A short and very long overdue post!
I am so proud to be partnering with a kind, creative, kindred spirit to share (and sell!) designs from the heart. (I should add that she is also very patient, as she has to deal with both my new mom-ness and my sporadic, sometimes elusive bursts of productivity.)
God willing, our website will be complete-ish by the end of this weekend. Despite it's embarrassing status, I'm going to go ahead and share the link. We are inklings, and we are so excited to be following our design dreams!
More to come!
Showing posts with label Invitations and Crafts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Invitations and Crafts. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Baby Shower Invites: Lucas and Elena
My friend, Jessie, had found the perfect invitation for her baby shower...almost. It was not the right color for her celebration and, more importantly, it did not reflect that there are two babies on the way. With her direction, we put a spin on the invitation that she found.
The original, by Tiny*Prints, can be viewed by clicking here.
And here is my design:
Matching thank-you cards will soon be designed, as well. Especially since the little duckies arrived this week!
The original, by Tiny*Prints, can be viewed by clicking here.
And here is my design:
Matching thank-you cards will soon be designed, as well. Especially since the little duckies arrived this week!
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Mom's 60th Birthday Dessert Party
On a lovely August day, friends and family joined my mom in celebrating her 60th birthday. We decided to host a small dessert party (with big desserts!), and everyone showed up with amazing contributions. Here are a couple of mine:
I have been wanting to make truffles for some time, and what better flavor than hazelnut?! I used Ina Garten's recipe, which was good, but I felt like I couldn't taste all of the special ingredients (Frangelico, coffee...). All in all, though, truffles are surprisingly easy to make. Messy, but easy! My next truffles will be cayenne pepper-flavored ones!
I don't make dessert of any kind very often, and this Martha Stewart lime cookie recipe has been filed in my To-Cook folder (yes, I really have one, and it's very thick!) for about a year. The lime made them appropriately summery, although they weren't as light as I was expecting. I tried one tony piece and had an instant craving for about a gallon of milk! The beautiful Italian cookies are the creation of my friend, Jeff. His were much better!
Because this gathering involved last-minute planning, no invitations were mailed out. Over the past few months, I had thought about what the invitations to my mom's party would look like. Keeping in mind that my dad and I have called her "The Moose" or "Mamoose" for over 20 years, and that most people are aware of her nickname (which, for some reason, she embraced?!), I was going to go with the "moose" theme. I turned my idea, which uses Roman Numerals for the number "60," into little decals on display at the party.
I have been wanting to make truffles for some time, and what better flavor than hazelnut?! I used Ina Garten's recipe, which was good, but I felt like I couldn't taste all of the special ingredients (Frangelico, coffee...). All in all, though, truffles are surprisingly easy to make. Messy, but easy! My next truffles will be cayenne pepper-flavored ones!
I don't make dessert of any kind very often, and this Martha Stewart lime cookie recipe has been filed in my To-Cook folder (yes, I really have one, and it's very thick!) for about a year. The lime made them appropriately summery, although they weren't as light as I was expecting. I tried one tony piece and had an instant craving for about a gallon of milk! The beautiful Italian cookies are the creation of my friend, Jeff. His were much better!
Because this gathering involved last-minute planning, no invitations were mailed out. Over the past few months, I had thought about what the invitations to my mom's party would look like. Keeping in mind that my dad and I have called her "The Moose" or "Mamoose" for over 20 years, and that most people are aware of her nickname (which, for some reason, she embraced?!), I was going to go with the "moose" theme. I turned my idea, which uses Roman Numerals for the number "60," into little decals on display at the party.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
SplinkDesign — Up 'n Running!
I am very excited to announce that my online portfolio is largely complete. Although it is my plan to design the website in the near future, the easiest way for me to post my work for now is in blog format. (Oh, the elusive web-design class!)
I have posted a good volume of work, spanning from student projects to current ones, and will continue to keep it updated. The portfolio pieces are sortable by project type, type of software used, and workplace. As of this morning, I still need to add my favorite portolfio pieces — my custom invitations! I'll get them posted soon. Feel free to leave (nice) comments!
You can access the blog by following my nickname-inspired URL: www.splinkdesign.com
I have posted a good volume of work, spanning from student projects to current ones, and will continue to keep it updated. The portfolio pieces are sortable by project type, type of software used, and workplace. As of this morning, I still need to add my favorite portolfio pieces — my custom invitations! I'll get them posted soon. Feel free to leave (nice) comments!
You can access the blog by following my nickname-inspired URL: www.splinkdesign.com
Monday, July 14, 2008
Our Save-the-Dates
The Save-the-Dates for our wedding doubled as our holiday cards in 2005, allowing guests to pencil in the date on their new 2006 calendars. I've been meaning to post these for quite a while!
I made a 4-panel accordion-folded card that featured the (altered) lyrics to the holiday song Winter Wonderland:
The final panel announced our wedding date and location AND wished our guests happy holidays.
I made a 4-panel accordion-folded card that featured the (altered) lyrics to the holiday song Winter Wonderland:
In the meadow we can build a snowman,
And pretend that he is Parson Brown...
The final panel announced our wedding date and location AND wished our guests happy holidays.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Kala and Rob's Berkshire Wedding
I was, well, honored to have been asked to be Matron of Honor in the beautiful wedding of my friend Kala last weekend. As I blog, she and her new husband, Rob, have another week remaining of their Mexican honeymoon—nice!
The title of my blog looks strange to me—only because both Kala and I are Berkshire County natives. It seems like it should just read "Kala and Rob's Wedding." (This reminds me of a friend's question to me after I returned from a trip to China—he said, "So, do they just call it food there?") Anyway, the Berkshires actually played a significant role in this wedding. The hills offered a picturesque backdrop, and the crazy Berkshire weather did have an effect on the planned outdoor ceremony (this did not diminish the smile on Kala's face in the slightest!), but perhaps that was to be expected. Less expected was the decision of the bride and groom to name the tables after the famous cottages of the Gilded Age that populate the county. Researching this information and creating the table name cards was one of my (few!) duties as Matron, and I learned a lot of Berkshires history in the process. Mounting the cottage name and information on thick antique gold paper was a shiny, money-saving alternative to the copper frames we were originally planning to use. Below is the card from our table, The Mount—Edith Wharton's foreclosure-facing estate and gardens:
I also designed the programs for the ceremony, which incorporated both Italian and Jewish wedding traditions.
Many of the Jewish traditions were explained in the program, and I wanted to use the actual Hebrew words next to their English counterparts. This was unexpectedly problematic, basically due to a coding incompatibility between Unicode and InDesign. Although I had several Hebrew fonts on my Mac, and Wikipedia was a great source for the Hebrew words I needed (and my friend, Meira, knew enough Hebrew to make sure that Wikipedia got those words right), each word I cut from the web pasted in reverse letter order—not a mirror image—in InDesign. So, for example, the word "blog" pasted as "golb." It's an easy fix when you speak the language, but shuffling foreign letters around can be scary. This was further complicated by the accent-like vowel marks (nikkudot) that separated from the consonants to which they were attached when I tried to move them around. Oy vey! I solved this problem by converting the type to outlines (losing ability for edits), carefully rearranging the letters, and placing the new type image next to the English type. Perhaps there is an easier way?
This wedding provided the opportunity to participate in one of my strangest projects so far. The mother of the bride broke her foot not long before the wedding day—this, we thought, was tragic for a woman that was a constant presence on the dance floor at three other weddings this year. Of course, there's nothing that a few painkillers and some sparkly fabric can't cure! (Note: I am waiting to receive a photo of the glammed-up immobilization boot - in the meantime, here's the mother-of-the-bride's ceremony get-up...too funny!)
The title of my blog looks strange to me—only because both Kala and I are Berkshire County natives. It seems like it should just read "Kala and Rob's Wedding." (This reminds me of a friend's question to me after I returned from a trip to China—he said, "So, do they just call it food there?") Anyway, the Berkshires actually played a significant role in this wedding. The hills offered a picturesque backdrop, and the crazy Berkshire weather did have an effect on the planned outdoor ceremony (this did not diminish the smile on Kala's face in the slightest!), but perhaps that was to be expected. Less expected was the decision of the bride and groom to name the tables after the famous cottages of the Gilded Age that populate the county. Researching this information and creating the table name cards was one of my (few!) duties as Matron, and I learned a lot of Berkshires history in the process. Mounting the cottage name and information on thick antique gold paper was a shiny, money-saving alternative to the copper frames we were originally planning to use. Below is the card from our table, The Mount—Edith Wharton's foreclosure-facing estate and gardens:
I also designed the programs for the ceremony, which incorporated both Italian and Jewish wedding traditions.
Many of the Jewish traditions were explained in the program, and I wanted to use the actual Hebrew words next to their English counterparts. This was unexpectedly problematic, basically due to a coding incompatibility between Unicode and InDesign. Although I had several Hebrew fonts on my Mac, and Wikipedia was a great source for the Hebrew words I needed (and my friend, Meira, knew enough Hebrew to make sure that Wikipedia got those words right), each word I cut from the web pasted in reverse letter order—not a mirror image—in InDesign. So, for example, the word "blog" pasted as "golb." It's an easy fix when you speak the language, but shuffling foreign letters around can be scary. This was further complicated by the accent-like vowel marks (nikkudot) that separated from the consonants to which they were attached when I tried to move them around. Oy vey! I solved this problem by converting the type to outlines (losing ability for edits), carefully rearranging the letters, and placing the new type image next to the English type. Perhaps there is an easier way?
This wedding provided the opportunity to participate in one of my strangest projects so far. The mother of the bride broke her foot not long before the wedding day—this, we thought, was tragic for a woman that was a constant presence on the dance floor at three other weddings this year. Of course, there's nothing that a few painkillers and some sparkly fabric can't cure! (Note: I am waiting to receive a photo of the glammed-up immobilization boot - in the meantime, here's the mother-of-the-bride's ceremony get-up...too funny!)
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Our Wedding - finally!
John and I were married in November 2006. I started this blog around that same time, and it has taken me over a year to document the design-fest that took place between our engagement and "the big day." At last, I am posting the work, all of which I designed and made (or, in some cases, art directed, if you will) for our harvest-themed wedding. Yet another big round of thanks for the hands-on artistry of my family and friends!
Before the wedding
Our wedding invitation was created with chiyogami Japanese paper and wonderful materials from The Paper Source. The first page of the invitation was hand screen-printed with a gocco printer. The second page contained a perforated reply postcard, which, when removed, left our guests with the invitation, information, and directions still nicely bundled together. Click on the image to see additional, rotating pages:
A close-up of the gold gocco ink used to print the first page of the invitation:
I gave myself a break from desiging the rehearsal invites (phew!) and bought these cute pre-printed blank cards. At each placesetting in the Chinese restaurant was a to-go container filled with M&Ms (for Murphy, of course!):
For dessert at the restaurant, I had custom fortune cookies made. They were dipped in different types of chocolate and covered with sprinkles, and contained amazing fortunes such as, "You will attend a wedding tomorrow."
At the church
The wedding ceremony program - click to see inside spreads:
Bundles of paper flowers hung on each pew:
Nothing compared to the real flowers I held, however, which were the creation of our friend, Joanne:
At the party
Guests entered the country club to find a (fake) pumpkin into which I carved our new initials. I had also created a pile of leaves from fall-colored papers, and added glitter to some oversized pinecones for extra festivity:
The welcome table, with table seating chart, guest book, and multi-tier cake-shaped card box:
Our guestbook was designed to look like a large version of the wedding invitation:
The fantastically autumnal carrot cake (made by our friend, Jeff):
Joanne also created our beautiful bundled wheat centerpieces:
The wheat sat upon squares of jewel-toned velvet cloth that were assembled and hand-debossed by my mom, creating a decorative leaf pattern (she made a quilt out of the combined squares!) - this photo really doesn't do the arrangement much justice, unfortunately:
Each guest received a personalized miniature accordion book as a wedding favor:
No two books were the same, as I chose a variety of jewel-toned and autumnal paper and ribbon to create the books. Here are some scraps from the bookbinding project:
My dad built the table number stands, which he painted gold.
The table number cards had a multi-color jewel-tone beaded border adhered with super sticky tape:
A coloring book for kid guests was placed in each child goodie bag (along with crayons, finger monsters, and animated flip books) - click to see a spread (illustrations adapted from iStockPhoto):
A menu card was placed at each table:
Cocktail napkins were gocco printed, and emphasized our love of music lyrics:
And, with cocktails sometimes comes the need for a ride home. I wanted our guests to know that there were alternatives to getting behind the wheel, and these table-tents were placed throughout the reception hall after dinner:
I rubber-stamped boxes of matchsticks in a November-y pattern so our guests might light up their celebratory cigars:
So many of the desserts we provided were generously made by our guests, themselves. I wanted to be sure to acknowledge their delicious contributions:
Also on the dessert table, I placed a bunch of self-addressed, stamped envelopes containing a blank CD. Most of our guests took digital photos throughout the day, and they were able to easily share their shots with us after the wedding:
The dessert table also had a basket full of miniature tabasco sauces, commemorating the Mexican restaurant where John and I met — so cute!
Before the wedding
Our wedding invitation was created with chiyogami Japanese paper and wonderful materials from The Paper Source. The first page of the invitation was hand screen-printed with a gocco printer. The second page contained a perforated reply postcard, which, when removed, left our guests with the invitation, information, and directions still nicely bundled together. Click on the image to see additional, rotating pages:
A close-up of the gold gocco ink used to print the first page of the invitation:
I gave myself a break from desiging the rehearsal invites (phew!) and bought these cute pre-printed blank cards. At each placesetting in the Chinese restaurant was a to-go container filled with M&Ms (for Murphy, of course!):
For dessert at the restaurant, I had custom fortune cookies made. They were dipped in different types of chocolate and covered with sprinkles, and contained amazing fortunes such as, "You will attend a wedding tomorrow."
At the church
The wedding ceremony program - click to see inside spreads:
Bundles of paper flowers hung on each pew:
Nothing compared to the real flowers I held, however, which were the creation of our friend, Joanne:
At the party
Guests entered the country club to find a (fake) pumpkin into which I carved our new initials. I had also created a pile of leaves from fall-colored papers, and added glitter to some oversized pinecones for extra festivity:
The welcome table, with table seating chart, guest book, and multi-tier cake-shaped card box:
Our guestbook was designed to look like a large version of the wedding invitation:
The fantastically autumnal carrot cake (made by our friend, Jeff):
Joanne also created our beautiful bundled wheat centerpieces:
The wheat sat upon squares of jewel-toned velvet cloth that were assembled and hand-debossed by my mom, creating a decorative leaf pattern (she made a quilt out of the combined squares!) - this photo really doesn't do the arrangement much justice, unfortunately:
Each guest received a personalized miniature accordion book as a wedding favor:
No two books were the same, as I chose a variety of jewel-toned and autumnal paper and ribbon to create the books. Here are some scraps from the bookbinding project:
My dad built the table number stands, which he painted gold.
The table number cards had a multi-color jewel-tone beaded border adhered with super sticky tape:
A coloring book for kid guests was placed in each child goodie bag (along with crayons, finger monsters, and animated flip books) - click to see a spread (illustrations adapted from iStockPhoto):
A menu card was placed at each table:
Cocktail napkins were gocco printed, and emphasized our love of music lyrics:
And, with cocktails sometimes comes the need for a ride home. I wanted our guests to know that there were alternatives to getting behind the wheel, and these table-tents were placed throughout the reception hall after dinner:
I rubber-stamped boxes of matchsticks in a November-y pattern so our guests might light up their celebratory cigars:
So many of the desserts we provided were generously made by our guests, themselves. I wanted to be sure to acknowledge their delicious contributions:
Also on the dessert table, I placed a bunch of self-addressed, stamped envelopes containing a blank CD. Most of our guests took digital photos throughout the day, and they were able to easily share their shots with us after the wedding:
The dessert table also had a basket full of miniature tabasco sauces, commemorating the Mexican restaurant where John and I met — so cute!
A Quickie Invite
My friend Kelly's mother's 50th birthday party was this past weekend, and for the invitation I created a quick layout for her. She printed and mailed them herself - it worked out perfectly!
Friday, February 1, 2008
Baby Shower Invites - For a Girl!
With the exception of two couples, all of the friends and family I grew up with have had baby boys. Statistically, things are way off - of the 17 children I have known to be born in the past 10 years, 15 of them are boys!
So, I'm very excited to be welcoming (soon!) a baby girl into the family, and I was delighted to create the invitations for Baby Madison's shower a couple weeks ago. The design was inspired by the purple bedding and black furniture chosen for the nursery, and the mom-to-be suggested the honey-jar favors.
The nursery bedding pattern:
The invitation:
A close-up of the ribbon-fastener that also served as the butterfly's antennae:
A cute little honey favor:
So, I'm very excited to be welcoming (soon!) a baby girl into the family, and I was delighted to create the invitations for Baby Madison's shower a couple weeks ago. The design was inspired by the purple bedding and black furniture chosen for the nursery, and the mom-to-be suggested the honey-jar favors.
The nursery bedding pattern:
The invitation:
A close-up of the ribbon-fastener that also served as the butterfly's antennae:
A cute little honey favor:
Saturday, December 15, 2007
A Cape Cod Guest Book
I have been trying to complete this project for only a few days shy of a year. I was driven to create this ocean-inspired book after staying at our friends' home on the Cape on New Year's Eve of 2006. At least it's not 2008 yet!
This does make me think I need to add a bullet to my 2008 Resolutions list that pertains to my giant project list...
This does make me think I need to add a bullet to my 2008 Resolutions list that pertains to my giant project list...
Thursday, October 25, 2007
(Kind of) Craft Day
Although I really needed to designate a "cleaning day," a "laundry day," and a "build my webpage" day, I decided instead to hold a "craft day" for myself. Only, I barely got anything done and the livingroom is in more disarray.
I made an address book for my in-laws as a thank-you for rescuing us from Pep Boys a couple of months ago:
And a Christmas accordion book for......? Somehow I managed to procrastinate more important crafts during "craft day." Not sure how that happened?
I made an address book for my in-laws as a thank-you for rescuing us from Pep Boys a couple of months ago:
And a Christmas accordion book for......? Somehow I managed to procrastinate more important crafts during "craft day." Not sure how that happened?
Monday, October 15, 2007
"Thank You" Brunch Invitations
A lovely bunch of friends and family came to our rescue this summer when my mom became ill. Now that she is doing considerably better (and has her appetite back!), she decided to invite a small bunch of these folks to a Sunday brunch. I wanted to help out, and quickly created a dimensional invitation with a little brunch-related poem attached to bottles of maple syrup. I can taste the Belgian Waffles already!
The back of the card:
The back of the card:
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Virtual Invite in an Actual Pinch
One of my co-workers has been planning to plan her daughter's "Sweet Sixteen" party for months and we've been discussing my involvement in the party invitations throughout. My original visions of custom (paper-based) invites went out the window about a month ago. A few days ago, my plan to create a Flash-based invite was also scrapped. Today, with help from some design elements from iStockPhoto, I created an emailable invitation in a very short amount of time.
It's not something I'm incredibly proud of, but I did save (myself) some time, (the world) some trees and (my co-worker) some money!
It's not something I'm incredibly proud of, but I did save (myself) some time, (the world) some trees and (my co-worker) some money!
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Polycystic Kidney Bean Mailer
That's kind of gross.
John and I are raising funds (and awareness!) to find the cure for Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD). We will be participating this year in the Boston Walk for PKD and, because I know many people are uncomfortable making transactions on the web, I decided to create a mailer to request donations. I expect to get them in the mail tomorrow - be on the lookout! In the meantime, if you would like to donate to "Team Melissa" online, please visit this link, click on "Support Erin" and donate away!
John and I are raising funds (and awareness!) to find the cure for Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD). We will be participating this year in the Boston Walk for PKD and, because I know many people are uncomfortable making transactions on the web, I decided to create a mailer to request donations. I expect to get them in the mail tomorrow - be on the lookout! In the meantime, if you would like to donate to "Team Melissa" online, please visit this link, click on "Support Erin" and donate away!
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