's names, wedding date, and the phrase "Love is Sweet". The chocolate brown boxes were from Waste Not Paper Company, and measured approximately 6.25" x 4.125" x 1.625". Since we did this project on such short notice, you might notice that the font we used for it is a little different than the one we used for their invitations. Because we didn't have time to have a new printing plate made, I used antique metal type for the wording on their favor boxes and we cut one of the trees from one of their other printing plates out and combined it with the antique type to create the design. Pretty neat, don't you think?!? Here is what the boxes looked like flat:

And above is what they looked like folded up, with chocolate inside. Pretty sweet favors, if I do say so myself.

Then, just last month, I had the pleasure of working with Leia & Tyler again to create some custom thank you cards. Before I met Leia & Tyler they had created a set of Save-the-Date postcards themselves using photographs they had made of each other spelling out the words "Save the Date" on the front, and a photo of their two dogs, Vigo & Turbo, with signs that had their wedding date on them, and other information on the back. I don't have one of the actual cards they sent, but here is a screen shot of the Save-the-Date design.

For their thank you cards, Leia and Tyler wanted to return to the idea of using their dogs for some sort of cute, quirky, thank you image. Here is what we came up with:

Leia & Tyler's thank you's are an A2 size card, printed on Crane Lettra pearl white 100% cotton paper, with matching Crane Lettra square flap envelopes. For the design, I created a stylized, cute, cartoony image of Turbo and Vigo for the front, with signs around their necks, just like Leia & Tyler's Save-the-Dates, only this time, the signs read "Thank You", instead of the date.

Coming up with this image was really a collaboration between Tyler and I, to make sure that the eye spots and facial expressions came out just right. The words "Thank You" are also in Tyler's handwriting, just like the handwriting details from the directions card in he and Leia's invitation suite. Aren't these thank you's just adorable?!?

For the envelopes, we kept things nice and simple, and just went with a matching white envelope, and printed Leia & Tyler's return address on the flap in Turbo's eye-spot-color-tan.

Leia & Tyler were fabulous, super-fun clients and have become great friends. I can't wait to see what other non-wedding-related, awesome design/printing projects we come up with together in the future. Thanks so much Leia & Tyler. You rock my socks!

Letterpress on Sesame Street

2010-02-19T20:13:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine sent me this clip from a 1970's episode of Sesame Street. I remember watching Sesame Street as a little kid. I mean, who doesn't remember watching at least a little Sesame Street as a kid? I don't remember this episode though. I also don't remember it being quite so strange, and I don't know, maybe it's just me, but not having seen it for a good twenty+ years and watching just this clip now, I have to say I find it a little odd. But that aside, it's pretty darn awesome that these 1970's youngsters take a drawing of their lost dog to a letterpress printer to have a sign made. Although it's pretty brief, the demonstration of the letterpress process, isn't bad either. The press they're using is even a Chandler & Price, which is the same kind of press as one of the presses at Twin Ravens Press. Anyway, it's entertaining, nonetheless. Check it out!

Interview on Missus D

2010-02-19T20:04:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago a lovely blogger in Germany, named Kathleen, featured my robot with heart coasters on her blog. I sent her a set of them to say thank you for the feature, and shortly after that she asked if she could interview me about my work, products, what I do outside of work, etc. for a blog feature she was doing. I thought it was a pretty cool idea. She published my interview today. If you'd like to know a little more about me, and Twin Ravens Press, click on the link above and go check it out over on Crafty Missus D!

Thanks Kathleen!

Leia & Tyler are Married!

2010-02-13T12:21:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentines weekend, folks! I'm so sorry that I was a bad, well at least, absentee blogger this past week. Needless to say, with the spring wedding season picking up, and my near-total liberation from crutches this week, it's been a little busy around here. To make up for my absence from the virtual world this past week, I'd like to share with you some stationery for one of my favorite weddings from this past fall. As I've said before, I get to work with a lot of really creative, wonderful and awesome people throughout the year, but every now and again I get to work with a couple, family or individual who is just all-out fantastic. Leia and Tyler were one such couple.

Leia & Tyler were married this past October in Cannon Beach, Oregon. Cannon Beach is a pretty, little, Pacific-coast town, just west of Portland, with gorgeous beaches and a very notable natural landmark: Haystack Rock. When Leia, Tyler and I first met, they weren't sure what they wanted to do for their invitations, but after looking at several examples from past clients, both were drawn to this invitation that I printed for a Portland, Oregon couple, just a few months before. Tyler said he liked it because the invitation looked like a ticket to the wedding, which, if you think about it, really is what a wedding invitation is. Both Tyler and Leia also loved the fact that the invitation I linked to above featured a stylized, yet, photo-realistic image of the Cascade mountains. We figured we could incorporate this same idea, but into something that was more Cannon Beach-y.

Leia and Tyler's invitation suite is featured all together in the photo above. The suite included a monarch size (3.75"x7.25") wedding invitation and corresponding light green envelope, a monarch size map/directions card, a 4bar size reply card, with corresponding evergreen-colored envelope and a 3.5" coaster rehearsal dinner invitation. Here is the invitation by itself:

Leia & Tyler loved the style of the invitation from the suite I linked to above so much that we decided to go with pretty much the same idea for their invitation, with a few modifications to make it their own. Tyler and Leia sent me several photos of Cannon Beach to create a background for their invitation from and the one you see above, letterpress printed in a very light green ink, with Haystack Rock in the upper right and the beach and ocean stretching out in the foreground, is the image we chose. I love how realistic, yet very flat and stylistic, using a photo like this looks letterpress printed. We basically flattened the photograph out until it was only two colors, with the details of the beach dropping away in the front and the silhouette of Haystack Rock and other details left in the background. The light green part of the invitation that was printed was pressed down (de-bossed) slightly, from the letterpress process, which caused the white areas (Haystack Rock and other details) to become slightly raised. Check it out:

The texture of this, was totally awesome! To complete the design, we utilized a darker green ink for the evergreen tree on the right hand side of the design, as well as for Leia & Tyler's names, and a chocolate brown ink for the rest of the text.

This invitation was paired with a light green, 30% Post-consumer recycled envelope from Green Paper Company that had their return address letterpress printed on the flap.

Leia & Tyler's reply card was a 4bar size (measuring 3.5"x4.875") and was printed in one ink color: the darker of the two greens from their invitation. Layout-wise, we continued with a very similar style from their invitation. I used the same serif-typeface and we re-used the evergreen tree on the left-hand side.

Leia and Tyler were holding a welcome picnic in Ecola State Park the day before their wedding, so they included options on their reply card for people to indicate which event(s) they planned to attend. This card was paired with a darker green 100% post-consumer recycled envelope, also from Green Paper Company, and had Leia's parent's address printed on the front in chocolate brown ink.

Leia and Tyler's directions card was also printed in a single ink color: chocolate brown and was a monarch shape, just like their invitation.

The directions card featured directions from the Portland airport to Cannon Beach, as well as information about their picnic and accommodations. When I showed Leia and Tyler samples of other invitations I had done in the past, both really liked the hand drawn maps that we had done for several of our invitation suites. For this card, Tyler hand drew the map himself, and let me tell you: it turned out adorable.

I love how Tyler incorporated several cute little drawings of Cannon Beach landmarks into his map. Some of these included Haystack rock, a wooden fisherman that is outside one of the hotels, a puffin (apparently there are a lot of puffin statues and images in Cannon Beach) and a heart on the beach where their ceremony was to take place. Pretty adorable, if I do say so myself.

Last, but certainly not least, was a rehearsal dinner invitation. Leia and Tyler wanted to do something fun and unique for their rehearsal dinner invite and for this, we chose to do a coaster. (Yes, an actual coaster!)

These coasters are 3.5" round, thick coaster stock and were printed with the green tree motif once again, and Leia & Tyler's rehearsal dinner invitation information in chocolate brown ink. I love how we made the text wrap around the shape of the coaster and I love how unique and original this is. I've done coasters for Save-the-Date cards and as actual coasters to put drinks on for receptions before, but this was my first coaster-reheasal-dinner-invitation. Pretty cool, don't you think?!?

Since doing their invitations, Leia and Tyler and I have become pretty good friends. Tyler is an architect and helped me with some minor house problems over the summer, and has also been helping me a bit in my shop since I broke my leg this past January. Both he and Leia are just really cool people, all around. I've done some other work for them since their invitations, including some favors for their wedding, and thank you cards just recently, which I will show off in my next post. Leia and Tyler also sent me several photos from their wedding, that I will show off here too! Check back soon!

Thanks so much Leia & Tyler. You guys are awesome!

Custom Business Cards: Stephanie Upchurch

2010-02-06T12:47:00.000-08:00

Last summer I designed and printed a lovely set of business cards for a good friend who is a message therapist, here in Eugene, Oregon. While I have yet to indulge in her services (and plan to remedy that in the not-too-distant future), I have heard from our other mutual friends that Stephanie is fantastic at what she does! She specializes in Swedish, Thai and Deep Tissue Message. Stephanie wanted a professional, pretty and classy card that could represent both her and her services without looking too "corporate". She wanted it to be fun, unique and as she put it, "feel like her".

For Stephanie's cards, I created a lovely, peaceful bamboo graphic and a small, green and brown dragonfly that are featured on the right side of the card. The bamboo was letterpress printed in a very light, grey ink and the dragonfly and the text were printed in a combination of olive green and chocolate brown inks. We chose a cool, modern, san-serif typeface for Stephanie's name and all of her contact and business information. These cards were printed on Crane Lettra 100% cotton bright white paper and the letterpress impression on them is wonderfully tactile.

If you're looking for a fantastic LMT in Eugene, contact Stephanie! You won't regret it!

Robot Coasters Featured on Etsy!

2010-02-04T10:06:00.000-08:00

I just received and e-mail that our very adorable Robot with Heart Coasters were featured in an etsy treasury this morning, entitled "Talk Nerdy to Me". These coasters make a very cute little V-Day party favor, party accessory or small gift. You can get yours directly from us, in our etsy shop! Cute feature title, cute coasters, awesome letterpress printing, what's more to love?!?

Beckie and Seth are Getting Married!

2010-02-03T16:01:00.000-08:00

Shortly after my accident, and with a lot of help from some wonderful friends and volunteers, I completed this lovely set of wedding invitations for a bride and groom in Oakland, California. The bride's soon-to-be sister-in-law, Mikayle Anderson, lives here in Eugene, and is a fabulous graphic designer! She designed Beckie and Seth's wedding invitation suite and hired Twin Ravens Press to print it! Check it out!

At the top of this post you can see all four pieces in the suite together. There was a 6.75" square wedding invitation, a 5" square reply card and corresponding envelopes to go with both. All of the pieces were letterpress printed in a lovely shade of light blue on Crane Lettra 100% cotton Pearl White paper. We paired the invitation and reply card with matching Crane Lettra square flap envelopes for a gorgeous, totally coordinated suite.

Here is the invitation by itself. I love the large, square size and the gorgeous floral image that Mikayle created to frame the typography. It's such a pretty use of space, and the impression from both the type and image turned out beautifully!

As I mentioned above, this invitation was paired with a matching, 7" square, 100% cotton envelope from Crane. We letterpress printed the couple's return address in the same light blue ink on the flap.

For the reply card, Mikayle created a coordinating floral design and utilized the same typefaces as the invitation to create a card that is both whimsical and totally coordinated with the rest of the suite. This card is also a square shape, and is a bit smaller than the invitation. It also came with a matching Crane & Co. envelope that was letterpress printed with the couple's address on the front.

Aren't these just lovely?!? Working with Mikayle was an absolute joy and I look forward to working with her on other potential letterpress projects in the future. She's a fabulous designer, so if you like the style of these invitations, and would potentially like to work with Mikayle on designing something for you, please contact Twin Ravens Press and I can put you in touch with her.

Thanks so much and congratulations Beckie, Seth and Mikayle!

501 on Etsy

2010-02-03T10:34:00.000-08:00

I hadn't checked our favorites in a while over at the etsy shop, but I was re-listing some Valentine's cards there this morning and happened to go and check, and I am delighted to report that as of this morning we have 501 (!) people who have "hearted" us on etsy (see the screenshot above). That's pretty cool, if I do say so myself. If you are one of those 501 favorites, you rock my socks.

If you haven't checked out our etsy shop in a while, head on over for some super-cute Valentine's Day goodness!

Kelly & Company Business Cards

2010-02-01T11:37:00.000-08:00

I work with a lot of brides this time of year (and all year round, really) who are ordering invitations for their upcoming nuptials in the spring, summer or fall, which is pretty exciting. What's equally exciting though, is occasionally getting to work with their wedding planners as well. One such wedding planner that I had the pleasure of working with last spring (yes, this post is long overdue), but who seems absolutely fabulous and was a joy to work with, was Kelly Cloney of Kelly & Company Wine Country Weddings. I check in on Kelly's website periodically and all of the photos of the weddings she's worked on look absolutely stunning. If you're planning on getting married in or near wine country, California, go check out her website or her blog, for more information.

The business cards I printed for Kelly were letterpress printed with two ink colors: chocolate brown and very very light, pastel green on Crane Lettra Ecru 100% cotton paper. I created a very stylized peony image for Kelly's cards from a posterized photograph of the flower and then printed her company name and all relevant contact information on the card over the top of it in chocolate brown ink. These cards are soft, lightly textured and wonderful to touch!

If you own a business and think that having letterpress printed business cards or other stationery would be a great choice for you, please contact us. I'd be happy to provide you with more information on this or any of our other services! And, like I said above, if you are a bride seeking a wedding planner, in or around Santa Rosa, California, contact Kelly! She's awesome!

Thanks so much Kelly! I hope you're having a very happy start to 2010!

Erika & Eric Are Getting Married!

2010-01-29T10:53:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday everyone! A couple of weeks ago I completed a lovely set of wedding invitations for a wonderful couple back east named Erika and Eric! Erika and Eric designed their wedding invitations together and hired Twin Ravens Press to letterpress print them! I love the simplicity and pure elegance of this lovely one-color suite. I occasionally have potential customers ask if letterpress printing will be beautiful in just a single color, or if they really need to do two or more to make the letterpress look outstanding. Well, ladies and gentlemen, here is a stunning example of a one-color letterpress suite that I think looks gorgeous and amazing! You can see the full suite at the top, which included a horizontal A7 size invitation with corresponding gold envelope, and a horizontal 4bar size reply card with corresponding red envelope.

Erika and Eric's wedding invitation and reply card were printed on Crane Lettra 100% cotton Ecru paper, which is a nice, warm color that really takes letterpress impressions well. As the groom has a chinese background, they chose the traditional wedding color for the Chinese culture: red, as their ink color. Erika and Eric used a gorgeous, decorative script face for their names and the "Dinner and dancing to follow" line of their invitation, and a nice, contemporary all-caps san-serif face for the rest of the text. They created two very pretty, ornate looking border elements for each side of the invitation, and included a traditional chinese double-happiness character in the bottom left corner of the design.

I love how that red ink just pops right off the page! It's truly stunning! We paired this invitation with a metallic, shimmery gold envelope from Waste Not Paper Company and printed the couple's return address on the flap in red ink.

Erika and Eric used many of the same design elements from their invitation for their reply card to keep the set consistent. We used the same red ink color for the printing and Erika and Eric continued using their lovely decorative script typeface and san-serif typeface, as well as the pretty ornate borders. Along with having the standard "accepts" and "regrets" lines on their reply card, they also included a section where guests could select their entree for reception dinner. These reply cards were paired with matching red envelopes that were printed with black ink, also from Waste Not Paper Company.

Aren't these just lovely?!? I absolutely love how traditional yet modern they are all at the same time, and I LOVE the splashes of red throughout the suite. It's such a great color! Erika and Eric were fabulous clients to work with and Erika told me she's heard nothing but glowing compliments on their invitations from their guests.

If you are interested in having a set of wedding invitations designed and/or letterpress printed by Twin Ravens Press, please contact me. I'd be more than happy to give you pricing and information on all of our design and printing services.

Thanks so much Erika and Eric! Congratulations and all the best to you!

Victoria & David are Married!

2010-01-26T18:27:00.000-08:00

Almost eleven months ago (I can't believe it's been that long already), I wrote a blog post about a really fun and super-modern set of Save-the-Date cards I was printing for a couple in Texas who were getting married the following October. Well, as you all know, October 2009 has come and gone, and that couple that I made those Save-the-Dates for is now married! Shortly after completing their save-the-date cards, I went on to help them design and print the rest of their wedding stationery, which included an A7 invitation with corresponding envelope, an A6 size, folded thank you card with envelopes, a 4bar size reply card with corresponding envelope, and a really awesome, folded 6.25" square program for the actual ceremony. I enjoyed working with this couple quite a lot, and even though it's now after-the-fact, I wanted to make sure I shared all of their super-cool stationery with you!

You can see the pieces in the main invitation suite at the top of this post. And here is the invitation, all by itself:

Victoria and David's wedding invitations were an A7 size, printed in three ink colors: violet, chartreuse and light grey on Crane Lettra Bright White 100% cotton paper. I love how modern her design ended up being: very bright, very unique and super-modern. Victoria's Save-the-Dates, as well as the invitation you see above and the rest of the suite that you're about to see, were designed by her sister. Isn't that cool? I love how she used the different colors to separate all of the different little pieces of information. When text like this is so close and uniform, doing something like switching up the colors, will really help to set the most important information apart. We paired this invitation with a grey A7 envelope from Waste Not Paper Company and printed Victoria and David's return address on the flap in violet ink. I love how Victoria's sister kept the type styling consistent throughout everything in this suite, from big pieces like the invitation down to small details like the addresses.

Victoria and David's reply card was designed to coordinate and is a 4bar size, also printed in three ink colors. To mix things up, we paired this card with a coordinating chartreuse envelope and printed their address on the front in violet and grey inks.

When she ordered her invitations, Victoria also ordered a set of folded, A6 size thank you cards. I love the way that these thank you cards could be used as thank you's, but are also not specifically thank you cards and could also be used for other correspondence long after their wedding. The only printing on these cards is a simple, letterpress design of their names, printed in the same three ink colors as the rest of their suite. The cards are blank on the inside so Victoria and David could write whatever message they wanted to! Although not pictured, these cards were also paired with grey envelopes from Waste Not Paper that were printed with a violet return address on the flap.

Last, but certainly not least, Victoria and David hired me to design a program for their ceremony that would compliment the rest of their wedding stationery. They had quite a bit of information to include in the program, so we chose to create a 6.25" square, folded program on a single sheet of paper that had printing on all four panels. Here is what it looked like closed, from the front:

For the front of their programs, I tried to keep the design consistent with the design that Victoria's sister had created for their invitation. This is basically a "cover page". Open up the program and you will reveal all of the information about the actual events of Victoria and David's wedding ceremony.

This interior portion of the program included an order of events, as well as information on all of the music that was played and on the blessings and passages that were read and performed during the ceremony. The back page included information about Victoria and David's wedding party and an "In Loving Memory" section to acknowledge their family members who had passed away prior to their wedding.

Here is another image so you can see both sides of the program opened up and together:

I love how fresh, modern and unique this set of wedding stationery was! I also love how we were able to incorporate three very distinctive and unique colors into all the pieces, while keeping everything looking consistent! Victoria and David were fabulous clients to work with and I hope that their wedding this past October was as fun as their stationery!

Congratulations you two and thanks again!

Mini Promotional Notecards for In The Now Weddings

2010-01-22T11:12:00.000-08:00

Are you getting married in Orange County, California this coming spring, summer or fall? If the answer is yes, you really ought to contact Amanda Auer, the owner and wedding planner behind In the Now Weddings and Events. Amanda contacted me back in August of last year because she was holding a special party to promote her business and wanted some really special and unique favors to hand out to her guests. What Amanda desired was to create a set of letterpress-printed, modern, 3" square, folded notecards with envelopes in sets of 5, with different love-related quotes on them, that guests could take home. I thought it was a really sweet idea! Amanda came up with the quotes and the design and Twin Ravens Press did the letterpress printing! Here are all five, sweet, mini-notes together. Click on the picture to make it larger if you'd like to read the quotes.

I love the modern style of these sweet, little cards and I love how Amanda made them coordinate with the look and branding of her business. Each card measures 3" square, when folded, and was printed with black ink on Crane Lettra Bright White 100% cotton paper. The quotation was featured on the front and the In The Now Weddings logo was featured on the back. Each card came with a coordinating white envelope.

Isn't this an awesome idea for a promotional giveaway?!? I love it! It's way better and more memorable than ordering something generic as a promotional item, like magnets or pens. Here are a few more images so you can see the cards closer.

So cool! Working with Amanda was a real pleasure and I imagine hiring her to coordinate a wedding or event would be equally rewarding. I hope she and I get to work together again in the future!

If you are interested in having a custom promotional card or other letterpress printed favor created for your business, wedding or upcoming event, please contact us. We'd love to talk to you about your ideas!

Thank you so much Amanda! Keep up the great work!

Custom Business Cards: Mark Aikens

2010-01-21T16:43:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things about owning and operating a letterpress shop is getting to work with a variety of very talented and incredible graphic designers in and around Eugene, as well as across the nation. At Twin Ravens Press, we do a vast majority of our design work in-house, but I always welcome the opportunity to work with outside designers and artists who are looking to have their designs or designs they are creating for their clients letterpress printed.

Back in October, I was contacted by one such, very talented, graphic designer, in Eugene who was working with a client to create a set of really unique business cards. The designer, Mary Susan Wheldon, had met me at a local Meet Your Maker Show, where I was selling letterpress greeting cards. Mary Susan saw my work and was interested in working with me to letterpress print design work for her clients. The cards you see above and below were our first collaboration.

Mary Susan's client, Mark Aikens, makes and installs hand-cast, original wall papers with original stone textures. I've never actually seen any of Mark's work in person, but from the photographs that Mary Susan showed me, his work seems truly beautiful and absolutely a labor of love. Mary Susan wanted the business cards she was designing for Mark to reflect his artistry, ingenuity and the awesome texture and colors that are present in his wall papers. She figured that in order to convey this texture, letterpress printing might be her best choice. I agreed.

Mark's business cards are just a smidgeon larger than a standard 3.5"x2" business card size. The design features a column on the left hand side featuring six "bars" of color, all the same width, but in different lengths. These simulate single sheets of Mark's handmade wallpaper. The cards were printed on 220 lb. Duplex Crane Lettra 100% cotton paper in Pearl White for a super thick, lush impression and a very stiff, substantial card. We printed five of the six bars on the left hand side in a sparkly metallic copper ink and printed the sixth bar, as well as all of the text in a light, crisp blue. The thick cotton paper combined with deep letterpress imprints made for an already amazing texture, but to add something even more unique and special, we ran these cards through the press a third time and blind embossed a stone-texture pattern that Mary Susan created over the top of the metallic copper bars. Click on the above image for a larger view. This was a challenging effect to create, but the results are absolutely stunning!

If you're looking for a fabulous free-lance designer to work with in the Eugene/Springfield, Oregon area for an upcoming project, and you like Mark's cards, contact Mary Susan. She's amazing, has some fabulous ideas, and has an ever expanding portfolio that includes designs for a variety of items from business cards, logos and corporate stationery to books, posters, and invitations.

And, if you are looking in to having some gorgeous, custom wallpaper made for your home or business in Eugene or Springfield, contact Mark Aikens, who's information is on the business cards in the pictures. Like I said before, the pictures I've seen of his work look amazing!

Lastly, if you're interested in having your very own set of letterpress business cards designed and/or letterpress printed, contact us for more information. We would love to work with you!

Thanks again Mark and Mary Susan!

Tara & Jeremy are Married!

2010-01-18T11:27:00.000-08:00

Last summer I had the pleasure of creating a wedding invitation suite for a lovely couple in Virginia who were married in late September of last year in Bel Air, Maryland. The bride, Tara, had seen this invitation suite that I printed for another couple earlier that year, and wanted to do something similar, but different, for her own invitation suite. Tara and Jeremy's suite featured an A7 size wedding invitation, a 4bar size reply card and coordinating envelopes for both pieces. You can see all four items in the suite in the photo above.

Tara and Jeremy's invitation was printed in one ink color: a nice reddish-purple that was mixed to coordinate with an invitation matt the we created to frame their invitation. The actual invite itself was printed on Crane Lettra Pearl White 100% cotton paper to create a really beautiful texture and impression. Check out the close-up:

For the design we created a simple, yet lovely monogram at the top using letters from the same typeface that we used for their names. For the rest of the text, we used a classic, all-caps, serif typeface.

Tara and Jeremy's invitation envelopes were also Crane Lettra. They had a traditional pointed flap and were letterpress printed with the couple's return address on the flap, also in purple ink.

For their reply card and envelope, we pretty much stuck with the same design as the reply card in the suite I linked to above, but we changed up the colors and information, just a little bit.

The reply card is a 4bar size, printed in light pink ink on Crane Lettra and features a bird with a banner at the top that has their reply by date on it. Below the banner detail is a line for the guests to write in their names, and options to accept or decline. Right below those options, Tara had us include a line with her and Jeremy's wedding website information, so guests could find out more about wedding details, accommodations, etc. there. We paired this card with a very light pink envelope, also printed with the return address in purple, from Green Paper Company.

I thoroughly enjoyed working with Tara and Jeremy and I hope their wedding this past September was just as sweet as their invitation suite! Congratulations Tara & Jeremy!

Robot Coasters Featured on Ruthie Designs!

2010-01-14T12:40:00.000-08:00

Our very cute Robot with Heart Coasters were featured this morning over on Ruthie Designs Blog! I just checked out her blog, and the author, Kim, features all sorts of awesomely designed items: everything from tea cups and pillows, to wall decals, fashion accessories and furniture. Mmm... tasty design! Go check out the feature here. And, if you'd like your very own set of Twin Ravens Press robot coasters, they are available in our etsy shop. Go check them out here.

Shanley & Christopher are Getting Married!

2010-01-13T13:40:00.000-08:00

Check out this elegant set of wedding invitations that were recently completed for a lovely couple in the Atlanta, Georgia area who are having a destination wedding in Colorado this coming April. Shanley and Chris are having a lovely, early spring wedding in the Vail, Colorado area where they will wed and hope to enjoy some spring skiing! Their invitation suite includes an A7 size invitation and an A2 size reply card, both printed in one ink color (chocolate brown) with blind embossed details and envelopes to go with each! Check out the whole suite at the top of this post.

Here is Shanley and Chris' invitation all by itself.

Shanley chose a simple, classic serif typeface in all caps for the main text of her invitation and we used a slightly more decorative script face for the couple's names, which were featured prominently in the center of the invitation. We kept the design fairly simple, but created a lacy, blind embossed border around the names to set them apart from the rest of the text. It wasn't my original intention, but I think that the lacy pattern reminds me somewhat of a mountain range, like where Shanley and Chris will be holding their wedding, as well as formal lace, like on a wedding gown, at the same time. I just love the way clean, crisp letterpress printed type sinks into 100% cotton paper. Check out these detail photos to see it for yourself:

Isn't that just lovely? We paired the invitation with a matching A7 size envelope from Crane & Co. in Pearl White and created a custom liner for it in a shiny eggplant purple, fabric-weave paper. It's difficult to see from the photograph, but I love the way the purple liner adds an extra splash of color to this white and chocolate brown invitation suite.

We then letterpress printed Shanley's parent's return address on the flap of the envelope.

Shanley and Chris' reply card was designed to coordinate with the invitation. In order to do this, we enlarged part of the lacy, blind-embossed pattern from the invitation and placed it at the very bottom of the card. We then used the same fonts to create spaces for guests to respond to both Shanley and Chris' actual wedding ceremony as well as to their Aprés Ski event which will be held the day after.

Isn't the blind embossing extra pretty when enlarged? I really like it. Here are some more details of the reply card so you can see the fonts, blind embossing, impression, etc. a little bit better.

This card was paired with a coordinating A2 size envelope with Shanley's parent's address printed on the front. We had originally wanted the reply envelopes for these to also be from Crane, but a mix up with the supplier over the holiday caused us to have to choose another envelope from a different company. This wasn't the easiest mix-up to deal with, especially right after my accident, and we couldn't find an exact match, but the one we found was mighty close. Check it out:

Having to choose an alternate brand for this last piece wasn't the most optimal situation, but Shanley and Chris were really wonderful with the whole situation and the suite turned out gorgeous just the same!

Thanks so much Shanley and Chris! I know your wedding in Colorado is going to be fabulous and really really fun all at the same time. Congratulations to you both!

Save the Date: Christina & James are Getting Married!

2010-01-12T15:01:00.000-08:00

First off, to everyone out there reading this blog who have sent well-wishes and nice e-mails since I posted about my accident, thank you so much! You guys are wonderful. The recovery has been slow, and admittedly, I'm not used to being able to do so little, so it's been a little frustrating, but it is coming along and I am feeling a bit better day by day. Thanks so much for worrying and sending your best wishes!

As of today I'm going to try to get back to our regularly scheduled blogging, starting with this lovely set of Save-the-Date cards that were designed and printed for a lovely couple in Virginia who are getting married in Washington DC this coming May. These Save-the-Dates were completed shortly after Christmas. Christina wanted a simple, yet beautiful design featuring only gorgeous typography using one of her wedding colors: Aubergine. For this design, I took advantage of some of the lovely flourish elements in the script font that Christina chose for all of the decoration around their names. Both the Save-the-Date card and square-flap envelope are an A6 size, which measures 4.5"x6.25". You can see both pieces together at the top of this post.

Here is the Save-the-Date card by itself. These cards were printed with a deep, aubergine purple ink on Crane Lettra 100% cotton Pearl White Duplex paper. The duplex paper is twice as thick as the standard weight of Crane Lettra that we normally use, making these cards super thick and substantial. For the design, I wanted Christina & James' names to be the most prominent element of the design, so I chose a very decorative script face that came with a bunch of different flourish options to decorate and embellish the characters with. We also used this same font for the date, but without as many flourishes. For the rest of the text we chose a simple and modern san-serif face to create a nice contrast and make that script stand out even more. Isn't it elegant?!? I love the way that a design like this really just sinks into the paper with lovely, tactile impressions from the letterpress process. Here are some close-ups so you can see the texture and script a little better:

Beautiful! Don't you think? For the envelopes, we created a return address to letterpress print on the flap that complimented the design of the actual cards. We used the same flourish-y script face for Christina and James' names and the same san-serif face in all caps for the actual address. Christina and James' envelopes are A6 size, square flap envelopes also by Crane & Co in Pearl White. Here is a close-up of the address on the envelope flap.

I absolutely love how this set of Save-the-Date cards turned out! Christina and I are currently working on the designs for her actual invitations and I can't wait to see what we end up coming up with for those! If you like her Save-the-Dates, keep an eye on this blog over the next few months to see the rest of her invitation suite!

Thanks so much Christina & James!

Bummer.

2010-01-08T12:12:00.000-08:00

Hi all! If you've been following this blog for a little bit, you may have noticed an extreme lack of blogging this week. I'm so sorry! I totally didn't intentionally leave you hanging. So, where have I been, you ask?

I had a little accident last Sunday. I've tried to tell all of my clients this personally, but I know I've missed at least a few of you, so if you're waiting on a print job, or on design work this is why.

Last Sunday, my good friend Hollie and I decided to go hiking on Spencer's Butte, which is a really nice hike that's not too far of a drive from where I live in Eugene. We left the house in the afternoon and hiked all the way to the top of the Butte. January in Eugene is often really rainy and grey outside, but last Sunday it was really nice, fairly warm, sunny for most of the day, and not raining out - the perfect day for a hike. The photo at the very top and these below, are some pictures I took with my iPhone from the top of the Butte.

I feel so lucky to live in such a pretty place, where I can hike and see this not far from my home. Here is Hollie at the top:

And she and I together (sorry that we're not completely in the frame - taking photos of yourself with the iPhone isn't the easiest thing ever). If you don't know me personally, but are reading this blog, if you ever wondered what I look like, I'm the one on the right. We were having fun!

We hung out up there for a little while, then decided to hike back down. As you can see from the photos, it wasn't raining that day, but it had rained the night before. On the way back down the trail, I was talking and not paying the closest attention and I stepped wrong on a wet, muddy, mossy log and slipped. I tumbled to the ground and heard a snap, like a dry tree branch breaking as I fell. At first I thought I was okay, but when I went to stand up, my right leg wouldn't bear weight.

Hollie, a very nice stranger named Katie who we ran into on the trail, and a couple of other guys, whom I didn't get the names of, as well as my partner, Alex (who had rushed up from our house when I called), took turns carrying me down the hill and back to the car the rest of the way. A trip to Urgent Care and a few x-rays later, showed that my leg was broken about 2-2.5 inches above the ankle. Lame. They put me in a cast, and I have crutches, and will have them for the next 5-6 weeks, or longer. Here's what I looked like shortly after I got home, Sunday night.

I wasn't able to really get a good look at my leg until earlier this morning, but I took the cast off briefly and here's what it looks like (if photos of nasty-looking injuries, make you squeamish, look away now).

As you can see, six days later, it's still really swollen and very bruised. It is feeling better though, somewhat.

This post isn't meant to be a pity post in the least, and if you are currently working with me, or have recently e-mailed requesting a quote or more information about my services, trust me, I fully intend to get back to you in a timely manner. As letterpress printing requires being on your feet quite a bit, as well as some moderate lifting, needless to say, the production side of TRP has been a little slow this week. I really appreciate all of your patience and well wishes, and if this is news to you - I'm so sorry I didn't tell you first in person. I also want to send a HUGE thank you out to my wonderful friends and volunteers who have come by this week and helped me finish printing a couple of jobs that needed to go out, as well as a big thanks to those who just came by to say hi - you all mean the world to me.

On a happier note, I was recently interviewed by the lovely S. Jane of S. Jane Craft here in Eugene. Sarah is a good friend and makes really awesome stuff and is featuring a different artist every Monday on her blog. If you'd like to read my interview to find out more about me and Twin Ravens Press, check it out here. Thanks Sarah!

There will be much prettier pictures of stationery and business cards soon! Thanks for your understanding!

Caroline & John Are Getting Married!

2010-01-02T13:28:00.001-08:00

Shortly before Christmas I completed a lovely, formal set of wedding invitations for a wonderful couple in Massachusetts who are getting married in Rhode Island this June. Caroline and John wanted a traditional, formal invitation suite to compliment the style of their upcoming New England wedding, with a little extra something to give a nod to Caroline's Chinese heritage. You can see all of the pieces in the suite pictured in the image above. The suite included an A7 size wedding invitation with corresponding gold envelope, a 4bar size reply card also with corresponding gold envelope, a 3.5"x2" website card and a lovely, ribbon belly band with medallion to tie the whole suite together.

Let's take a look at each of the pieces in Caroline & John's suite individually!

Here is their wedding invitation. All of the pieces in Caroline & John's suite were printed on beautiful, cream, Rives BFK printmaking paper. This paper is 100% cotton and has a very smooth, hot press finish and it holds a letterpress impression and fine lines beautifully. We chose a very formal layout and fonts for the invitation design and printed it in one ink color: black. I've said it before and will say it again: I absolutely LOVE how crisp, black ink on an all-text invitation looks letterpress printed onto fine 100% cotton paper. There's really nothing else like it and it is oh so classy! Check out a closer detail of the typography and printing:

Caroline & John chose a lovely, shimmery yellow-gold envelope from Waste Not Paper Company as their invitation envelope.

Caroline and John's reply card is a standard 4bar size and also came with a coordinating yellow-gold envelope. This piece was also printed in black ink on Rives BFK and we continued using the more formal, classic fonts that we had picked for the invitation in order to carry the style all the way through the suite.

When I originally sent Caroline samples of some other invitations that we had printed in the past, she mentioned really liking the use of icons to represent meal choices for guests, rather than writing out the meal choices in words, so we used this same idea for her reply card as well! As you can see in the above images, Caroline and John's reply card features the reply-by date at the top, a line for the guests to write their names, a place to check whether or not they will be attending the wedding and then below that is the question regarding meal choices. Each meal choice (fish, beef or vegetarian) has a line next to it for the guest to write in initials of who wants what entree. I love doing this on reply cards and think it adds a little extra whimsy to an otherwise very traditional reply card.

Like many couples I work with, Caroline and John have a wedding website where guests can locate more information about their upcoming wedding, directions, information about where to stay in Rhode Island, etc. In order to inform guests about their website, Caroline and John had me create a small (business card-size) website card featuring just the URL of their wedding website.

As with the other pieces, we still kept with the same, formal design and fancy typography. I think this is a lovely way to share your website with your guests!

To tie the whole suite together (literally) we created a belly band to coordinate with the suite. This belly band was made from 1/4" matching, yellow-gold ribbon from Waste Not Paper, and a custom, letterpress printed, 2.5" round medallion.

I've created belly band medallions like this for wedding invitation suites in the past and typically they feature the couple's initials and/or monogram, but for this particular suite, Caroline wanted to use the Chinese double-happiness character on her medallion instead. This symbol, as well as the color red, is very traditional and significant for Chinese weddings, and I thought this was a lovely way for Caroline to incorporate it into her suite.

Here is what the suite looked like all put together:

The various pieces were stacked, largest to smallest, with the double-happiness belly band tying everything together. I love the way the whole "package" looks - it's formal, beautiful and absolutely elegant. I also love the way the belly band keeps all of the pieces together, just so, so that the above is what the package looks like when it is pulled out of the envelope.

Gorgeous! I'm so glad I got to help make Caroline and John's invitations and vision a reality! I know their wedding this June is going to be absolutely elegant!

Congratulations Caroline & John!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T11:05:00.000-08:00

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Happy New Year everyone! I hope all of you out there had a wonderful New Year's Eve last night and are looking forward to the year to come!

Twin Ravens Press has quite a few new and exciting things in store for you this coming year and I can't wait to tell you all about them! However, as good things come to those who wait, I'm not going to tell you about all of them in full detail this morning, but I will give you a smidgeon of a sneak-peek into what I have in store for you for 2010! Here it goes:

• First off, there are going to be some brand new greeting card designs for Valentine's Day coming out in the next few weeks. They will be available in our Etsy Shop. I already have a few very sweet V-Day designs listed up there already, so if you're planning ahead for Valentine's, go check them out!

• Over the last few months I've been working with an awesome web programmer in Tucson, Arizona. Said programmer is creating an awesome and much more bona fide website for us, and I'm really excited about it! Version 1.0 of this site should be up and running this month. Don't worry - you'll still be able to access this blog and our etsy shop from the new site, this will just be a great way of getting everything all in one place.

• For my lovely retailers out there, Twin Ravens Press will be releasing our first ever (!) printed greeting card and stationery catalog this spring. Normally I've sent out catalogs in .pdf form only in the past, but this spring we will actually have our first ever printed one. It's pretty exciting! If you are already a Twin Ravens retailer, you will be sent one of our catalogs automatically once they are out. If you have been following this blog and are a retailer who is considering carrying my products, send me an e-mail if you'd like to receive a wholesale catalog!

• Speaking of the catalog, it's going to be showing off a couple of expansions to two of our lines that have been pretty tiny until now. For 2010, our baby & child stationery and greeting card line, as well as our small gift tag/gift card line will be growing! Both lines will be featuring both some brand new products and brand new designs! The new stuff will be in the catalog and will also be up on this blog when they come out. If you are giving a gift in the near future or are having, or know someone who has a new baby on the way, check back to see the new, cute, letterpress printed goodness that is coming!

• All of this expansion and newness has recently got me thinking about trade shows. TRP hasn't attending a large wholesale show yet, but I'm thinking that 2010 might be the year for it. Research is currently under way into all that this would entail. I will keep you posted on which show(s) we decide to attend, if we attend them this year!

• Last, but certainly not least, I'm very excited to announce that we will be offering a new technique to custom clients very soon to add a little extra-special touch to your letterpress printed pieces. I won't reveal what this new technique is yet, but I can tell you that I am doing it for a current business card client and the results are looking awesome!

So, there you have it! All of this and more is what I have in store for you for 2010. If you have any questions about any of the above, or about working with us, please don't hesitate to contact me! Have a wonderful weekend and a very Happy New Year!

Happy New Years Eve!

2009-12-31T09:33:00.001-08:00

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Happy New Year's Eve, everyone! The above image was a behind-the-scenes photograph of New Year's Eve in Times Square in 1907. I love old photographs just as much as old printing presses, so I figured it a fitting image for this blog post.

Anyway, what to say about 2009. It's really a difficult thing to try and sum up in a short blog post, especially when it's been a year filled with both awesome and tough things all at once - but I suppose all years are like that really.

Probably one of the most major events of 2009 was the inauguration of the United States' first ever African-American President, Barack Obama. As my friend, Joe, wrote in his blog post today,

"Yes, there's lots of problems with the health care legislation, and no, Obama didn't magically fix everything with his ultra-charismatic Jesus-like wizardry, but it's still fantastic that the U.S. elected a black dude. And, despite Proposition Eight passing in California [in 2008], gay people are getting married in the U.S., and we will have it sooner or later. There's gay marriage in Iowa! That's pretty amazing..." - Source

Along with this we've made amazing advances in technology over the last decade. Think about it: when my mother was in college a computer was an enormous and highly-specialized machine that ran off of paper punch cards. Today the computer is something most of us have at least one of at home, possible along with our other handheld devices which we use to do business, connect with the world, educate ourselves, record our thoughts, and create and share a plethora of amazing things from videos, to websites, to printable art, all at the touch of a few buttons. It was kind of fascinating when I was traveling through airports earlier this week, on my way back from my holiday break, that nearly everyone at the airport had either a laptop, iPod, iPhone or other device. We are all connected, and computers aren't the only thing; other technologies have advanced substantially over the last decade as well. Lasers for instance - once a subject of science fiction films, we can now do everything with laser technology from performing heart and eye surgery, to scanning barcodes, to cutting out intricate designs, patterns and shapes in wood, plastic, metal and paper. It's really all pretty cool. Go us.

Along with the good of the year and decade though there always has to be some not-so-good. The main complaint I hear most people talking about these days has to do with the recession, and I agree, it's not something to be taken lightly. We may be in the worst recession we've seen since the 1930s, but as awful as it is for a lot of Americans, at least we don't have people standing in bread lines or trying to sell pencils in the street. We've been through a long, crushing recession, and in spite of it all, we've managed to avoid total destitution, which, in and of itself, is really pretty great. Despite financial hardship, many of Americans are still doing amazing things, starting businesses, and volunteering for the causes that matter to them most.

For Twin Ravens Press, 2009 has been a great year. I feel so very fortunate that I'm able to get up in the morning and do something I love for work everyday. When we're living in an era where the majority of employed people don't actually like their job and where there's another hefty percentage of people who aren't employed at all, I feel amazingly fortunate to do what I do. I was able to help over 75 couples announce, invite and celebrate their weddings with lovely letterpress printed stationery this year, along with also creating paper goods to celebrate births, businesses, holidays and other celebrations. That's pretty cool. I'm already working with several new couples who are getting married in 2010, and I can't wait to tell you all about them and everything else I have in store for you this coming year. 2010 is going to be fantastic!

As Carl Sagan put it, "We live in an extraordinary age." He wrote this back in the eighties and it's just as relevant now, if not even more so, than it was then, and it's getting even better all the time. So to everyone out there, have a very Happy New Years Eve, and here's to 2010!

Twin Ravens Press Post-Holiday Sale on Now!

2009-12-29T09:38:00.000-08:00

Hello lovely blog readers! I am back from the holidays and had a wonderful time and am hoping that all of you did too! In light of post-holiday-ness, and in order to get ready for the new year, all of our holiday-specific cards, card sets and gift tags are now on sale in our etsy shop. This is a great opportunity to stock up on some really cute paper goods for next year, and everything is at least 20% off, so go over and check it out!

Also, we are going to be releasing some really fun, new designs for Valentine's Day in the coming weeks, so check back to get a sneak peek at those! See you all soon!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T10:26:00.000-08:00

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I hope everyone out there reading this blog is having a wonderful day and a Very Merry Christmas! Thank you for making this last year truly great!

For those wanting to get in touch with me about custom printing or who are waiting for a card order to be filled, we will reopen on Monday. Until then, have a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful weekend!

Business and Calling Cards Galore!

2009-12-23T21:13:00.000-08:00

Happy almost Christmas Eve, to those who celebrate it! I realized the other day while writing this post, that it's been a little while since I posted about business or calling cards, so I figured it was about time. You may remember that we had a month-long special on business and calling cards back in October (Don't remember? That's okay - you can read about it here), which was really great. If you missed out on that particular special, fear not, we will be doing the same or a similar one again, and you will be able to find out about it right here on this blog as soon as we do! Not all of the cards I'm about to show you were a result of that special, but they are all a great little taste of what is possible in the business/calling card realm from Twin Ravens Press!

Below is a little round-up of nine different business or calling cards that I designed and/or printed within the last year.

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Calling Cards - Alexandra Horn

Alexandra (who goes by Ally) is a friend-of-a-friend that I printed these business cards for a while back. Ally is majoring in Spanish at the University of Oregon and will be finished with her degree and out on the job market this spring. She wanted a professional and classy calling card with her name and basic contact information to hand out to prospective employers that wasn't too industry-specific. This sweet and simple calling card design featuring two green aspen leaves sure fit the bill! I letterpress printed Ally's name and the leaves in an earthy, green ink and her phone number and e-mail address in chocolate brown on Crane Lettra 100% cotton paper in Ecru. I love how clean, simple and classy this calling card is without being too job or industry-specific, and the texture and colors are just awesome!

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Calling Cards - Dominic Tringali

Dentist by day, problem solver and international man of mystery (or something) by night, Dominic Tringali is another one of my Eugene acquaintances who desired a stylish and classy calling card to hand out to friends, lovers and potential business contacts. I love how this card is classy and masculine all at the same time! We chose a classic serif font in all caps for Dominic's name, a smaller lower-case italic font for the tag line, and another classic, roman font for the contact information. Both the typography and the silhouette motif were printed in black ink on Crane Lettra Bright White 100% cotton paper. Aren't these totally great?!? I love 'em!

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Business Cards - Kerplunc

I've actually posted about the design and print work that we've done for the web design, development and hosting company, Kerplunc, before on this blog. You can read more about them, and the work we've done for them, in this post from last January. Kerplunc is a two-man team based in Canada and the UK. We originally worked with and printed cards for one of Kerplunc's team members, Matt Hall, last January, and later this year we printed cards for Matt's business other-half, Nick Barrett. The design of Nick's cards is the same as the design of Matt's, for corporate consistency purposes, but the back side was updated with Nick's information.

I love how clean and modern these cards are! Nick was so excited when he received his cards that he put up a little post about them over on his blog, here. Go check it out and check out the link above for more info on Matt, Nick and Kerplunc. They are awesome folks with an awesome little company, so go check them out!

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Calling Cards - Marilee Enright Gordon

Marilee Enright Gordon is a friend of my mom's and an L.C.S.W., or Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She splits her time between Wilson, Wyoming and Montecito, California and these calling cards were a surprise gift for her from my mother, as she had once mentioned to my mom that she needed new calling cards badly. They feature her name, both towns where she resides and her e-mail address. Her previous calling cards had a small half-moon and star motif that we chose to continue in the new design. These were printed on Crane Lettra Pearl White 100% cotton paper in navy blue ink. Once again, I love the way a clean and simple, yet elegant design can really convey a person's personal contact information, oh so nicely.

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Calling Cards - Edie Walker

Speaking of my mom, here are a couple of different calling card designs I created for her this past June as a surprise birthday gift. My mom is a very smart woman of many talents, who has had many different careers throughout her life, so it was really difficult, in a way, to come up with a single design for her - so I created two. Both designs feature her name, telephone number and e-mail address as the primary information, but the design of both cards are really really different.

One card featured a Japanese-woodcut-inspired wave pattern in light blue ink with her contact information in black. Like Ally Horn's business card above, I love how clean and simple and non-specific this card is, while being fun, pretty and elegant all at the same time. This set of cards was printed on Crane Lettra 100% cotton pearl white paper.

The other design featured a lovely blind-embossed pattern and a floral design printed in chocolate brown and burnt sienna (orange) inks on Crane Lettra 100% cotton ecru paper.

In my opinion, this design is a little more feminine and elegant than the first design, but both are really really beautiful. I love how the blind-embossed circle pattern at the top of the card really adds an extra bit of visual interest and texture to the overall card design. My mom loved both cards, but which was her favorite, you ask? She preferred the second one with the flowers. Great choice, Mom!

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Calling Cards - Elisabeth Mason

Elisabeth originally sought me out when she was in search of business cards for her law practice. We ended up deciding that trading our services would be mutually beneficial, however, when we got to my end of the trade, Elisabeth decided that she would rather have a pretty, personal calling card created that she could hand out to non-business-related contacts, rather than one specifically for her work. She mentioned that she really liked hummingbirds, which I thought was great, so we used that little tid-bit of inspiration to create the personal calling card you see above. Elisabeth's cards were printed in metallic copper ink on 100 lb. speckletone starch rain cover stock from French Paper Company. I love how the little hummingbird and flight path motif is somewhat whimsical and really compliments the free-flowing, whimsical font we used so well!

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Calling Cards - Nami Bigos

Nami is a Portland, Oregon-based graphic designer who designed her own awesomely modern calling card and hired Twin Ravens Press to print them! I love how simple, professional and modern Nami's design is. It's clean, straight-forward, and totally down-to-business. These cards were printed in bright, rhodamine red ink (which, in all honesty, is really a bright magenta color), on crisp, 100% cotton, bright white Crane Lettra. Very nice!

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Calling Cards - Evan Lally

Last, but certainly not least, are these fabulous calling cards, created for a good friend of mine, and self-proclaimed metro-sexual, Evan Lally. Evan's a pretty classy guy. He dresses super-snappy, lives in a very chic, downtown studio apartment in Eugene, and is just pretty much awesome. Evan's cards feature both modern and 19th century styling and typefaces, combined with a super-classy cherry blossom motif. These cards are vertically oriented and were printed in two metallic ink colors: silver and copper on 100 lb. Speckletone Wine cover stock, also from French Paper Company.

The cards feature the cherry blossom motif and Evan's name in a wood-type inspired typeface towards the top of the card, and his contact information in another classic typeface towards the bottom.

The center of the card features an oversized, bracketed tag line that is separated from the name and contact information by two stylish flourishes. We printed these cards with three different tag lines, which you can see in the top photo: "Totally Metro", "Not British, no really, I swear" and "Certified Show-Stopper".

I know that these tag lines may not mean anything to you, but trust me, if you knew Evan personally, you would understand. : )

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If you enjoyed this little business and calling card round-up, check back again soon as I have many more 2009 calling cards to write about in the very near future!

If you would like more information about ordering calling or business cards of your very own, please feel free to contact me at any time!

I may not be blogging for the next few days, so to those of you who celebrate it, have a very Merry Christmas! Ta-ta for now!

Tart Workshop + Twin Ravens Press Holiday Gift Tags

2009-12-19T13:16:00.001-08:00

I recently had the opportunity to team up with the awesomely creative calligrapher/illustrator of Tart Workshop, Crystal Kluge, to design and letterpress print an absolutely adorable set of holiday gift tags. Crystal and I have had (and currently have) some mutual custom clients, so it was really exciting to get to work with her again on a project specifically for Tart Workshop & Twin Ravens Press!

These gift tags come in sets of six, one tag each of six different designs. All of the patterns were created by Crystal and all of the letterpress printing, die-cutting and assembly was done by Twin Ravens Press. These gift tags are 2.75" in diameter and feature a different pattern in one of four ink colors (red, green, copper or silver) on one side, and a place to write who the gift is to and from on the back side.

Each tag is tied with a piece of all-natural hemp twine, making them easy to attach to gifts or hang from a Christmas tree. The tag sets come packaged in a 100% biodegradable, clear, corn-cello bag.

Since we are releasing these tags so late in the season, we are offering you a very special deal on them! Visit the Twin Ravens Press Etsy Shop today or tomorrow and purchase $20.00 (or more) of our products (this can be single greeting cards, boxed sets, coasters, etc.) and receive one set of gift tags free with your purchase! This offer is only valid until tomorrow, Sunday, December 20th at 5:00 pm, Pacific Standard Time, or while supplies last, so head over to the shop now! If you just want the tags, that's perfectly fine too, they are also available for purchase on etsy, right here.

If you are currently a Twin Ravens Press retailer or you are considering carrying our products in your retail store, these tags will be added to our collection, and are available for wholesale purchases now. If you're already looking ahead for next year, keep these in mind, as they are super-cute!

If you'd like to check out more of Crystal Kluge's gorgeous hand-lettering, graphic design, illustration and typography design, check out her website and blog. I love working with Crystal, so check out her work if you have a custom project in mind!

Thanks so much again for the collaboration Crystal, and to all of my lovely readers out there: Happy Holidays and Happy Shopping!

Cardinals and Robots Featured this Week!

2009-12-16T12:29:00.000-08:00

Two of our designs were featured this week in a couple of different places!

First off, our Robot with Heart Coasters were featured in an etsy treasury, entitled Robot Love, created by helengotlib. If you like robots as much as I do, you ought to go check out this feature, as all of Helen's robot picks are super-cute! Robot coasters make an awesome stocking-stuffer if you're still looking for something for that special someone. Place your order by this Saturday, December 19th for delivery by Christmas!

Secondly, our Cardinal greeting card was featured on Tapestry Design Studio today in a feature all about cardinals. There are some really great cardinal-themed picks there from greeting cards and art prints to jewelry, clothing and home goods. So, go check it out! Cardinal greeting cards are great for the holidays or any time of year! They are available in singles, sets of 6 or sets of 12 in our etsy shop! Happy Shopping!

Maria and Ashley are Getting Married!

2009-12-15T11:36:00.000-08:00

I recently had the pleasure of working on a wedding invitation suite for a couple in Cali, Colombia! The couple is currently living in Florida, but they are having their wedding and reception this month in the bride's home town of Cali.

Way back at the beginning of this year (wow, almost a year ago already - yikes!), the bride, Maria, and I began working on a design for her save-the-date cards. Maria wanted her invitation suite to be formal and traditional, and warm and inviting all at the same time. We chose a very traditional layout and fonts for the design, and to warm things up, used a chocolate brown (rather than black or grey) ink for the printing. The save-the-date was an A6 size, which measured 4.5"x6.25". It came with a matching A6 size, white envelope with Maria's brother's return address in Cali, printed on the flap.

I absolutely love how decorative and beautiful a nice script face can be all by itself. Don't get me wrong, I love designing pretty images and patterns for wedding invitations as well, but there's just something about beautiful letterpress printed typography on white 100% cotton paper that brings joy to my heart. It's just so lovely!

Not too long after we did her Save-the-Date cards, we started working on the design for the main invitations. Maria wanted to continue with the gorgeous all-text design we had used for the save-the-dates for her invitations as well as keeping with the same fonts and ink color. Her main invitation suite included an A7 size invitation, an A2 size reception card, a 5" square map card and a beautiful set of inner/outer invitation envelopes. You can see a photo of the full suite at the top of this post and below is an image of just the invitation and invitation envelopes together.

For her invitation envelopes, Maria chose a matching set of white, A7 size envelopes with European pointed flaps from Waste Not Paper Company. We used the same address printing plate from her save-the-date card envelopes to print the return address on the flap of the outer invitation envelopes. The inner envelope was lined with a gorgeous, handmade paper from Nepal in a chestnut brown color. Maria hired one of my favorite calligraphers, Fran Heider of Little Flower Calligraphy, to calligraph her addresses on both sets of envelopes. I'm sure the calligraphy was absolutely lovely!

Above you can see the invitation all by itself. Maria explained to me that it's tradition in Colombia, and many other spanish-speaking countries, to include the parents names on the top of the invitation. I thought this was a really interesting tradition. Once again, I love the way the classic-looking script really accents and draws attention to Maria and Ashley's names in the center of the invite. I wish you could feel it too through your computer screen, because the texture of the letterpress impression feels amazing!

Maria and Ashley's reception card is an A2 size and featured the reception information, prominently in the center of the card and the phone number to RSVP to in the bottom left corner.

Isn't that a classy card?!? I love it!

Creating a map for Maria and Ashley's wedding was somewhat of a challenge. It was surprisingly difficult to find an english map of the city of Cali (even google maps' map was in Spanish), and although I speak spanish fairly well, navigating a map of an unknown city, in a foreign language, while trying to locate certain streets and landmarks, was really challenging. Maria was awesome though and drew me a map of a little portion of the city that she wanted to use and I used that to create the map card design.

This map measures 5"x5" and was letterpress printed in chocolate brown ink. The thick dark line running through the center of the map is a river, the Rio Cali, and we created cute little icons (inspired by a map created by Crystal Kluge earlier this year for this wedding) to represent major city landmarks, the Catholic church where Maria and Ashley's wedding will be, their home, hotels they recommend, and for the reception location. Here is a close-up so you can get a better look:

I love the way this suite turned out and I know that Maria and Ashley's wedding in Colombia in a couple of weeks will be really neat! Congratulations Maria & Ashley!

Kate & Erick are Married!

2009-12-14T16:09:00.000-08:00

First of all, I must send a huge thank you out to everyone who came and said "hi" yesterday at the Meet Your Maker Holiday Show. The show was a great success, and we had a much better turn out this time than at the one we did in November, so thank you to everyone who came!

Next up, I have a really pretty and very unique wedding invitation suite from earlier this year to show off to all of you! This suite was created for a New York City couple, Kate and Erick, who were married this past September in Middletown, Connecticut. Kate desired a simple, yet elegant invitation that really took advantage of all that the letterpress process has to offer. What we came up with was a gorgeous, single-color, A7 size wedding invitation and a 4bar size reply card, both with extensive blind embossing, and a set of coordinating envelopes for both pieces. You can see all four pieces in this invitation suite in the photo above and below is the invitation all by itself.

When Kate originally hired me to design her invitation suite, she showed me the digital file she had created for her lovely save-the-date cards. Kate and Erick's save-the-dates featured a really fun and whimsical honeybee and honeycomb pattern as well as some lovely fonts. We chose to utilize fonts that were very similar to the ones on the save-the-dates and continue the bee and honeycomb theme for the main invitation suite. These invitations were printed in chocolate brown ink and featured the bee motif at the top and the invitation text below. We chose a traditional layout and used a pretty script face for Kate and Erick's names and the "Cocktails, dinner and dancing to follow" line at the bottom, and a classic, roman, serif face for the rest of the text. In order to incorporate the honeycomb pattern we blind embossed the entire background of the invitation with little honeycomb hexagons. Now, let me tell you, blind embossing a pattern this large over an entire sheet, was no small feat. In order to do this we had to pull each invitation manually on a cylinder letterpress (rather than doing the blind embossing on our platen press) and register each and every sheet by hand for the embossing. Despite the extra work that this took, the embossed pattern turned out beautifully and really gave this invitation design an elegant and rich texture! Here are some detail photos so you can see the fonts, impression and blind embossing a little better:

For the invitation envelopes, Kate chose a European pointed flap envelope from Waste Not Paper in sage green to accompany her invitations. We custom lined these envelopes with a slightly darker green liner that we had offset printed with a white honeycomb pattern. We then letterpress printed Kate and Erick's return address and another honeybee with a little flight path on the back flap of each envelope. Check it out:

Here is Kate and Erick's reply card and reply card envelope. For the envelope, Kate chose to stick with the sage green color and we letterpress printed the couple's address and a little bit of the honeycomb pattern in chocolate brown ink on the front.

The reply card itself featured some more honeycomb-pattern-blind-embossing on the left side of the card, and another little brown honeybee with flight path letterpress printed over the top of the blind embossing. The card featured a line for the guests to write their names and then a place for them to indicate which event(s) they would be attending. Kate and Erick planned a Friday night welcome and a Sunday morning brunch, as well as their wedding ceremony and reception, which was held on a Saturday. They also included a space where guests could write in a song that they would dance to at the wedding reception.

One of my favorite things about this reply card is the little hexagon-shaped check boxes we used for the different options guests needed to indicate. It's such a small detail, but I love the way it ties in with all of the blind-embossed pattern that we created! It really goes to show that taking extra special attention to detail when designing a piece can really add so much to the finished package. Here is another detail photo so you can see more of the gorgeous blind embossing and the sweet honeybee!

I love how gorgeous, elegant, sweet, whimsical, classic and unique this wedding suite is, all at the same time! Kate and Erick were fabulous clients to work with and I imagine that their wedding this past September was really beautiful and amazing!

Thanks so much and congratulations Kate and Erick! All the best to you!

One more note for today: this week is the last week to order holiday cards from our Etsy Shop. If you'd like to order holiday cards, please place your order by this Saturday, December 19th in order to receive them by Christmas! Happy Holidays!

Meet Your Maker Show & Sale this Sunday!

2009-12-11T18:09:00.001-08:00

If you're in Eugene, Oregon this weekend come down to the Fenario Gallery at 881 Willamette Street on Sunday from 11-5 o'clock. Twin Ravens Press will be selling holiday greeting cards, gift tags and other goodies at the Meet Your Maker show, which will be our last public event before Christmas and for 2009. So, if you're going to be in town on Sunday, come down and check it out! There will be approximately 24 other vendors also selling fabulous holiday goods, as well as live music, food, drinks, an awesome raffle and other merriment! I hope to see you there!

Henri-Lee and Konrad are Married!

2009-12-10T09:51:00.000-08:00

Good morning, folks! It's time for another addition of "It's so cold in Oregon, all I can think about is wanting to be somewhere tropical". So, with no further ado, I present to you a lovely wedding invitation suite that I designed and printed last spring for a couple who live and were married in Honolulu, Hawaii. At the time that I began working with Henri-Lee and Konrad, I was actually working with another couple who was using their same wedding planner. The wedding planner's name is Alia Kennedy of Parasol Events in Honolulu, and she put me in touch with both lovely couples! We haven't actually met in person, but Alia is a true gem to work with, and I would highly recommend her if you are planning a destination wedding or a local wedding in Hawaii. When Alia contacted me about Henri-Lee and Konrad's wedding, we didn't have much time to design and print a totally custom suite. I listened to what Henri-Lee was envisioning though and described another suite I was currently working on for another couple, who you recently read about here, and we decided that we could create a similar suite that was adapted to better reflect Henri-Lee and Konrad's wedding without starting completely from scratch. You can see the four pieces in their invitation suite at the top of this post.

Henri-Lee and Konrad's suite included an A7 size invitation with corresponding envelope and a 4bar size reply card with corresponding envelope. The invitation was printed in three ink colors and the reply card was printed in one on Crane Lettra Pearl White 100% cotton paper. The envelopes were pink and yellow, were both printed in one ink color, and came from Waste Not Paper Company. Here is their invitation by itself:

As Henri-Lee and Konrad's wedding colors were pinks and yellows, we really wanted to somehow incorporate both and have a slightly tropical feeling to the suite. In order to do this, we adapted my birds in branches design to have the branches covered in pink plumeria flowers with four little yellow birdies on or flying up to it. If you haven't seen a plumeria in person, here is a photo of the real thing:

(source)

Plumerias are a tropical tree flower that come in a few different colors and are absolutely gorgeous! They smell amazing too! I actually have a small plumeria tree in my house that I brought back from Hawaii at one point. The tree is beautiful, but in the over 10 years that I've had it, it has never flowered. I'm thinking it might just be too cold here to do it, which is sad, but I'm still hopeful that one day it will. Anyway, back to the stationery!

We used a really gorgeous script font for the couples names and a classic serif typeface for the other invitation information. I absolutely love the way these crisp fonts and images combined with bright, cheerful ink colors really sink into the page! Gorgeous! The invitation was then paired with a coordinating yellow envelope and I letterpress printed their return address on the flap in chocolate brown ink.

For Henri-Lee and Konrad's reply card we went with a similar coordinating design motif, this time without the birds and in only one ink color to save them some money. The reply card was printed in chocolate brown ink and featured a place for guests to write their names, check whether or not they would be attending, and then select their meal choice for the reception.

For the reception entree choices, we used some cute little caricatures (something I do fairly often) to represent fish, beef and vegetarian. The reply cards were paired with a bright pink envelope and again printed with the couple's address in chocolate brown ink.

Isn't this suite so sweet and beautiful all at the same time?!?

Since Hawaii is a fairly expensive and not very easy location to get to, Henri-Lee and Konrad planned a small wedding. Now, let's say that you're planning a small wedding and you invite just your closest friends and family to the actual event, but you also want to inform other friends of your nuptials. How do you do it? Send out wedding announcements! A wedding announcement isn't an invitation to the event and it is typically sent out after the couple is already married, but it is a nice, formal way to inform friends whom you don't necessarily want to invite to the event, or who you know won't be able to attend, that you were married. This is what Henri-Lee and Konrad did shortly after their wedding! Here is the announcement:

For this piece HL wanted to continue with the same sort of design that we had used for the actual invitation, but change up the size just a little bit. There was quite a bit of wording on their announcement, so in order to accommodate that without making the card look cluttered, we chose a long and skinny T-Length size. This card measures 3.875"x9.25" and was printed in three ink colors: chocolate brown, yellow and pink. It was paired with a coordinating, white, T-length envelope from Waste Not Paper Company and the return address was printed on the flap of it in pink ink. Here are some details of the announcement and announcement envelope so you can see the pretty fonts, images, ink colors and impression a little closer:

Aren't these lovely?!? It's such a nice way to announce your wedding to all of the people you couldn't invite, or who otherwise wouldn't have been able to make it to your actual event.

Once again, working with Alia of Parasol Events on this was absolutely wonderful and our clients, Henri-Lee and Konrad, were really sweet! Congratulations Henri-Lee and Konrad and thanks again!

Tropical Thank You Cards

2009-12-09T09:40:00.000-08:00

Folks, it is cold outside! Don't get me wrong, Eugene is normally fairly chilly during the winter months, but for the last week or so, it's been significantly colder than normal. So, in honor of our balmy 8 degrees, (or at least to make me feel a little better about it), I'd like to show you a really fun and tropical set of thank you cards that we recently completed for a wedding client who lives in Seattle, but is getting married in Florida this January.

You've actually seen work that I've done for this same couple, Elyssa and Justin, before. We printed their Save-the-Date cards and invitations for their wedding as well. You can see and read about those here and here. For her thank you cards, Elyssa wanted a design that was vaguely similar to her other wedding stationery, but very different and a little more casual all at the same time. She also wanted these cards to be reminiscent of their destination, which will be decidedly more tropical than Seattle in January. Here is what we came up with:

Elyssa and Justin's thank you cards are flat, double-sided, A2 size letterpress note cards in two ink colors: chartreuse and chocolate brown. The front side (top) features their names and the words "Thank you!" in the same script font that we used for their invitation suite in chocolate brown ink with a lovely palm tree motif on the left hand side. Both sides of the card feature a 1/4" chartreuse border that bleeds off the edge and a decorative chocolate brown border framing the white spaces of the card. The back side features a very cute chartreuse sea turtle and room for Elyssa to write her thank you message. The trail from the sea turtle continues from one side to the other if you look closely!

These cards were paired with a set of natural kraft envelopes from Green Paper Company (they call the color "Beech"). These envelopes are 30% post-consumer recycled and feature a monarch-style flap. We letterpress printed Elyssa and Justin's return address in chartreuse ink on the flap.

Check out some more fun detail photos of the actual card! I love the way that the fine lines and details of this design sink into the paper, all while the bright, contrasting colors make the design really pop off the page!

Aren't these just cool?!? They make me want to be in Florida (or somewhere else warm) right now. Thanks so much again Elyssa and Justin, and stay warm!

450

2009-12-06T02:21:00.001-08:00

Sometimes it's the little things in life that really make your day. You know, like getting to drink a nice glass of red wine and eat tasty fisherman's stew while sitting next to a lovely wood stove on a cold day in December at your favorite restaurant. Or, stomping through puddles like a child on a spring day while wearing big rubber boots with little cherries all over them. Or, having 450 (!) people call you a favorite on etsy! Yeah, I may be gloating just a bit, but we reached 450 fans today in our etsy shop, which is pretty rad. Thank you to everyone out there, who has helped to make this possible. You are the best...

Amanda and Matthew are Married!

2009-12-05T10:55:00.001-08:00

I've really been enjoying catching all of you up this week on a few wedding invitation suites I designed and printed this past spring/summer that I didn't get to feature right away! The suite I'm about to show you was printed last spring for a lovely couple who were married in late July in Jacksonville, Florida! Amanda and Matthew's wedding colors were blue, white and black and they desired a whimsical, yet modern invitation suite featuring hand-drawn line art of various "landmarks" near, in or around their wedding venues. Here is what we came up with!

You can see the majority of the pieces in the suite in the image at the top of this post. Amanda and Matt's suite included an inner/outer invitation envelope set, an A7 size invitation, a 4bar size reply card with corresponding envelope, a small 3.5"x2.5" reception card, and an A2 size rehearsal dinner invitation with corresponding envelope. All of the pieces were printed on Crane Lettra 100% cotton pearl white paper. All of their envelopes were from Waste Not Paper Company. The reply card envelope and rehearsal dinner invitation envelope were a lovely light blue color and the main invitation envelopes were white.

First things first, though, let's take a look at their invitation!

As I mentioned above, Amanda & Matthew's invitation is a standard A7 size, measuring 5"x7". It was printed in black and light blue inks on 100% cotton pearl white paper. The inspiration for the imagery on this piece came from a photograph of a clock that is near the church where they were getting married. Amanda wanted to include lovely hand-drawn line art of landmarks or other features that were relevant to the particular venues of their wedding throughout the design of the suite. She sent me a photo of this old, outdoor clock and we thought that it would be the perfect motif for the invitation with the hands of the clock indicating the time of the wedding. I love the way that all of the pieces in this suite came out very simple looking, yet modern and elegant all at the same time. All of the designs were really clean and crisp and I love the way that fine line art and typography just sinks into the cotton paper from the letterpress impression. Check out this detail photo to see what I'm talking about:

For their invitation envelopes, Amanda chose a lovely set of inner/outer envelopes from Waste Not Paper Company in white. These envelopes feature a European pointed flap. The outer envelope was unlined and was printed with their return address in blue ink on the back flap.

The inner envelope was unprinted, but featured a beautiful custom envelope liner created from handmade Nepalese Lokta papers in a variety of light blues. Amanda and Matt had quite a few invitations to send out and because Lokta paper is handmade, no two dye-lots of it are completely the same. Because of this we used paper for their envelope liners from a few different dye-lots, which added some lovely variety to the shades of blue in the suite.

Amanda and Matt's reception card was a standard 4bar size and featured a line drawing reminiscent of the tables and chairs in old French cafés.

We utilized the same typefaces and ink colors in the design of this card and gave guests the option to indicate what meal choice (roasted chicken with champagne sauce or seared salmon with citrus buerre blanc) they preferred for the reception.

We decided to dress up the envelope for this card a bit as well, all while keeping with the theme of the other pieces in the suite.

The envelope was a 4bar size envelope in a light blue, also from Waste Not Paper Company, and it featured Amanda's address on the front, printed in black ink, and a characterful mailbox with her actual address numbers on the side. You can't see the numbers on the side of the box because they are blurred out for privacy purposes, but let me tell you - the whole thing was super-cute. Here are the reply card and envelope together:

Amanda and Matt's main invitation suite also included a small reception card. This card measured 3.5" wide by 2.5" tall. The couple chose to do a separate reception card for their suite because they were getting married in a church and holding their reception at a separate venue. For the imagery on this card, Amanda sent me some lovely photos of chandeliers that were in the room where they were having their reception. We figured this would make the perfect little drawing for their little reception card!

Aren't the little line drawings cute?!? Here is what the three main invitation pieces look like together:

Last, but certainly not least, Amanda and Matthew also had me design and print a set of rehearsal dinner invitations, which they sent out separately to certain guests.

Their rehearsal dinner invitation was a standard A2 size, measuring 5.5" x 4.25" and came with it's own light blue Waste Not Paper envelope. The envelope had Matt's parent's return address printed on the flap and the card featured another fun and whimsical line drawing: this time of a crab.

I love the way this whole suite turned out and it was so much fun coming up with the ideas for the different graphics on the different pieces with Amanda! I'm sure their Florida wedding this past July was just lovely!

Congratulations Amanda and Matthew!

Sherry and Thomas are Married!

2009-12-03T21:06:00.001-08:00

If you've been following this blog for a while now, you may remember a very pretty little set of black and white save-the-date cards that I designed and printed back in February for a couple who were married this past September in Wheeling, West Virginia. I know it's been quite a while since then, so if you either weren't following us then or don't recall what I'm talking about, check out the Save-the-Date cards here. I realized while writing yesterday's post, that I hadn't ever shown off the rest of Sherry and Thomas' suite, and they were just so cool, I couldn't resist. You can see all of the pieces in the main invitation suite together at the top of this post.

Sherry and Thomas' suite included an A7 size matted wedding invitation, a 4bar size reply card with corresponding envelopes, a small 2.5"x3.5" reception card, and a gorgeous set of inner/outer invitation envelopes. The inner/outer invitation envelopes were A7 size and the inner envelope was lined with a custom, letterpress-printed envelope liner. The outer invitation envelope was unlined and featured a very simple, yet elegant, return address printed in black ink on the flap.

Above you can see the two invitation envelopes and the main invitation together. If you checked out Sherry and Thomas' save-the-date card from my previous post, you'll recall that it featured a really neat blind-embossed pattern that acted as a frame for the words. For the inner envelope liner of Sherry and Thomas' invitation envelope, we printed this same pattern on a black paper in silver ink and custom die-cut the liners to fit in the envelopes. I absolutely love how fresh and pretty silver ink on black paper looks! Isn't it cool?!?

Here is their wedding invitation by itself:

Sherry and Thomas' invitation was an A7 size that was printed on 100% cotton, Pearl White, Crane Lettra paper and then matted on a piece of black card stock to create a 1/4" black border all around. We used the same pattern from the save-the-date cards and envelope liners to create a blind embossed border pattern around the text of the invitation. We also utilized two large, dramatic, flowing flourishes (say that five times fast) as decoration throughout the design. All of the flourishes and typography were printed in black ink. These are stunning! Here are some detail photos:

Isn't the blind-embossed pattern combined with the black, flowing flourishes absolutely lovely? I think so...

Sherry and Thomas were married in a church and held their reception in a separate location: The Wheeling Artisan Center. For this we needed to create a separate reception card as part of their suite. The card was fairly simple: we still utilized the same typefaces and flourishes from the other pieces as well as a small blind-embossed area, but as the card didn't have tons of information it didn't need to be very large. We chose a custom 2.5"x3.5" card size for it, which you can see below.

For the reply card and envelope, we chose a standard 4bar size. The card was blind embossed and printed in black ink on Crane Lettra Pearl White Paper and the envelope was a 4bar size black envelope with a European Pointed flap, printed in silver ink, from Waste Not Paper Company.

I love the way the black envelope with silver ink coordinated perfectly with their envelope liners!

As with the reception card, the reply card was kept very simple and elegant, without a lot of extra "stuff". Just clean, simple, gorgeous design with black ink and blind embossing on black paper. I love it!

Sherry and Thomas were absolutely wonderful clients to work with and I'm sure that their wedding this past September was just as wonderful as they are! Congratulations Sherry & Thomas!

Crane String Cards featured on Little Grey Pixel

2009-12-03T11:12:00.000-08:00

I want to give a quick shout-out to a blogger who recently featured one of our Crane String Cards on her blog in a holiday card round-up! Head over to Little Gray Pixel and check out the feature here. It's not too late to order holiday cards, so if you are interested in the Crane String or other holiday designs from Twin Ravens Press, check them out in our etsy store!

Kristen & Gregory are Married!

2009-12-03T10:51:00.000-08:00

During the summer months, Twin Ravens Press prints a lot of wedding invitations. Often we are working with so many couples at the same time that even though we're turning out lots of gorgeous stationery, we often don't have the time to feature it on this blog right before or right after the actual event. However, because it's all so lovely, I sometimes like to share it with you anyway, even if it's been a few months since the event took place. The suite I'm about to show you is one such wedding suite. This suite was completed last May for a lovely couple in Virginia who were getting married in a church and having their reception at Virginia Tech University!

Kristen and Gregory's suite included a gorgeous matted wedding invitation, a double-sided reception/driving directions card, a reply card with corresponding envelope, a custom-lined inner invitation envelope and an outer invitation envelope. You can see all of the pieces in this suite in the photo above.

Kristen and Gregory wanted a very elegant and traditional invitation design, but wanted to add a splash of color and tip their hats to their Alma Mater, and the location of their reception: Virginia Tech University. In order to do this, we created an inner/outer envelope set for the suite that featured an inner envelope that was lined with a custom, letterpress printed liner in a damask pattern in Virginia Tech's school colors: orange and maroon. I love the way just this envelope liner adds a dramatic splash of color to the suite, while everything else is very elegant and traditional. The outer envelope was unlined and featured the couple's return address in a calligraphy-inspired typeface.

Here is their invitation:

Kristen and Gregory chose a very beautiful and elegant, classic invitation layout featuring two typefaces: a gorgeous script for their names and the name of the church where they were married and a classic serif font for the other invitation information. This invite was an A7 size, printed on Crane Lettra Pearl White Paper and then matted with a black invitation matt to create a 1/4" wide black border all the way around. Isn't it beautiful?!?

Their reply card was designed to match and utilized the same two typefaces we used for the invitation. On it, Kristen had a place for guests to indicate which events (ceremony, reception, or both) that they would be attending. This card was a classic 4bar size and came with a corresponding white envelope.

The last piece in Kristen and Gregory's suite was a combination directions and reception card. This card was also a 4bar size and was double-sided, featuring the reception information on one side and the directions on the other. Creating a combination card like this for an insert is a great way to save both paper and money on your printing!

Kristen and Gregory's suite turned out absolutely beautiful and I'm sure their wedding last July was just as wonderful! Congratulations Kristen and Gregory!

Origami Crane Cards featured on Etsy!

2009-11-28T10:08:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone out there (in the US) had a very Happy Thanksgiving! If you haven't checked out our etsy store lately, you should, as you will find several lovely holiday cards for sale there. We are going to be listing even more holiday card designs over the next two weeks, so please check back frequently!

In other, etsy-related news, one of our letterpress printed Origami Crane cards was featured in an etsy treasury today entitled Blue Lue. Check out the treasury here. If you'd like to purchase one of these cards they are currently available as singles, sets of six, or sets of ten. These cards are also available in other colors and patterns, so go check them out! Have a great weekend!

Holiday Meet Your Maker Show & Sale this Sunday!

2009-11-20T10:01:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday Everyone! If you're in the Eugene/Springfield, Oregon area this weekend and are looking for something fun to do, come out to the Meet Your Maker Holiday Show + Sale this Sunday at the Fenario Gallery in downtown Eugene! The Fenario Gallery is located at 881 Willamette Street and the show will run from 11:00-5:00. The Fenario Gallery is a much larger space than the show has been in before, so there will be many more vendors and lots of holiday goodies to check out! I've been busy this week printing up lots and lots of holiday cards, all of which will be available on Sunday!

In other (related) news, I was recently interviewed by the ladies of Meet Your Maker about letterpress, Twin Ravens Press, how we got our start, etc. If you'd like to read the interview, it's posted on their blog here.

Have a Happy Weekend and I hope to see you Sunday!

Save the Date: Erica & Noah are Getting Married!

2009-11-19T09:01:00.001-08:00

Check out these super-cute Save-the-Date cards that I finished earlier this week for a couple in Syracuse, New York who are getting married next June! Erica & Noah's save-the-date card is an A6 size card measuring 4.5"x6.25", printed in Navy Blue ink on a custom-made, 100% cotton, recycled, light pink paper that is embedded with wildflower seeds from Porridge Papers. The cards were printed and then affixed with a small photograph of Erica and Noah. They came with coordinating cream-colored envelopes from Waste Not Paper company that were printed with the couples' return address in navy blue ink.

I love how gorgeous and textural the papers from Porridge Papers are! They are so pretty, unique, and absolutely wonderful for letterpress printing. They take letterpress impression beautifully and are so fabulous to the touch. Check out these close-up photos for a better look:

Aren't they cute and beautiful all at the same time?!? I love that Erica had us print on a light pink paper too - it's not a color that my clients ask for too often, but I think this paper would be lovely for other wedding stationery or for some really sweet baby shower invitations or baby announcements too! Erica, Noah and I are currently working on the designs for the rest of their invitation suite which will be printed shortly after the first of the new year. If you like this design, make sure you check back to see the rest! It's going to be pretty!

Tamera & Trevor's Wedding Photos!

2009-11-18T14:46:00.000-08:00

Shortly after I wrote this post earlier this morning about the stationery we created for Tamera & Trevor's Montana wedding last July, Tamera e-mailed me and shared some photos from their wedding day! She gave me permission to share some of them with you and I figured you might like to see the gorgeous celebration that their gorgeous stationery was for! Tamera and Trevor are such a cute couple. I really love the photo of them in the canoe, and make sure your scroll down and check out their cake. Gorgeous! All wedding photos are courtesy of Lauren Brown Photography.

Tamera & Trevor are Married!

2009-11-18T10:18:00.001-08:00

(Image courtesy of Lauren Brown Photography)

I have to preface this post by saying that I feel pretty lucky. I get to work with a lot of amazing people, all over the country (and world!) doing something that I love, almost every day. So when I tell you that the wedding invitation suite that I'm about to show you, is quite possibly one of my favorite invitation suites that we did this year, it's not to say that I wasn't totally excited about the others, it's just that this suite and the couple it was created for, were just really awesome.

Tamera and her now-husband Trevor are from a small town in North Dakota and were planning their wedding at a lodge in Montana, just south of Glacier National Park for this past July. Let's just say that while I create stationery for a lot of different types of weddings (rustic to high-class, casual to formal, etc.), I felt that Tamera's sensibility and style, as well as what she was planning for her wedding, would be right in line with the sort of ceremony I would plan for my own. After all, she and I have quite a bit in common: she's from a small western town and so am I, she was planning a casual outdoor ceremony in a beautiful place, which is probably what I would do for my own wedding, her wedding was small with just her closest friends and family, etc. Let's just say that when we started talking and she told me what she wanted, everything just sort of clicked. I completely understood her style and vision, and I loved it! Here's what we created:

Tamera and Trevor's invitation suite included a slightly-smaller-than-A7 size wedding invitation that was double-matted on Nepalese Lokta paper in olive green and plum purple and attached to a chocolate brown pocket folder. Inside the pocket folder were five insert cards: a registry/website card, a map card, a reply card with corresponding envelope, an accommodations card and a directions card. All of the interior cards were printed on a custom, handmade, 100% cotton, recycled paper from Porridge Paper in their birchy dirt color that was embedded with mixed wildflower seeds. Porridge's seeded paper is really neat in that, while it is one of the most environmentally-friendly papers I've ever found, it will also actually grow flowers if the paper gets wet. Pretty neat, don't you think?!? As you can see above, all of the little cards and inserts fit inside a chocolate brown pocket folder that looked like this when it was all closed up:

Each folder was sealed shut with a band of the same Nepalese Lokta paper in both the olive and plum colors that we used to matt the invitation and then tied with a piece of natural raffia. I love how earthy and beautiful each of these little packages looked! Each folder fit inside of an A7 size envelope in Khaki from Waste Not Paper Company.

Each envelope had the couple's return address and a small flying bird printed in chocolate brown ink on the back flap and their bird design that we used throughout the suite printed in three colors (3 colors!!) on the front of the envelope. Most envelopes that I print are only printed with one ink color, so it was really a treat to get to print these envelopes with all three. Each invitation envelope was also lined with Nepalese Lokta paper in either the olive or plum color that you've seen above. We did half in one and half in the other, just to mix things up!

Let's look at the main piece in the suite: the invitation.

As I mentioned above, Tamera and Trevor's invitation was slightly smaller than a standard A7 size so that it could be matted with both of their lokta paper colors and then attached to the inside of their chocolate brown pocket folders. We used a classic serif font for the majority of the text of their invitation and printed the couple's names in a more fancy script font in a lime green ink. The bottom of the invitation features a small wild grass motif and the top features a lovely design of plum purple birds in branches with little green flowers. I've used elements of this design on a few other invitations since Tamera and Trevor's, and let me tell you, it really is gorgeous in several different color combinations and layouts.

I love the way that all of the small details in this design worked together so harmoniously and how the fine lines and gorgeous colors created such a beautiful and crisp impression in the wildflower seeded paper! Aren't the too close-up photos above just lovely?!?

Since their wedding was a destination wedding, Tamera and Trevor had quite a bit of information that they wanted to convey to their guests. In order to do this, we created five separate insert cards in different sizes that fit into the pocket of their pocket folder. Each insert was printed in three ink colors on the same paper as their invitation.

The tallest insert was their directions card which featured directions to their wedding venue, Holland Lake Lodge, from all different parts of Montana.

The second tallest was their accommodations card. Tamera actually had me design and print two separate, but similar accommodations cards. One was for the family and wedding party that would be staying at the lodge with the couple, and the other was one for their other guests, which gave other accommodation information for people who wouldn't be staying at the lodge.

The card for the family and wedding party was single-sided and featured fill-in the blanks that Tamera used to tell them where they would be staying. The other accommodations card was double-sided and gave guests lots of choices for places to stay, from hotels to campsites, that were near the couple's wedding venue.

The middle card was Tamera and Trevor's reply card. This was the only card in the suite that was horizontal rather than vertical. It featured a standard accepts/regrets option as well as a question about what other wedding events guests might be attending. Tamera and Trevor planned a red bus tour of Glacier National Park and a whitewater rafting trip as other wedding events! Each reply card came with it's own corresponding envelope that had Tamera and Trevor's return address printed on the front in chocolate brown ink with their bird motif in three ink colors in the top left corner.

The second shortest insert was their map card. Originally this was going to be part of the directions card, but Tamera had directions from so many different places that we ended up creating a separate card just for her map.

A map like this is more decorative than anything else, but I think it adds a wonderful and whimsical touch to any wedding suite!

Last, but not least is their tiny combined registry/website card.

Sometimes you just need one extra little card for all of that "extra" information that doesn't seem to fit anywhere else. This card gave guests information on where Tamera and Trevor were registered as well as an address to their wedding website.

Isn't their invitation suite just stunning!?! I absolutely love how it turned out and think that it was a gorgeous beginning to what I imagine was an absolutely gorgeous outdoor summer wedding! Tamera also had me print one small piece for their wedding reception:

I designed a set of coasters like this for another couple, Lynn & Matthew almost a year before, but Tamera loved them so much that she wanted to use them for her own wedding, in her colors. Each coaster was 3.5" round and printed with two ink colors: chocolate brown and plum purple. Aren't they cute?!?

Working with Tamera and Trevor was an absolute joy and I hope that their wedding ceremony this past July was everything they had hoped it would be!

Congratulations Tamera and Trevor! All the best!

Emily & Stephen are Married!

2009-11-13T15:38:00.000-08:00

(Photo courtesy of Emily G Photography)

Happy Friday, everybody! It's been kind of cold, rainy, and wintery in Western Oregon today, so I thought I would share with you a really bright and cheery wedding invitation suite I printed earlier this summer for a very cute couple who were married in Portland, Oregon in late September. Emily and Stephen are good friends of mine. Shortly after college I met both of them while we all worked at the same University bookstore. Emily and I worked in the graphic design/marketing department and Stephen was working in IT. I can remember talking to Emily constantly about how one day I was going to quit doing design for marketing and advertising and open up my very own letterpress shop (she and I used to have our desks about three feet from each other after all). At that point, she and Stephen had recently started dating, so it was really fun when she got in touch with me earlier this year about letterpress printing her wedding invitations, and it was really fun in September to get to go to their wedding!!

Anyway, being the über-talented designer that she is, Emily designed her invitations herself! Check them out:

Emily and Stephen's invitation suite included an A7 size invitation and envelope and an A2 size RSVP postcard. They were printed in two ink colors on Crane Lettra Pearl White 100% cotton paper and came with a coordinating white envelope from Waste Not Paper company. Emily and Stephen also had me print some really cute, matching wedding coasters for their reception as well!

Emily's stationery as well as her wedding, was bright, cheery and colorful. They had their ceremony and reception in Portland, Oregon at the McMennamin's Kennedy School - an old-fashioned school house that has been converted into a hotel/restaurant/bar/event space. I love how she was able to incorporate so many pretty colors into everything from her invitations to her reception without the whole thing being overwhelming. Here is her invitation by itself:

Emily chose to print her invitation in deep red and light pink inks. I love the fun and whimsical floral pattern she designed which adorned all of the pieces.

Their reception coasters were printed in the same ink colors with their names and the wedding date and some of the cute floral pattern. These are a 4" round coaster, which is perfect for beer, cocktail, wine and other beverage glasses!

I wish I had taken some photos of how cute these looked at the reception, but, I actually forgot to bring my real camera to their wedding and the only photos I have were taken with a cell phone (and they weren't very good ones). Let me tell you though, they were super-cute!

Here is the coordinating Waste Not Paper invitation envelope that Emily picked out:

We used a very pretty reddish-purple ink to print the return address on the flap. Then, for their reply cards, Emily chose to do a postcard to save on reply card envelope printing and postage. We used the same reddish-purple ink on this card as well as a bright and cheery yellow!

I absolutely love how Emily and Stephen's personality and sense of humor shines through on the reply card. Take a look at their accepts/regrets options: "Sure" and "Nah...". Aren't they just too cute?!? I think they're just about as cute as the couple they were created for. Here are some photos from Emily and Stephen's big day, taken by Portland-based wedding and portrait photographer Emily G.

(All Wedding Photos courtesy of Emily G Photography)

If you'd like to see more photos from their wedding, check them out on their photographer's blog, here.

Congratulations Emily & Stephen!

Vespagraphics Business Cards

2009-11-10T10:16:00.001-08:00

Check out these awesome business cards we printed for owner/creative director of Vespagraphics, Keith Van Norman, last Friday! Vespagraphics is a graphic design company in Eugene, Oregon that focuses predominantly on print media, so it was quite the compliment that the owner, Keith, hired me to design and print his new cards, rather than designing them himself. Keith's company focuses on creating socially, environmentally and fiscally responsible design solutions within their own work, and he wanted to keep up this responsibility with his business cards by using an environmentally responsible (recycled, tree-free) paper and soy/linseed oil-based inks.

Keith's cards were printed on a custom, seeded, 100% recycled, 100% cotton paper by Porridge Papers in a cream color. The paper is embedded with wildflower seeds that will actually grow! They were printed with two ink colors: chocolate brown and deep burgundy-red. Design-wise we chose to go with a more antique-looking layout, with a vintage-inspired rendition of a Vespa in the center of the card, and all of Keith's relevant contact information thoughtfully placed around the Vespa in a slab-serif font. I really love the wood-type inspired typeface that we used for the actual business name. I've used this typeface on a few other projects before, and I absolutely love how crisp and classy it looks letterpress printed!

Then, to be extra-fancy and unique, rather than keeping this card a standard rectangular shape, we die-cut the cards on the letterpress into a unique and more organic shape! I find die-cutting to be a really satisfying process that can really add a lot of character to certain designs. For Keith, it was the perfect finishing touch to make his cards really unique and interesting!

Keith was an absolutely wonderful client to work with and it was so much fun getting to show him the actual process of printing his cards from start to finish! He actually came and hung out in my studio on Friday morning while I was printing his cards, just so he could check it out. It's really fun for me when a client takes as much interest in the process of creating their cards, as well as in the outcome! If you've ever wanted to see more photos of my shop, Keith took quite a few while I was printing, which you can see on his flickr stream. Check them out! Also, if you've ever wanted to see a 1912 Chandler & Price Letterpress in action, Keith took a short video of me as I was printing and die-cutting his cards. Check it out here:

If you are interested in having new business cards designed and printed for your company, please feel free to contact me anytime! Also, if you are in, or are willing to travel to the Eugene/Springfield, Oregon area and would like to visit our studio to check out the actual printing process, you are more than welcome to do so! (Just make sure you make an appointment first).

Thanks so much Keith! You rock!

Etsy Treasury Feature: Green, Copper & Red Crane String Cards

2009-11-06T14:13:00.000-08:00

Our gorgeous green, copper and red Crane String greeting cards were featured today in a treasury on Etsy! The treasury, pictured above, created by MalcolmStudioShop, features twelve different peace themed items from a variety of etsy sellers! Click on the treasury link to view the actual page!

Our green, copper and red Crane String cards make a wonderful holiday card and are also great to send any time of the year. They are available as singles, sets of 6 or sets of 12. Get yours today!

In other etsy-related news, I was delighted to log-in to our shop this morning and find that we have over 400 (!) followers who love our shop (see below)! That's pretty awesome (and somewhat humbling). You guys are the best! Thanks for spreading the love!

Just a reminder, too, if you are a Facebook user and would like to keep up with what we're doing in our studio there, Twin Ravens Press now has a facebook page. Go become a fan today!