Design project: Four year old girls birthday party invitation

I was talking with J's sister-in-law recently one night after church about her twin daughters' upcoming 4th birthday party. She mentioned she hadn't really had time to get invitiations together, so they would probably just do an evite since it was going to be a low key affair.

Of course I immediately offered my design services. And even though I kept insisting it wouldn't be any trouble at all, I was pretty sure that she wouldn't take me up on the offer. But to my great surprise, I got a text from her a couple days later asking if I was sure I didn't mind.

After a couple of texts later I learned there was no theme for the party and she just wanted the invitation to be simple and that pink and blue were good color choices. I was able to get her to send me an idea of something she liked and I basically just improved on it a bit. It's not anything outrageous, but it's fun, cute, festive and (I think) exactly what the twins' mom wanted. So I think I did okay!

Disclaimer: Names, dates, etc have been changed.

Design project: Rehearsal dinner invitation

So last weekend was a blast. One of my best friends, Torry, married another one of my (now) best friends, Nicole. It was such a fun & love-filled weekend with all of the framily in town together again.

You would think that things couldn't be better except that I was able to be a part of the wedding weekend in my own special way, which as you know usually involves some type of graphic design. I ended up designing both the rehearsal dinner invitations and the wedding programs.

The rehearsal dinner invites were pretty simple and straightforward. Torry had sent me several examples that were mostly typographic, so I thought I would create something similar and make it personal by using a little southern slang in the text. And of course, they must be navy and yellow.

Put it all together and you've got a nice, clean, no-nonsense rehearsal dinner invitation. Stay tuned for the wedding programs blog post!

Design project: Retro wedding shower invitations

It's awesome when you have a close friend who happens to be a guy, because when he meets "the one" you instantly inherit another best friend. So I can say in this blog post that I got to design wedding shower invitations for two of my best friends who are getting married next month.

When the other hostesses and I met to plan the shower details, Amy had already done a great job researching a few themes and we all decided the retro beach/pool party idea sounded like a winner.

As I started to design the invitations, the color palette was an easy choice because we had talked about using Torry and Nicole's wedding colors (mustard and navy) for consistency, but also adding some red to make the party just a little bit different. I also decided to use very little beach or pool design elements just in case our theme turned into mostly just a retro theme in general.

For whatever reason, my very first thought was to use an old school hotel type sign annoucing the party. But I still needed a little more inspiration so I looked at a few retro beach movie posters for fonts and an overall style that I should use. Finally, I googled slang terms used in the 1950s and 60s that I could drop in for added nostalgia and that's how it all came together.

We sent them off in beautiful matching yellow envelopes and I'm hoping they made quite the splash in everyone's mailboxes!

Design project: Baby (boy) shower invitation

It's always fun when I'm approached at work to design party or shower invitations because I am required to design them "on the clock." Yes! Guilt free creative design sessions are the best. So I was stoked and gladly pushed offered my design skills to a coworker when she started organizing another coworker's baby shower.

Since there really were no parameters or creative instructions given or expected, I asked about "Michelle's" (I've changed everyone's name of course) color palette for the nursery and was pleasantly surprised to get a picture of her actual bedding.

As soon as I saw the cute and simple pattern on her crib bedding, I knew I wanted to recreate it and then also mix another pattern with it. So I opted to make her bedding pattern on the back of the invitation and then threw in just a tiny bit of chevron on the front. I also added a shade of green just to give a little pop of color.

Here's the final product:

 

Anyhow, I think it turned out pretty cute and I definitely plan on playing with patterns more in the future—with both graphic design and fashion.

Have a great weekend yall!

Design project: Bridal tea invitations

A month or so ago I was approached about designing bridal tea invitations for a girl who's getting married soon down in New Orleans. The client wanted the invite to be "tea" themed since they were going to be holding an actual tea for Claire—the possibility of hats included!

So I pulled the beautiful shade of green Claire is using for her wedding day and a couple of other colors suggested by my client, grabbed a few tea appropriate images and viola! A lovely ladylike tea invitation was created.

Design project: Ashley's wedding invitations

Oh happy day! One of my very best friends in the whole world is getting married and I was honored to design her wedding invitations. As you can see from the photos of us above, we have been there to cheer each other on through a LOT of adventures (and a lot of hairstyles! oh wait, maybe that's just me). But I am thinking this will be the greatest adventure yet that I get to be there to support Ashley and "cheer her on" during.

I think the best description of Ashley comes from Nick, her fiance, who said she is the "perfect blend of a little bit dorky with a whole lotta class." Oh man, couldn't have said it better myself! So naturally, Ashley and I would create an invitation design that would put these words on paper. Ok, well, we used a lot less of the "dork" and more of the "class." But we did at least let the RSVP postcards have a little bit of playfulness to them.

Below are the final designs that we created and I couldn't have been more pleased. This is definitely one of my favorite designs to date!

(ps....dates & names have been changed to protect the innocent)

And now, here's to Nick and Ashley as they get ready to dance their way through the rest of the journey that God has planned for them!

Plated: Alabama Crimson Tide

I think this might be the first request I've ever had to create an Alabama-themed baby shower invitation. Although honestly I am shocked I haven't encountered this sooner.

But since the mommy-to-be is doing her soon-to-be son's nursery in Alabama colors, it's not too far-fetched. And really elephants are always appropriate for baby things, yes?

So I took the colors, the houndstooth print, an elephant image and even incorporated a flag pennant banner that you might typically think of for football season and made this cute lil invitation below. I have to say, I'm kind of smitten with it.

Plated: That's a hoot baby girl!

Yall.  It is my niece's one year old birthday party this weekend. Bananas! Where does the time go?

Anyhow, I was ecstatic when my sister-in-law asked me to do the invitations for the party. And it only helped matters that she had chosen an adorable owl-themed party. Owls seem to still be the trendiest of all birds these days. So I was able to find some really cute inspiration pieces.

The colors are all based around the owl decorations my sister-in-law had chosen, so I just searched for baby girl furniture with those colors and I found the cutest stuff to help me choose my color palette and pattern.

Oh and yeah, feel free to go ahead and ooh and ahh over how adorable my niece Callie is. Yeah, she's pretty darn beautiful. I'm currently fixed on calling her baby girl ever since I found out that my friend Ashley was called that by her grandmother. I have a feeling I will change it to CJ (her initials) when she gets a bit older, but for now (and ok, maybe always) she's baby girl.

Hope your weekend is filled with love, family and fun...just like mine!

Plated: Southern tradition

I've been really blessed lately to have some friends with amazing taste that are on their way to walk down the aisle, and they've chosen me to help them with their invitation and design needs. (lucky girl!) So when my friend Lauren who I traveled to Africa with last summer asked me to design her invitations, programs, etc I was honored and excited. She showed me a few invitations that she liked and I could see that we were going for something somewhat simple, close to traditional and definitely southern.

The fonts were easy to pick, just had to be something ornate and beautiful yet still readable. (I hate those curly fonts you can't even read!). And the colors were even easier since I could swipe the right shade from her bridemaids dresses. But the icon image that Lauren wanted to be associated with her wedding weekend was just a little bit trickier. We played around with the idea of a magnolia or their initials or something similar, but then one day I got an email from her saying she liked the idea of a nest and wanted three eggs—one to represent each child that she will become the mother of after her nuptials are complete.

Yes, Lauren is incredible and will soon be the official mother of three, though she has been pretty much playing that role since she and Sam have been dating. It is a long and beautiful story of redemption, just trust me on that.

So I loved and fully embraced this idea and went to work trying my best to draw a nest image with eggs similar to the one she sent me for inspiration. We had a few drafts back and forth until I got the bridal gasp of "Oh how I love it" that we designers can't wait to hear and voila! Here are the final products (invitation, reply card & accommodations), with names changed to protect my clients, of course.

I think I love the whole package almost as much as Lauren does. Now let's just hope the bride finds a different dress to wear other than this one she found in Uganda!

Plated: Put a bird on it

With all the cute bird images on clothing, jewelry, furniture etc, it wasn't too hard to gather some inspiration for a bird invitation that my coworker wanted me to design for her daughter's first birthday.

However, the spin was that it couldn't be too girly since it was also a surprise party for her husband Sae. I figured I could just keep the pink to a minimum and throw in a blue and a green color, add a funky and not too girly background to the mix, and boom, there was a little bit of cute bird magic.

I guess those crazy kids from Portlandia we're right. Put a bird on it!

Plated: Company lake party

Some days at work are just more fun than others (and honestly some aren't very much fun at all, but thankfully those are few and far between). For me, a good fun day at work is when I get to be a little more "creative" with designing something. So a month or so ago when my boss asked me to whip up an invitation for our company lake party, I was totally game.

I had complete creative reign so I wanted to make it cute and fun and not at all corporate. So basically I just conjured up everything I thought of when I thought about the lake, added a smidgen of our company's branding color of purple and boom, here's what I created.

I feel so lucky to work for such a great company that will take the time and spend the money to show their employees how much they appreciate them and want everyone to get to know each other better by throwing a big party like this. It was a super fun day. Hope you guys get to make it to a lake party as well sometime this summer! 

Plated: Mid-century mod

If only blog posts could have a drum roll....I would totally use one for this post.

I am so excited about these invitations I designed for an amazing good friend of mine's wedding reception. You might remember Natasha? I've already completed one plated post for her save the dates and then she also had the smashing guest blog post about her thrifting finds for the month of May.

Clearly Natasha is a huge fan of all things mid-century America right now (who isn't though, right?). So when talking with her, she mentioned wanting that type of aesthetic incorporated into the "real" invitations. I told her that I had already been thinking about using the movie "Catch Me If You Can" as inspiration because I felt like her reception and vow renewal ceremony involved transportation for most people and somehow that movie popped in my head when considering this. Then the fact that she told me she had been thinking "Mad Men" as well for inspiration only further validated by initial thoughts and I was ecstatic.

The first draft I created was ok. I used her same colors as last time and drew out a little red Chevy and used an app to "Mad Men" the happy couple—Greg and Natasha. Then for the insert regarding the Jamaica trip, I kept the transportation theme and drew out a plane and of course, a tropical island. It was cute, but maybe a little too casual and cutesy. So Natasha and I talked and she threw a couple of ideas my way and said she and Greg really like streamlined fonts and boom, that was all I needed.

I scratched the illustrated image of the couple and let the focus be on the font and words instead. I kept thinking about how this was kind of an annoucement too, so I continued to utilize little banners as a sneaky way to illustrate the main idea of each invitation. I also used the shape of old school signs to further enhance the announcement vibe I was going for. And here's the end product of what I think is a pretty swanky collaboration from me, Natasha and Greg. Maybe the three of should work together more often!

What do you guys think? Are you "swept away" by our final design?

Plated: Simple and southern

Recently I was given two easy requirements for invitations my mom needed for a wedding shower she was hosting: create something southern and use the colors turquiose and brown.

Easy enough!

Luckily I had already been working on some pretty amazing invitations for my friend Lauren (expect a plated post on hers later next month!) and she was keeping things elegantly southern, so I was able to swipe the fonts I used for her invite.

Then all I needed was a southern image. What else could I use other than a magnolia?

Add in the colors requested and viola, a simple and southern wedding shower invitation. See final achieved product below.

What do you think? Sweet and simple? Or plain and boring?