Paper Relish

The most wonderful time of the year

2011-11-30T14:56:00.001-05:00

Wow. 2011 has flown by. We can't believe we are 1 day away from December! After a week of stuffing our faces in our respective Turkey Day locations (Jen was in snowy Denver, while I was in sunny Orlando --You can't get more opposite than that.) we are back on track and getting ready for the upcoming holidays. To kick off the holiday mailing season, we just added our new Christmas and Hanukkah paper goods to our etsy shop. Each card is hand-fed into our trusty C&P letterpress and, of course, have our customary Farewell "flare".

You can purchase our lovely little cards and gift tags through our website or in our etsy shop.

Toddler Twins: Cute Any Way You Look At Them

2011-11-21T23:15:00.001-05:00

Okay, folks. Let's get down to the brass tax. Toddlers are cute. Twins are cute. Toddler twins? I can't even handle. It's no secret, we love us some cute kids here at FP. I've pretty much stopped caring about my friends with kids as individuals. No more idle chatter about their work or interests or shows we both watch. Who even notices their haircut or that fun new pair of fall boots. Nope, I just open cold with, "Let's see 'em. Pics. Of your kid. Now." And when the little people with big cutes are actually IN MY OWN FAMILY, it's just that much harder not to squish them until they cry "auntie." So when my brother-in-law Ted and his wife Erin asked us to do thank you cards for these 3-year-old cuties, we knew we had to make them special.

In the consultation, Erin said she just wanted something fun and different for them. Oh yeah, and colorful. I asked her if she was in the "twins are people too" camp and wanted do separate cards for each of them. She chuckled like only a busy mom of twins could and said maybe when they're old enough to actually each write their own. Until then, she'd stick with one streamlined thank you from the both of them.

In the spirit of Erin's efficiency, Lisa and I began to brainstorm fun ways to make one card do the work of two. We toyed around with some ideas for a gatefold, a 2-sided postcard, maybe something circular. Then, Lisa remembered seeing this gem. Not really the kid-friendliest concept, but hey, you can't fight true inspiration. The brainstorm sesh went thusly:

"What is this even called? An anagram? Palindrome?"
"It's called an ambigram."
"wtf is an ambigram?"
"It's that. It looks like one word and when you turn it upside it's another word. The words are flippy."
"That the technical definition?"
"Yes. Ambigram: the words are flippy."
"It's cool. Too bad we couldn't do it for Finn/Riley... Could we?"
"No way.
"Not possible."
"Maybe?"
(Short silence, just fervent sketching...)
"You'd have to make the y long like an f..."
"The n would have to drop down for the l..."
(More sketching...)
"It's so close, but I'm stuck on the double n. It's not working for the—"
"I think I got it! I got it!"
HOORAY! Our first digital pass went something like this:

No less than 3 hours and 50 files bounced back and forth, tweaking tiny little swoops and curves and refining every stroke, we finally landed on this BAM!bigram. (That's what I'm trying to call it. I'm so far alone in this.)

Wait a second...

Yup, that's right. Bam!bigram. We just can't decide which side we like better.

All upside-down meeting aside, we're super happy with the way these turned out. We've even considered starting a line of custom ambigram cards. But then we thought about all the Elizabeths and Tims getting married out there and figured we should just relish this one awesome ambigrambial triumph.

I'm in the snowy Rocky Mountains for the holiday week with my husband's family, and yes, Finn & Riley are still just as squishy as ever. I, for one, am very thankful for all the cutienutballheads in my life.

Have a happy Turkey Day, everyone. Safe travels and lots of gravy and kid cuteness to all.

} jp-c

Font Failure

2011-11-17T10:53:00.001-05:00

We're not one to share our failures with our fans. We like to look buttoned up and professional with our clients, and let's be honest, who wants to really hear about our mistakes? But for those of you who enjoy our typography postings, we decided it's best everyone know about our little "oops" so they don't make the same one. We'd like to preface this post with a disclaimer: Our font failure isn't that bad. I'm sure plenty of you will read this and think, "Big deal. So What? Who cares?" But we'd like to think our typography skillz (yes with a z) are pretty snazzy. We take pride in our font choices, so we apologize, in advance, to our graphic design friends.... this may hurt your eyes.

(Back Story:) A recent client of ours sent us pictures of her adorable boys for a custom holiday card. Her kids are RIDICULOUSLY cute. We cannot stress that enough. Just to prove our point, here is their Halloween picture:

(Sorry the pictures was kind of blurry from Facebook. Common this is cute, right?)

We had created a card for Katie the year before and her pictures did not disappoint. We designed this sweet ditty that everyone really loved. The kids, look charming, the card is heart-warming and it's the perfect holiday card to send to friends and family:

(Side Note:) Sooo my best friend is Katie's sister. She had asked to see the card options to give her opinion to her sister. I had sent all the designs and then threw in this one as a joke. It didn't quite make the cut for obvious reasons:

{Outside}

{Inside}

Well unbeknownst to me, this reject was sent to Katie as well, but Katie actually really liked it and wondered why we didn't it as an option in the first place. So this year she asked for a more whimsical holiday card that leaned toward the snarkier side. Once again, we received more adorable pictures of the boys. This time they were riding on a friend's boat during the summer. Life jackets, wind blowing in the hair, captain's hat - it all screamed "nautical". Which led us to this font, Salty Dog:

Perhaps in the right situation this font wouldn't look so bad. To be honest, I'm not sure what we were thinking when we purchased it. Fun - check. Whimsical - check. Hard to read - check. The font was just a failure right off the bat. It looked chunky, and disproportionate. When in the color red, it looks like a candy cane. (An idea for a holiday card??) So we ditched the font.

{For those of you who would like to purchase it, you can find it on myfonts.com No judging. We promise.}

To our advertising/ design friends: Yes, we know from design school to stick w/ the classics. Kitschy fonts are just that, kitschy. Don't purchase frivolous type that you'll only use for one project. Perhaps knowing the rules, we thought we could break them, but that kind of backfired.

In the end, we ended up using a much simpler font, clarendon. Here's a sneak peek of the card. We don't want to spoil it for the client, so we'll post about the final design soon.

Lesson learned? 1) We'll probably stick with our classic fonts and be a little more hesitant before purchasing such a distinct font. 2) We lost $30 down the drain. 3) We have a bad-ass candy cane font that we'll use for holiday cards next year.

Inspiration Day: Holy Jackson Hole!

2011-11-08T14:20:00.001-05:00

I've always wanted to go to Jackson Hole. I hear it's a gorgeous place with beautiful snow-capped mountains and clear blue skies. The Grand Tetons are one of the most photographed mountains in the US and were considered part of the gateway to the West.

{The top pic is a famous Ansel Adams print. Courtesy of nps.gov. The bottom picture is from shelamulican.com}

It's the kind of place I'd want to pull a City Slickers and get all countrified for a dude ranch "experience" or go there in the spring to frolic around in all the wildflowers (though I don't think you can really do that since it's protected land, but I can dream, right?) I'm not sure when I decided that I needed to put this majestic place on my bucket list, or when I'll actually make it there, but since I already experienced the Grand Canyon, and saw the gorgeous Redwood Forests, it seems Jackson Hole would naturally be my next go-to place to visit.

Luckily for me a client of ours is getting married in Jackson Hole this coming August and her wedding theme is all about the great West. We had blogged about Heather's Save the Dates before, but our designs never came to fruition because Hurricane Irene swept through the Caribbean and the bride and groom decided to change their destination to a more meaningful place where they got engaged - enter Jackson Hole. So, playing off of her color palette of blues, whites and reds, and using classic Americana fabrics Jen and I were able to create some lovely ideas for the new Save The Dates.

Obviously we aren't going to show you our ideas JUST yet, but here are some inspirational looks we used to help us create our look for the Save the Date.

{I don't know why that girl on the right looks so angry. Photo courtesy of refinery29.com}

{Ooh la la, chambray. Photo courtesy of refinery29.com}

{Classic Americana looks - Denim, cowboy boots and rodeos. Photos from abfits.com & etsy.com}

{Blue & Red Gingham on the left. Classic dark denim on the right.}

{Our color scheme}

We're sent the designs to our client today, so hopefully we'll be able to show you the chosen Save The Date when we finish the design. In the meantime, we have been busy bees working on lots of other custom work, so we should be posting those soon. Keep your eyes peeled!

Crafting with Design Sponge

2011-11-04T11:17:00.000-04:00

When it rains in Atlanta the city seems to stop, especially when it starts raining during rush hour traffic. Our already busy highways become even busier with people trying to race home and get out of the rain. I'm not sure why Atlanta gets so crazy when rain rolls through. Maybe it's because we've been programmed to withstand heat better than water, or maybe it's because the rain tends to bring colder weather . Whatever the reason, I guess I've become a true Atlantian because I, for one, tend to shift into the same "rain" mode as every other person here does. Get me home. Give me some comfy clothes. Pray there is a good movie on TV (perhaps Dirty Dancing?) and I'm ready for a night on the couch to weather the storm.

Last night I ended up making an exception to my norm. Grace Bonney from Design Sponge was at West Elm hosting a crafting / book signing event. Our good friend and blogging confidant, Molly, asked me to attend. I wasn't so sure about the crafting segment of the night, but thought it would be a fun opportunity to meet Grace and catch up with Molly.

Upon arriving, we saw there were several tables set up and each seat had 2 napkins, some paint, foam brushes, xacto knives and stencils. I wasn't sure what I was picturing when I heard this was a crafting event. I thought maybe we'd doodle something on a piece of paper, have a few drinks and call it a night, but this was actually down and dirty crafting.

Grace arrived shortly after Molly and I had sat down and began the instructions. We were going to make some kind of monogrammed napkin with the stencils and paint. It took her a few minutes to run through the directions, which seemed easy enough, but when we turned to our napkins and looked at our crafting tools, we had no idea what we were doing. Everything had gone in one ear and out the other. Apparently we weren't the only ones feeling the same way. Our whole table was staring blankly at each other, holding our xacto knives mid-air and asking each other what we to do. It would have been smart to to actually open the Design Sponge book and read how to create our monograms, but instead we opted for the classic high-school-test-move where you look at the next table to see what they are doing. Finally, Grace came over and explained to us step-by-step how to start our project and eventually we all got the hang of it. After stressing about the design we wanted to create, the cutting of our stencil, and what color paint we wanted to use, Molly and I ended up w/ somewhat successful finished products.

Yes, I chose a golden retriever stencil. I tried really hard to make it look like our boxer, Harley, but that just took too much time, so I took the easy road instead.

Here are some quick shots during the crafting time:

The stencils for the project

My mad cutting skills

Quote from Molly "I wish Jen were here to do this for us." I concurred.

My finished dog.

After the crafting portion ended, I had the chance to meet Grace and have her sign my book.

Grace was uber-nice to meet and we even discussed our Savannah weddings. (I'm such a dork). All in all it was a good night, even though it was rainy and cold. I guess sometimes it's worth it to actually get out of the house when it's raining.

~LGT

Seventy-Two Days

2011-11-01T11:22:00.001-04:00

Well we saw this coming, but not this soon. 72 days after their humongous, over-the-top, ridiculously spency wedding (that has been broadcasting all over E! 3 times a day for the past few months) the KK's are done. Over. Divorced. We truly did wish them well. But we kinda knew from the get-go that this marriage was not a match made in heaven. As you know, Jen and I are addicted to celeb gossip. We don't shy away from the fact that we watch E! News, read Huffington post just for the celeb section and scan people.com religiously. So it was no shocker that Jen and I knew about the breaking news pretty much right after it was announced. When the newlyweds got engaged we wrote a little ditty about their wedding and even gave them props for their fabu wedding invites. But with such a short engagement, camera crews following them around 24/7 and 3 very tight-knit sisters with a very overbearing mother, Kris Humphries had to have known what he was getting into.

(Yes, that's Ryan Seacrest and Bruce to the right of the pic).

So, since we like to think we know Kris and Kim SO WELL we thought we'd do another rendition of our celebrity carding, where we divvy out our cards to our fav. celebs, but never have the guts to actually send them. For a fun little twist, we decided to not only give our two cents, but we'd also send Kim some love from her sisters.

Card #1 Khloe:

Khloe is probably saying "I told you so" as I type this blog. She knew something was up and she even called Kris out on national television. We like her brazen boldness and we appreciate her honesty. Khloe will tell you like it is and won't apologize for her honesty. Khloe would give her sis our Suck It Up card.

Card #2 Kourtney:

Although we don't know if Kourt would ever give this card to Kris, we do know that our Hot Mess Card would sound like something that would come out of her mouth. In fact, we're pretty sure she would have given this card to Kim during her diamond earring freak out moment in Bora Bora... and then resend it to her after the wedding.

Card #3 Jen & Lisa:

Seriously. That was the first thing that came out of my mouth when Jen g-chatted me and said Mr. and Mrs. Humphries broke up. What the heck happened? Was it a publicity stunt? Was this not Kim's second wedding? Wasn't Justin Bieber there? Such ridiculousness. Obviously, the What's Up With That Card had to be our chosen design to send to Kim.

All in all, the whole wedding seemed to be such a farce and it kinda made us sad to see their marriage end so soon. Being a part of the "wedding industry", we are constantly reminded that there there is such as thing as true love and people do find it every day. Unfortunately, Kim was a product of the wedding whirlwind where the actual ceremony becomes the center of attention, rather than the marriage itself. Maybe this will be a lesson to other brides out there who are in the middle of wedding mayhem. It's not about the cake or the flowers or even the size of your engagement ring. It's about building a life together, being committed to each other, and the wedding day is only the beginning of it all. (Alright, I'll get off my soapbox now.)

Ya'll Come Back Now

2011-10-10T09:50:00.000-04:00

We love it when we have repeater custom orders. It makes us feel like a distant relative or family friend that gets to catch up every so often and hear what's happening in our clients' lives. More often than not it's a birthday milestone or a new baby that we get to celebrate and it makes us feel privileged to be called to do it time and time again for them.

We hit a new record this past week with a repeat customer. It was the third time we were creating a baby shower invitation for her. But what made it even more special was that the baby shower was for herself! The client's mom was helping with the party details, but Tracie wanted to make sure she we created the invitations. So of course we had to pull out the big guns to make sure her invitation was above and beyond her expectations.

We were told the baby's nursery had creams and browns with touches of pink and we could let our imaginations run wild with the design. The result was this little ditty- girly, graphic flowers with a lovely fabric and stitching detail at the bottom of the invite:

We had originally thought of using pink seersucker fabric for the bottom portion of the card, but were so glad we decided to switch it up last minute for the cream & pink stripe pictured above. It made the design feel a tad more classic and refined.

We think Tracie will be pleased with the finished product. (If she hasn't seen the spoiler alert picture on Facebook already. Sorry Tracie!)

Gone to the dogs

2011-09-28T10:15:00.000-04:00

Amongst all the hustle and bustle of moving into our new studio this past week, we had the pleasure of working on a fun project for an in-home pet care company. We're currently in the process of creating their business cards, but just finished their logo last week and loved it so much we thought we'd share it with you.

It's always interesting to see how ideas come to fruition, so here are the beginning sketches:

Which turned into these computer comps:

And resulted in this final logo. A lovely mix of the 2 designs above:

Our honorary mascot, Harley, provided great inspiration. We think he approves the logo :)

Farewell Paperie goes George & Weezie

2011-09-23T03:20:00.000-04:00

In almost three years of Farewell's existence, we've had the pleasure of calling no less than 8 places home. We've made viable studios out of everything from our old ad agency, three of my living rooms, two of Lisa's, my sister's garage, a community studio in SF, and countless coffee shops. The paper magic has happened all across this fair land.

We've even had our make it work moments across the Bay Bridge:

Hi, Lisa!

These days, most of our production and orders are done out of a rapidly growing "work nook" of my living room. What was once a quaint, cozy cocoon of productivity has mutated into a ghastly beast, spewing paper and envelopes at will and taking over my little one bedroom apt. I'm embarrassed to even show you guys these, but here goes nothing.

(Mom, look away.)

There is order in the chaos, I swear.

My desk. Where I sit with my legs crossed and up on the chair.
Because there's no where else to put them.

The piles that get moved back and forth depending on what cabinet needs to be opened at that moment.

Even the ironing board isn't safe from the Paperie Monster.

So, you must be wondering, why would I be crazy enough to show you people how this messy stationer lives? It's to show you just how absolutely amazing this absolutely amazing announcement is for us...

FAREWELL PAPERIE IS MOVIN' ON UP!

INTO A REAL STUDIO SPACE!

We're sharing the space with 2 other letterpress printers. The 1,500 square foot loft space lives within a tri-space of 2 other studios, inhabited by some really amazing artists, photographers, and designers. I just found out the building was once the Best Food Mayonnaise warehouse, which is great bc I love me some mayo.

Here's the tour:

Welcome to the tri-space. Won't you come in?

That's us. #308.

The common area for all the artists.

Through the common area and inside our actual studio.
Come Monday, our press will live where those chairs are.

The other part of our part.

The light! Oh, the glorious light.

So that's it. Studio, sweet studio. What do you guys think? We'll be sure to post before and afters once we get everything all gussied up.

And, I'm taking suggestions for how to reinvent the nook in our apartment. Andy wants to buy more bikes and put them there. This will likely not happen.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

} jp-c

Wedding Invitations: Beantown Chic

2011-09-19T06:00:00.000-04:00

Anyone who's ever been to Boston will tell you how much they like them apples. What a great city. Apparently with some fantastic weddings going on this fall, including the one of our former student-turned-client-slash-paper-buddy, Lauren and her fiance Brian.

When Lauren first came to us for her wedding paperyums, all she knew was that she wanted it to look modern and yet classically Boston. Well, let's back it up a bit. Originally, she threw out some wacky-bananas randomness about animals and Olympic themes just like the one from her Bat Mitzvah. We took a deep breath, held hands, thought about our mothers' feelings and decided to make a new plan for a modern, clean look with a fresh take on all of Lauren's favorite parts of her beloved hometown.

You may remember her save-the-dates we flashed a quickie look at a little while back, which featured famed landmark Fanueil Hall.

Well, here's a look at the latest in Lauren and Brian's wedding suite (and the most important), the invitations!:

The suite assembled: An understated invitation makes a big statement. Elegant type treatment with just the boston skyline letterpressed on chic, steely gray paper.

A custom monogram for the Northeasterner

The bellyband slides off to reveal a pocketfold behind the invitation, printed with a custom cobblestone pattern for a classic Bostonian feel. The reply card and a website info card featuring the wine and burnt orange color accents live here.


A very cool mix of patterns, textures and colors, perfect for an urban Fall affair.

Boston, the curse is over. Your win-vitations have arrived.

cheers!
} jp-c

***Hey everybody, let's chat more tomorrow. We've got some crazy exciting news to share. Hint: giant windows, square footage, and I finally get to put the ironing board away!***

What You Really Really Love

2011-09-16T10:13:00.001-04:00

The results are in! We ended up receiving more submissions from emails, texts and tweets, rather than posts on our blog (but that's ok, we still counted your votes) and there was definitely a clear winner. An overwhelming majority voted for our new "Really" card line, so we are going to give you a 15% discount on each of our Really cards - "Really Miss", "Really Sorry" and "Really Love You". They'll be on sale today through the weekend. Happy shopping!

Beautiful Fall Wedding

2011-09-12T12:53:00.004-04:00

We Farewell Paperie chicas love a good wedding. We love it when we see two people that really love each other. We love it when the birds are chirping and sun is shining and it couldn't be a more gorgeous day. We love it when we get to be a part of the celebration. We love so many things about weddings, but one thing we appreciate above any other part of a wedding (besides breaking it down on the dance floor) are the wedding details. The time, energy, and effort it takes for a bride to make a beautiful setting for her wedding is something we don't take for granted. Details make or break a beautiful wedding and Susanne (and Robert) didn't let us down with their celebration!

I'll be honest, I wish I would have taken more pictures of everything. From the flowers, to the center pieces, to the detailing on her dress, Susanne created a stunning wedding... but I was just having too much fun to stop and capture everything through a camera lens. So with what little pictures I took (and a few snagged off of facebook) we hope you get a tiny glimpse into their wedding experience. It was a amazing time!

Our New Look

2011-09-08T14:15:00.001-04:00

Why hello there. Notice anything new? After a long overdue overhaul of our website, we decided it was time to finally revamp the blog. Simple, clean, something that feels more in line with our design aesthetic. We're pretty excited about the new look. Since this seems to be the season for new things (although that should be spring, rather than fall, but that's ok) we also have doubled our line of cards since the San Fran Gift Show and they are all available online on our Etsy store now! To kick off all this newness, we thought it would be fun to extend our gift show jelly bean voting to our Etsy shop.

(Remember these guys from the show post?)

• Hit us back with a comment as to which card you'd want to go on sale.

• Friend us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter.

  And don't forget to retreat and post our sale!

• You can vote as many times as you'd like.

• Voting closes on September 15th at 9pm EST.

• We'll announce the winner via Facebook and Twitter on Sept. 16th.

• The winning card will be on sale September 16th - 19th.

If you have a specific card that you see in our Etsy shop that you'd like to vote for, feel free to submit a write-in. And remember to get your friends, family, pets, co-workers... whoever to help vote for your favorite card!

Twin Cities

2011-09-06T14:44:00.000-04:00

It must be a sign from the heavens that Farewell San Fran and Farewell Atlanta are experiencing almost the exact same weather today! Or maybe we're just trying to make something out of nothing to feel like we live in the same city. We like to think it's the first option.

Inspiration Day: nautical stripes

2011-08-23T11:06:00.008-04:00

It's funny how our client's designs tend to bleed into our every day lives without us even realizing it. For the past two weeks I've been obsessed with getting a yellow cardigan. Not just any yellow cardi, either. It needs to be a canary-mustardy yellow. It all began with this nautical striped shirt I bought from Gap.

Photo credit: gap.com

It's cute, right? And it's all the rage with fall trends. So I happened to be walking by H&M and there it was. My yellow sweater was in the store window. It was the exact shade of yellow I was looking for and it was the right price. I immediately ran in and began scouring the racks, but it was no where to be found. (This is why I have a love/hate relationship with H&M.) So I asked a sales associate when a new shipment would be coming and apparently the store gets them every day, but they don't know what ships when. So, of course, I've been incessantly going to H&M for no reason to look for my yellow cardi. So far, no luck.

I began to wonder what my problem was. Why did I need to have a yellow sweater to go with my nautical striped shirt? Besides the fact that all the fashion & home blogs are talking about it, what was really my inspiration behind my madness? It finally hit me this morning as I was going through my pintrest boards. We have been working on a lovely Save The Date for a St. Barths wedding and I found my inspiration:

Photo credit: pintrest

Photo credit: pintrest

Can you see a theme here?

The bride actually found us while on a flight to San Fran. She was sitting next to Jen on the plane and was searching for wedding invites. Jen found out that she lived in San Fran and was planning a destination wedding in St. Barths. Long story short, she became our client (and ironically lives down the street from Jen!) and we are now doing her STDs. The couple wanted a travel/ St. Barths theme for their wedding suite and the yellow / blue combo seemed to fit perfectly. Before doing this wedding, we didn't know much about St. Barths besides the fact that:

1) It's in the Caribbean

Photo credit: go.cvg.com

2) It has gorgeous blue water

Photo credit: go.cvg.com

3) Celebrities like to play there, such as Jay-Z, Lindsey Lohan and Fergie.

We think that is Jay-Z's yacht, on the very bottom of the pic :)

So, we created several options for our bride-to-be; most of them having a touch of the blue and yellow color scheme that I've become obsessed with. We'll get to show those chosen design to you soon. (Sorry for the tease!) In the mean time, I'll be on the lookout for an alternative to my yellow H&M sweater. Any good suggestions on where to find one?

The little booth that could

2011-08-19T15:19:00.008-04:00

Here she is. Our little booth. She's a beaut, right? After our crazy-hectic-running-around-getting our-shiz-ready-for-the-show-week we were ready to show off our booth in all of her glory. We called her Booth #1929 (only because that was our registered number in the show catalog, but that's besides the point). We birthed a really cute booth that we were really proud of.

Here is a smattering of our new cards. They're making their way to our etsy site, so be on the lookout for them! They are being added daily and should all be posted by next week.

So we had this fun idea for figuring out which cards the buyers were liking. We had about 20 different little jars to put beside our cards and whichever jar was the full of jelly beans at the end of the show, the buyers would get a discount on that card. Well, we learned a few things during this show:

1. Be sure to take into account the extra room the jars will take up on the shelf when planning out the booth. We had to take about 15 of the jars down because we didn't have the room for all of our cards! This led to buyers not being able to vote for a certain card they liked. Oops.

2. Buyers like to look and not participate in silly voting games. We thought it would be fun and interactive, but it turned out to be a bit of a flop. We got some people to vote, (thanks voters) but in the end, it wasn't as many as we had hoped. We weren't really worried about it though. Jen and I basically ate all the left over jellybeans anyway.

common, look how cute those jars are!

We had to take a picture of our orange ends! They look good, right?

Thing #3 we learned about tradeshows: People love free stuff. (we knew this already having a background in advertising) but we didn't realize how powerful a bowl full of jelly beans can be. People were making a B-line to our jelly beans and they weren't even a) buyers b)interested in our cards c) were buyers, but did not sell stationery. We were totally glad to give them away, though. Jen's dad bought us 3 huge jars at Costco and we needed to get rid of them. Especially since we were eating jelly beans for breakfast, lunch and our afternoon snack.

We also gave away jelly beans in little SWAG bags. Those were a hit!

Here were our business cards and catalogs stacked next to each other. We had a few comments about our cards looking like coasters. Maybe b/c they were in a stack?

Our catalog was letterpressed as well. We were so happy when people complimented us for our unique catalog.

....And this was us after the show. Ready to have a drink and relax and start thinking about the next gift show we are going to do.

Kim K's Wedding Affair

2011-08-17T09:41:00.007-04:00

Being part of the wedding biz, we (and everyone else out there that gets sucked into celeb gossip) have been uber-curious about the Kim Kardashian wedding. We put "the" in front of Kim because this feels more like a holiday spectacular, rather than a wedding. It's so much about Kim that we tend to forget that she's getting married to what's-his-face; that super tall basketball player with curly hair. Obvi Kim's people are pretty tight-lipped about the affair, but thanks to E-news, TMZ, and twitter a few details have leaked.

Here is our breakdown (or, rather, our snarky remarks) on what we have found out about the wedding:

1. The guest list: Top celebs who may or may not attend - Jennifer Lopez, Justin Bieber, Will and Jada Smith, Ryan Seacrest, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Kanye West, and Eva Longoria. We get the Ryan Seacrest connection and the other A-listers, but why is Justin Bieber being invited? It's a bit odd in our book. He said he had a crush on Kim. They were told to do a photoshoot together, and now they are best buds? Wonder what Selina Gomez or the tall basketball player thinks about this:

2. Dress attire: Black Tie, however guests must either wear black or white. Don't get us wrong, we love a great LBD, but we've never been to a wedding where we were told what to wear. Sure, it's an honor to be a part of the wedding party, but that means you forfeit your rights to what actually looks good on your body type. We've all been a victim of horrible bridesmaids dresses, so it would be slightly annoying to be told what to wear when you're not in the wedding.

Pics courtesy of tackyweddings.com

Note: We totally could have looked at ugly bridesmaids dresses online for HOURS. It's quite the blackhole to get sucked into. Try it out. You won't regret it, but you'll realize that 2 hours has snuck past you and you'll wonder if you were accidentally rufied.

3. The Wedding invitation: Alright, they got us. We don't really have anything snarky to say about this one. We gotta admit, this invite is stellar. The monogram is beautiful and the detail flourishing is gorgeous. It totally conveys the look of the mandated black and white attire and the box, (book, holder... whatever you would call it) makes the wedding feel regal. We'd love to find out how much it cost to create and mail these invites, but thanks to reality TV, the Kardashian name and all of Kim's business ventures, I'm sure it was a drop in the wedding budget bucket. Our only questions is what will guests do with this invite? You can't really hang it on the fridge or post it on a bulletin board. And what will you do with it when the wedding is over? It's considered a sin in our book to throw away anything letterpressed, so will guests throw this phonebook-invitation in the trash? Ugh. It hurts our hearts to even think about it.

Overall, we are sure this will be a beautiful, celebrity wedding. The Kardashian's are known for their great taste and fashion sense (plus large sums of cash can make anything look amazing) so we can't wait to see the whole shebang when it's all said and done. We bet there will be pictures leaked by Sunday morning and you better believe we'll be the firsts to check it out on Enews! online and Perez Hiton. Wedding comments to commence next week ;)

What a long strange trip it's been...

2011-08-15T18:46:00.011-04:00

To quote the late, great Jerry Garcia, these past two weeks have been one long and strange trip. From the moment I arrived in San Fran to the time I got back on the plane bound for Atlanta, it was all systems go. We thought the San Francisco International Gift Fair (That's SFIGF for those of you in the trade show biz) would be a way for us to dip our feet into the trade show pool. Little did we realize that once we committed to such a thing, we were on the high-high-dive of that pool and some sassy, smartalec kid was shoving us from behind making us fall head-first into the deep end. Let's just say the learning curve for gift showing was steep. However, with what little sleep we got, the excessive amounts of caffeine we consumed and the love and support from our friends and fam, we had an uber-successful gift show! We even met some really cool people along the way and learned that the love of paper is still alive and well. Those people made our hectic week totally worth it.

So, for all of you curious peeps out there, here is part uno of our booth set up. As you can tell, I had the camera most of the time, so Jen was our model for each step we captured. (Thanks, Jen for being a good sport).

Step 1: Buy shelving and spray paint it

This is Jen showing off her SoCal tagging skills from back in the day.

It case you can't read that, it says "Lil Dragon". Maybe tilt your head to the side?

We thought it would be super cool to paint the ends of the shelves orange. No one seemed to really notice, though, but we knew it was there.

Step 2: Go to the trade show center and paint the booth. There was literally no one there when we arrived at the Moscone center. They didn't even have our booth set up.

This is our "where is everybody" depiction.

Notice the guy setting up our lighting as we paint.

This is me jumping up the wall to try and paint the areas we couldn't reach.

Step 3: Install our beautifully painted shelving. Can you see the orange ends?

Step 4: Put up our name decal. This was the most nerve-wracking thing we had to do. Two sticky sides to the sign, plus psyching ourselves out b/c we if we screwed up we couldn't get a new sign= no bueno.

Step 5. Hang up framed signage. At 12:30 the night before we could not figure out the configuration we wanted for these signs. It was probably b/c our minds weren't firing on all cylinders. We finally figured it out by 1am and it paid off! We got many compliments from passer-byers on the signage. Win.

Step 6: Move in furniture. Then step back and admire the booth. In this picture, we were pretty much done w/ all the heavy lifting. We just needed to add our final touches and our cards.

Stay tuned for part dos of the booth set up. We'll be posting that later in the week, so you can see how awesome it looked. When it was all said and done, we pretty much loved our booth and were sad to take it down when the show ended.

Oh! and on a funnier, or shall we say ironic note, a few posts back we were stressing about the carpet and what we wanted to do for the flooring. Well, we scrapped the idea of putting floor tile down because my dad pointed out it would have taken over an hour to lay the tile. (thanks, dad) And the rug that we bought from Overstock was poo-poo, so this is what we ended up with:

It was the actual carpeting that came with the booth. Not too shabby SFIGF ;)

Is this thing on?: SFIGF Snail Mailers

2011-07-26T15:28:00.006-04:00

So, we're plugging our little hands and minds away getting ready for our first show at the San Francisco International Gift Fair in a few weeks. You'll remember when we first got bitten by the trade show bug in May, only then we weren't showing, just ogling. Well, the time is almost here for us to become official trade show exhibitionists—just me and Lis, wearing nothing but our hearts on our sleeves and a pretty paper line to cover our vulnerable designer bits. Hope they like what they see!

In the midst of printing samples and catalogs and making crucial decisions on our booth decor that will clearly make or break our little company's future, we're getting ready to send out some mailers that will surely bring the crowds flocking to our little booth #1929 at the Moscone Center.
We wanted something that would stand out from other mailers, so of course we went balls-to-the-wall with our letterpressed Farewell pattern in our signature orange. This design will be the same cover to our catalog (more on those soon), an idea that stems from both a strong integrated marketing strategy and a skimptastic mailer budget. We flat-printed the show details and invited people to stop by and say hi, then stitched the printouts to our letterpressed orange backings. Sure, we would have liked to have letterpressed the whole thing, but you gotta know your limits, right?
It's a little scary and a lot exciting to put ourselves out there like this. Hopefully, lots of people will check the "yes" box and come over to check out our new work. Speaking of, there will be lots of that to show you guys soon, too. Stay tuned!

} jp-c

Our talented friends

2011-07-22T09:15:00.004-04:00

We love great design and we love it even more when our friends are the ones to do it. We've known Susanne and Robert for a few years and were super excited when we heard they were getting hitched. Susanne is a baker extraordinaire (she happened to bake the cupcakes for my wedding - you can find her delicious baked goods here) and her soon-to-be hubby, Robert, actually helped us revamp Farewell's website. (A huge thank you to Robert - if you need an awesome developer go to this guy).

Susanne took her first stab at letterpressing a few weeks ago. After a few back and forth emails, a phone call or two and a pep talk from yours truly, Susanne tackled the letterpress like a pro. I had seen some of her initial designs on screen, but it was really fun to see them come to life when they arrived in the mail the other day. We think she did a great job and the color combinations of the deep purple and bright yellow are just so cute.

We have yet to hear how the actual printing experience was. We feel in love with it as soon as we touched a press, so we wonder if she had the same experience. Perhaps we may have a new intern on our hands soon?...

Our daily texts

2011-07-19T09:37:00.003-04:00

Jen and I like to think we run a tight ship. It's definitely something born out of necessity since we live on two opposite ends of the country. With 3,000 miles between us and 3 hour time difference we have to be on top of each other to make sure things get done. We do this through various emails, texts, gchat and skype sessions throughout the day. We probably talk to each other more than our husbands and they are both sweet enough to understand that's how we have to roll sometimes.

Someone recently asked us what we talk about all the time. On a day to day basis it's mostly paper samples, new designs, clients that we need to contact, etc. But being friends first and then becoming business partners, we do talk about other things that are going on in our lives - family, friends, what's going on in our neck of the woods, and of course our favorite reality tv shows...
So for those of you interested, here is a behind the scenes look from the offices of FP.

A text between business partners:

Lisa to Jen: If you were a character on Flipping Out who would you be?

Jen: Uh, derr, I'm totally Jeff Lewis.

Lisa: Ha. Ha. Totes. I think I'm either Zoila or that blonde girl.

Jen: You mean Sarah? You're not clueless like her.

Lisa: Maybe I'm like Jenny, though I like to think I have Zoila's sass.

Jen: Maybe you're a little like all of them. OCD like Jeff, snarky like Zoila, laughy like Jenny, WTF like Trace and occasionally dyslexic like Sarah.

Lisa: .... good call.

End scene

The trade show blues (and oranges)

2011-07-13T10:07:00.005-04:00

As our San Fran gift show rapidly approaches, Jen and I have been working furiously to get our booth finished for the big day. Obviously residing on two opposite ends of the country has posed its fair share of challenges, but we've been taking them in stride (for the most part) and have been maintaining our nightly skype sessions of ironing out all the details. One such detail has been the flooring. We had grand ideas to put down hand-painted tile, instead of using the standard blah-gray tradeshow carpeting, but the time, money and effort it would take for us to actually install it, just wasn't worth it. So now we've been on a massive hunt for a fun orange, patterned rug that will make our booth bright and cheery, but we keep coming up empty handed.

So while I was goggling orange and blue carpeting this morning (our standard FP colors) I happened upon this lovely photographer and I couldn't tear myself away from his site. His name is Grant Hamilton and I want every single one of his pictures hanging in my house. They are a combination of bright, graphic and abstract shapes and they make me go to my happy place when scrolling through his portfolio. Here are a few samples - showing off his orange and blue color combos:

The last picture is more or less our mantra for today. Maybe we will find that perfect rug today and maybe it will be the perfect price and will match perfectly with the picture we have in our heads of our booth...

Anyone have any good websites for rugs?

Only in the Golden State

2011-07-08T10:14:00.005-04:00

Photo credits: TMZ

Yes, the big day is finally here! Roll out the red carpet and get your camera ready because the royal couple will be flying to California today. The world has officially stopped in la la land and nothing is more importante than William and Kate making their debut in the states. (At least according to E! News, People magazine and TMZ - all very credible news sources). And thanks to their up-to-date reporting, Jen and I know exactly what they will be doing in LA and who will be their celebrity companions.

Yes, we admit, we've been tracking their every move through Canada (those cowboy hats were a hit!) and can't wait to read the gossip blogs once they arrive in the US

Photo credits: TMZ

but one thing seems to keep popping up in our heads as we were reading the deets about their trip is, "Only in California" You'll see where we are going with this, so stick with us:

Only in California would Will and Kate attend a star-studded Gala in honor of the British film industry and be accompanied by Jennifer Lopez and Hubby Marc Anthony. We can't even begin to connect those dots, let alone fathom their conversation during dinner.

Only in California will William participate in a charity polo match, where players have to pony up $100,000 just to play with him. Sounds like an episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, or NYC or was it Orange County?

Only in SoCal are neighbors of the British consul's residence turning down offers from the paps to sit on their lawn. We wonder how much they were offering and would we turn down that kind of money?

Only in the golden state were celebs interviewed by E! asking where they would take the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Kim K said Disneyland and a few others suggested the Hollywood walk of fame. Disneyland, Kim, really?

Only in the great state of Cali (well perhaps it's more of the celebrity gossip world, which is centered in LA) would there be an online poll to vote for William and Kate's new celeb name. This is no joke. Seriously check out the link.

Photo credits: E! online

So as a little "Thanks for visiting the U.S. We hope you enjoyed the lovely golden state of California" here is a little token of love from Farewell.

We thought our state cards would be uber- appropriate for the royal couple when they write home about their trip. And as a wee-little side note, we've added the lovely state of Texas into the mix and are taking suggestions for new states. Which states do you think we should roll out next?

~LGT

Charles Town

2011-07-06T10:08:00.004-04:00

Just got back from a lovely weekend in Charleston, SC and I totally forgot what an amazing city it is! The last time I was in Charleston was way back in college, so it was fun to see the city through different (and less hazy) eyes this time around. My husband and I stayed in the city, proper, but had a few days at the beach as well. We absolutely love Savannah, so we knew we would really enjoy it's sister city, but had no clue how much Charleston had to offer. The history, the beaches, the beautiful architecture, the amazing restaurants, the old mixing with the new... it a definitely a place we could see ourselves retiring. (Even though that's about 30 years down the road. Still, it's nice to dream).

Traveling through the streets of the city, I couldn't help but be enamored by all of the beautiful design, lovely typography and fun hand-painted signage. As you know, Jen and I are pretty big type nerds, so I thought it would be fun to snap some photos for you guys to enjoy.

I definitely couldn't get enough of the house numbers. Each one was totally different from the next and felt like it was part of the house or business.

Hand painted signs were all over the cute little shops along King Street.

Everyday store signs seemed much more interesting when created by an artist.

Here are just more examples of the art around Charleston and Folly Beach

If you ever get a chance to explore the city, I would highly recommend it. The city is gorgeous and there are tons of tours, day trips to the beach, restaurants to eat in and museums to visit. If you do go there, keep your eye out for more than just historical markers and the cobblestones on the road (so you don't trip, like I did every other step I took). Look up at the hand-painted signs, look at the small details on the sides of the houses and keep your eyes peeled for all the glorious typography that surrounds the city.

~LGT

See it to believe it

2011-07-01T06:00:00.003-04:00

It's pretty rare when we actually get to attend the events that we create our custom cards for. Usually, we lovingly pack up the invitations and send them on their way, never getting the chance to see people's reaction to our work. Jen and I were so excited to create the wedding suite for my good friends, Kelly and Patrick, not only because they are the sweetest couple around (and they are Steeler fans to boot) but I was going to get the chance to see our wedding pieces during the event!

Kelly and Patrick decided to get married in St. Augustine, Florida for much the same reason Justin and I got hitched in Savannah. They wanted a pseudo-destination wedding that wasn't too far for family and friends, and they just loved the charm and beauty of the old city. Their ceremony took place at the White Room, which is right on King Street as soon as you cross the long bridge to the city. The view is gorgeous!

Pictures courtesy of http://www.ocwhiteroom.com/photo_gallery.php

They were to be wed on the rooftop at 7pm, but like most Floridian summer afternoons, the humidity gave way to thunderstorms and it rained most of the evening. Unfortunately, they had to move the ceremony inside, but it was still just as beautiful and sweet!

The reception was in the same location, just one floor up, so it was very convenient to just run upstairs for the party. Right at the top of the steps was a table to your right that had all of the escort cards lined up. I guess I was in shock to see our cards sitting so neatly in a row, that I didn't even realize they were ours! So, of course, I grabbed my iphone and starting snapping pictures (my real camera's battery had died!) and I basically blocked the whole table trying to get a decent shot to tweet. Justin was literally trying to tear me away from the cards to go sit down at our table. Cue the table numbers and my excitement started all over again.

Here are pictures of our work during the wedding. They even had the baker put our design on their cake!(Anddd b/c my camera died I only have iphone pics... sorry)

Eventually the idea of seeing our work in action wore off. Though I kept cursing myself for not having an extra battery for my camera like the lady at the store warned me to purchase. "You never know when you'll need another battery in a pinch". Plus it was really nice to hear everyone's reaction to our work, even though most people had no clue Farewell Paperie was responsible for their existence (though maybe my melee at the escort card table gave me away just a teensy bit.)

So, here are all the Shea/Graffius wedding pieces together in one place for you to gush over as much as I did during their special day. Enjoy!

The whole wedding suite

The invite all put together

Hotel Welcomer

Escort card and table numbers

~LGT

Berry Berry Quite Contrary

2011-06-10T10:41:00.010-04:00

Hi, my name is Lisa and I'm addicted to berries. Strawberries, blackberries, blueberries... any kind of berry out there I'll eat AND I'm not afraid to admit I can plow through a whole carton of strawberries in one sitting. (I'm not talking about those little cartons. I'll pay upwards of $15 for one of those big guys.) So you can imagine how much my grocery bill is this time of year, when I running to whole foods every week to feed my habit. A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine suggested I go to one of those u-pick farms where you pay a standard price for a bucket of berries. If you can cram it the bucket, you can take it home. You can imagine how elated I was to go on such an expedition. In one picking I carted home 5lbs of strawberries (which I polished off already), 3 lbs of blackberries and 1 lb of raspberries.
Berries were on my brain for a good week after visiting the farm. I put them in everything I ate; oatmeal, yogurt, salads, smoothies...I felt like the bubba-gump of berries. So needless to say when Jen and I started concepting or new card line, berry patterns and colors kept popping up.

Lisa: What about this color pink? (as I show her a color swatch on skype)
Jen: (sigh) We already have 5 pinks for our color palette. We need to revise.
Lisa: Really? (as I pop a few more strawberries into my mouth)
So, to get these berries out of my system once and for all, I thought we'd share some of the inspiration we found over the past few weeks and prove to you that others love this fruit as much as I do.

We found 2 really great pattern designers that we absolutely love. Their work is clean, cute and original. Here are the links to their websites if you want to explore more of their designs:
Emily Harris & Lara Brehm

I wish I could eat these strawberries (by emilyharrisdesigns.com) right off my screen.

And these adorable raspberry designs (by Lara Brehm) are the cutest thing we've ever seen.

Etsy is also chalk full of berry inspiration. There were so many items we liked, we thought we'd just post about a few.

Not sure what to do with these strawberries, but they sure would look yummy in your kitchen or playful in a child's room.

This dog collar reminded me of a belt I used to have when I was little. I wish I still had that belt!

A sweet cherry ring. It could be a cute felted button, too.

Definitely a fun wristlet for the summer.

So fellow addicts, relish in this time of year, and don't feel so bad about your addiction. This is one time where you're allowed to overdose and it won't break the bank. I think I'm going blueberry picking this weekend, so if anyone has any great recipes they'd like to share, send them my way! I'll be needing them.

~LGT

All Hail, Retail!

2011-06-02T06:00:00.006-04:00

Happy Thursday, folks. We're so close to the weekend I can smell it. What bicoastal smells do I hope the weekend will have in store for Farewell Paperie? To name but a few:

ocean water
fresh flowers
freshly cut grass
hot dogs (or other various Lisa-approved street meat fare), from the VA Highlands fest
lemonade or other citrus-based beverage, perhaps with a whiff of alcohol to boot
smoke, from our grills
smoke, from our super-productive macbooks
smoke, from our fast-running feet
dryer sheets, from a long overdue laundry sesh
sweet baby head scent, from my cute nephew Connor (he'll be out of town this weekend, but a girl can dream, right?) :(
clean Harley the dog

Can't wait. But for now, some business items to discuss:

We're very excited to add a new retailer to our growing list. It all started when my mother-in-law took me to a great independent stationery shop in Denver, CO. Wordshop is the kind of store that gives Lisa and I a reason to do what we do. Owner Jill's goal is simple, keep the written word alive. Her boutique is tucked away in the heart of the artsy Highlands neighborhood, and inside, is nothing but fun paper goodness. Lots of great cards, but simply displayed and with one-of-a-kind sentiments. If you're ever lucky enough to hang out in Denver, stop by Wordshop and check out ours and other great cards.

{ photos via wordshopdenver.com }

Also, this weekend is the VA Highlands Summerfest in Atlanta, GA., where we'll be selling our latest paper goods at the Urban Cottage outdoor tent event, on the main corner of Virginia & N. Highland. Hotlantans, stop by, get some shade, and check out all the great wares they'll have on display!

What's your weekend smellin' like?

} jp-c

Cross stitch makin' a comback

2011-05-26T10:39:00.007-04:00

We've been working on some new cards lately for our San Fran gift show in August and that always gives us an excuse to look for some fun new fonts. This morning I stumbled across this font and didn't know what to think about it. But after a few minutes of consideration, it really started to grow on me... if I were to see it in small doses. This font is like one of those magic eye calendars from the 90's, where you need to stand a few feet back to get the full effect, then once you start to see the whole picture, you learn to appreciate it.

This font also made me think of the lovely Amy Holbrook, who we met at the National Stationery Show a few weeks ago. We walked by her booth and stopped dead in our tracks because we've never seen anything like her work before. Basically she took the simple idea of cross stitching (something Jen and I both admitted to doing when we were young, crafty, and couldn't drive yet) and put a modern spin on it. She created these cute journa ls, photo albums and iphone cases that are stitched in funky-fresh patterns. You can buy the already stitched pieces or send a kit to someone to create their own. We totally feel in love with this idea and think it's a great way to modernize something that you could only imagine doing if you were 10 or 60 years old.

Be sure to check out her online shop. It's easy to get wrapped up in all of her cute wares. And being the stationery, stitching, and accessorizing ladies that we are, we're definitely going to visiting her site more often for updates.

2011 National Stationery Show = Amazeballs

2011-05-21T15:46:00.019-04:00

Hey y'all, everybody!
Well, we are all back from our whirlwind week in NYC for the 2011 NSS. We were so lucky to be invited by our friend Kseniya, co-founder of a group of printers we belong to called Ladies of Letterpress and talented spearhead behind Thomas Printers.

After a fun weekend of eating, drinking, and Brooklyning with friends, we got our game faces on and trekked to the ginormo Javits Center in the city for the show. We roamed, we chatted, and we ogled all the latest and greatest in the paper goods world. To just call it big would be like calling my friend Stacey's cat Tuna kinda cute. It was so expansive, I think we may have walked the same distance within the convention center as we traveled from Stacey's house in BK to the building.

{ l-r: ladies of letterpess booth | so official! | brilliant tooth fairy mail pieces from wildhorse press }

Our friends at the Ladies of Letterpress booth put on an incredibly impressive showing of both greeting cards and custom event invitations, what fun to see how many talented ladies are getting behind the press!

Here are some more of our favorite booths.

{ stationery powerhouse hello lucky }

{ these guys' booth for max & bunny was easily our favorite. uptown chic! }

{ fellow lady of letterpresser flywheel press }

{ any booth with furry seats like at egg press is a winner with us }

{ even with all the letterpress stationery, we fell in loooove with figs & ginger
and their laser-cut wood bunting and items. so different and cool. }

Truth be told, Lisa and I were too awestruck to get any great close-ups, but, as usual, the team at Design*Sponge had some great posts to check out here and here.

There was even a Paper Runway, which featured a contest of handmade paper costumes. Kind of thrilling for the origamier in me.

We've been too chicken to actually exhibit ourselves at such a huge show, but with this behind-the-scenes glimpse, I think Lisa & I might be Pisa-leaning toward a 2012 NSS debut. Stay tuned!

*** Special announcement ***
That said, we are definitely on the books to show at this year's San Francisco International Gift Fair this August, so we'll be sure to update as we prepare (eek!). With all the inspiration we had in nyc, we'll have plenty of brainstorming seshes to share. In the meantime, we'll use this as a good before photo for our foray into the trade show circuit...

"uhhhh... are we allowed in here?"

cheers!
} jp-c

Pretty In Pink

2011-05-11T15:22:00.007-04:00

Precious, pink, frilly, fun; adjectives our latest client conveyed to us for their baby girl's birth announcement. From the pink envelopment, to the ribbon w/monogram and the little birdies at the bottom of the design, we pulled out all the stops to make this announcement an explosion of cuteness.

Font of the Week: Aphrodite

2011-05-06T10:35:00.012-04:00

While Jen has been enjoying the sun and surf in Costa Rica this week I found myself aimlessly wondering around the internet and getting caught up (or caught in) the many blogs that I have been neglecting this past month. Today, I opened my inbox and found an email about "Top Headlines in Design". I clicked on it hoping to get some words of wisdom to jump-start my creative juices. Not really finding the inspiration I was looking for, I noticed a link that directed me to new Wordpress themes, which led to google webfonts, which led to myfonts.com, which led to.... well you get the picture. Two hours later and multiple rabbit holes of links, I ended up getting sucked into endless pages of font eye candy. Some may say this is a waste of time, but as a designer it's pure bliss.

So, I figured I'd share the wealth and direct you to the new font I just downloaded. (Sidenote: I'm truly my father's daughter and tend to bargain shop, even when it comes to fonts, so I hit the freebies and sales first.) Low and behold my cheapness paid off and I found this diamond in the rough on the sale page. This striking font is called Aphrodite. Jen and I both love • love • love swirly opulent fonts that are classy, but not too stuffy or cutesy.

You can find it on myfonts.com and it's only $12.00! (My dad would be so proud.) There are tons of other free fonts on the same site and many of them have a combo deals for text & web fonts. They update the sales pretty regularly, so keep an eye out for our new favorite font next week.

~LGT

Quickie: Inspiration Monday (a few days late)

2011-05-05T12:27:00.007-04:00

Fanueil Hall inspired these lovely Boston-themed Save The Dates we recently created for a client. The wedding will be held in Bean Town this summer and the couple wanted an modern, fresh look for the city's landmark.

Inspirational Pic

Final Save The Date

Royal Fun

2011-04-29T09:31:00.006-04:00

Just a little something fun we found on the interweb to commemorate the lovely marriage of Will and Kate. Since we are all about invites, paper, and pretty things here at FP, we thought this Create Your Own Royal Stamp on Facebook not only tied into lovely business (even if it is by a really weak thread) but it was too funny and ridiculous to not pass on to others. Besides, we can't take this wedding that seriously, can we?

Once you click on the link you have to "like" people.com on Facebook. Yes, you'll get all kinds of up-to-the-minute gossip about Lindsay Lohan's latest court date and Kim Kardashian's newest diet fads, but we promise (if the pictures below are any indication of the results you'll get) it's well worth getting all that junk in your newsfeed.

Lisa looking so regal.

Jen, a natural Grace Kelly.

We all should feel like a queen for at least one day, so you might as well commemorate it with a stamp you can keep forever.

update alert!

2011-04-20T10:11:00.006-04:00

We've been busy and our lack of posting is proving it. Baby announcements, birthday parties, and weddings have been taking up most of our time lately, but on top of all the custom work we've been cranking on, we've also been making some headway with our retail cards. 2 new stores have picked up our cards as of this week: Star Provisions, on the West side of Atlanta and WE ARE 1976 in Dallas Texas! We love, love, love these stores and couldn't be happier that we are in two, really rad places.

Pictures courtesy of taigainfinds.com

Star Provisions is a lovely farm-to-table store/ lunch-y kind of place. They have a bakery, a cheese shop, a butcher, artisan coffees and awesome sandwiches. On top of it, their little store has all hand-made goods from around the area. If you are ever in the mood for a falafel, this is the place to get it.

Pictures courtesy of furfaceboy.com and weare1976.com

WE ARE 1976 is the kind of store we would love to own one day... if we ever wanted to own a store. Vintage wares, local artists and fun toys make this place a treasure trove of awesome sauciness. They have a fun blog and new updates of in-store products online if you want to make the trek to Dallas.

The Wedding Game

2011-03-29T14:35:00.004-04:00

This weekend is going to be an exciting one for us ladies of Farewell Paperie. Our good friend, Molly (and author of the Nesting Game), is tying the knot on Saturday! This not only means that Jen and I will be in the SAME CITY for a few days (watch out Atlanta, here we come!), but we'll be witnessing two of our favorite people getting married ... annnnnnddddd, we'll finally get to revel in the lovely wedding decor that Molly has been working so diligently on for the past few months.

This wedding is going to look spectacular because, well, Molly, the style guru and Taylor, the graphic designer, obviously know what they're doing if their Save the Date is any indication of what's to come. Jen and I have ooohed and ahhhhed over those Save The Dates, and couldn't wait to post about their wedding invites, but thought it best to hold out until the week of their wedding so our heads didn't explode from all the gushing. So until we get to the wedding and take countless photos of all their fabu decor, you guys will have to settle with the invites for now - just like we have... but the count down had begun and I'm sure there will be much to blog about after Saturday.

Even the envelopes were designed to the hilt.

I've never opened an invitation that smelled so fresh. What a great idea to incorporate rosemary into the invitation!

The full wedding suite.

The attention to detail was beautiful.

Even the backside of the invitation had a lovely pattern on it!

~LGT

You're Incog-NEAT-O!

2011-03-17T09:57:00.008-04:00

You may ask, "Is this mustache craze getting out of hand?". Our rebuttal, "No way, Jose." In fact, we think facial hair is making a huge come back and we love it. (even if it's not actually on anyone's face.)

Photos courtesy of pinterest.com

Take for instance Tom Selleck. Remember when he showed up on FRIENDS as Monica's love interest and he was sans mustache? We thought it was an outrage. And let's not even get into Alex Trebek. We all know he'd be look way more suave if he hadn't shaved his upper lip hair.

Photos courtesy of listoplenty.com

To commemorate our love for the Handlebar, the Fu Man Chu, and the Walrus, we created a letterpress card that helps anyone sport a sweet mustache in 2.2 seconds. Ladies and gents, we present the INCOG-NEAT-O card. Send this bad boy to all your friends that could only wish for a mustache like Ron Burgandy. Or "wear" it yourself and be able to finally spy on your cute neighbor with peace of mind. As always it's letterpressed onto lovely Crane Lettra paper and comes in two different envelope colors - green and orange.

We'd think it would be fun to create a facebook page full of fans proudly wearing their mustache cards. So if you buy one of these puppers, send us a quick pic and we can link you to the page. Don't worry, we won't give out names or anything. You'll be incognito... get it???

Spring Fever

2011-02-23T08:13:00.008-05:00

These last few weeks in Atlanta have finally begun to show signs of spring. The days are getting longer, chirping birds are waking me in the morning, and our neighbors are planting pansies in their yards. For those of you living up north, you are probably cursing me right now for even mentioning such things. But as a northern transplant, I'm still amazed every year how early spring shows up in the South and I couldn't be happier about it.

It's also around this time of year that Jen and I are reminded what spring is really about–BABIES. Baby showers, baby announcements, babies' birthdays... If it's about a little one, we are working on it right now. This past week we created a baby shower invitation for a dear friend of ours, who was hosting a couples shower. In typical FP style we used fun fabrics and a new stitch to create an invitation that we thought really captured the essence of spring.

Be on the look out for more FP baby stationery goodness in the next few weeks ANNND stay tuned for a big announcement coming soon!

~LGT

Celebrity Carding: Valentines Top 5

2011-02-14T13:48:00.018-05:00

It’s a conversation every couple has to have at some point: The Top 5 List. Meaning, if you could give it up to 5 celebs guilt-free, who would they be? Now folks, we’re not talking nookie, because we keep it clean here at FP, but we mean something just as special—letterpress love, baby! And while we would give Andy and Justin all the valentines in the world if we could, there are a few exceptions for who could get their hands on our paper goods.

Here’s my Top V-Day Card 5 list (in no particular order):

Andy Samberg

{ found via }

It’s no secret, I’m a sucker for the funny. If you can make me laugh, then you can most certainly make me pancakes in the morning. Of course, the obvi choice here for my SNL honey would be this card, but his oddball and often Wahlberg-based sense of funny makes me do a full on belly laugh, which makes me want more than pancakes with my breakfast—something hearty and salted, like bacon, and even though I love me some pork products, I think I could love Andy Samberg even more.

Jason Stackhouse (played by Ryan Kwanten)

{ found via }

An Aussie who can pull off a white trash Southern freak-slayer and look sexy doing it is a winner in my book. Keep up the brotherly do-gooding, Jason Stackhouse, and keep taking off that shirt. Don't know about you, but I think we’d make one neat-o bandito match.

Ryan Gosling

{ found via }

This dapper young fellow is an up-and-comer on the Hollywood scene, and on my Top 5. I haven’t even seen Blue Valentine yet, but I have seen him hand out a bunch of hooded fleece onesies to everyone in Ellen’s audience, and any lover of footed couchwear can be a lover a mine. And as Ryan becomes an A-list baller, I just want to remind him to stay true to his fleeced roots and never change.

Tim Riggins (played by Taylor Kitsch)

{ found via }

So I love the show Friday Night Lights. And this is where I start to feel a little creeped out by myself, because I have to admit, I also love me some high school football players. If you’ve seen the show, ladies, you know what my Tim Riggins crush is all about. If you haven’t, don’t judge until you’ve been compelled to imagine yourself riding shotgun in his beat up truck with the wind our hair and 3^rd period biology in the rear view mirror. I’d press my initials into some Crane paper with #33 anyday.

Mos Def

{ found via }

Well, this one doesn’t take much explaining, does it. M-O-S-D-E-F-initely.

Lisa’s Top V-Day Card 5 (in a very particularly thought-out order):

1. Ryan Reynolds

{ found via }

Ohhhh, Ryan...Will Lisa still love you on a rainy day? Can you say abs-olutely! Here’s some sunny reassurance for our hot-bodied friend—Scarlet wouldn’t know what to do with your love if it hit her in the fat pout.

2. Cristiano Ronaldo

{ found via }

From Lisa herself: Yes, I know he's a douche, but he's hot. Can’t blame a girl with a thing for the soccer players. On this V-day (and any day), she’d give ole Ronnie, “You’re a manwhore but I still love you.”

3. Henry Cavill

{ found via }

Lisa’s considering bumping this king’s confidant from the glorified night-soap drama The Tudors up to number 1, which I have to say is just plain smart carding. Give him props and give him some letterpress, especially since the newly-named Superman could come to her rescue at any moment and there might not be time for proper introductions between muggings.

4. Matt Damon { found via }

Even though Lisa says she would “take him now, but Borne Identity days were his best,” this honorary card goes to Mr. Damon for his laugh-rousing performance on 30 Rock as Liz Lemon’s pilot bf. She’d induct him into the mile-high club.

5. Sidney Crosby (Sans Mustache)

{ found via }

Now, I don’t know anything about hockey, but I’m told by Lisa that I should know lots about this studly Penguin. And while she personally prefers Sidney zambonied, she’s willing to show full support for his superstitious mustache habits, as long as he brings the Cup home to the 'Burgh.

So on this heartfest of a day, be sure to tell your special ones how much you heart them, and then ever so gently broach the subject of who you have the permission to hand out your letterpress love to.

Happy get some day, everybody!
} jp-c

Wedding Invitations: Old Fashioned Lemonade

2011-02-10T12:04:00.017-05:00

When Caroline and Matt came to us with this heart-warming theme for their spring wedding in Charleston, we gushed—literally, like a bushel of fresh-squeezed lemons. They were pretty much the dream couple to work with, letting us run with the color scheme of pale yellow with navy accents to do whatever our puckered hearts desired. And the ideas just started pouring out. Some of the inspiration for their custom suite:

found via pinterest

{ See the full board of inspired goodies here. }

Now, this wasn't our first rodeo on the Southeastern seaboard, you'll recall Lisa and Justin's own Savannah-nanza. But this is our first Chucktown invitation, and we were excited to work with a new, lovely color scheme. (Our new credo: no.more.green.) On our list for this charmingly Southern affair there were three must-haves: soft seersucker. heavenly florals. faux bois (Lisa's newfound fave...stay tuned for more on the matter).

We served up Caroline and Matt a pretty little letterpressed diddy that mixed a modern peony design and a classically elegant type treatment. Then we finished it off with a tall glass of pale yellow seersucker laced with a navy stitched border, all given that extra sweet touch with a faux bois bellyband.

Here's a look at the final pieces!

Delish. I don't know about you, but I can't wait to see the final event pics. Till then, a sweet cheers to you all!

} jp-c

V-cards for V-day

2011-01-31T11:32:00.006-05:00

Valentine's Day is just around the corner and you may be pondering what to get that special someone in your life. Whether you want to send special note to your significant other or a sassy card to your friend, Farewell Paperie has your bases covered. We've just posted some newbie Vday cards to our Etsy site that are super fun and cute. Check them out and save the chocolates for next year.

Just a couple of blogs, holding hands across the web universe.

2011-01-27T19:27:00.016-05:00

So usually, Lisa and I do a lot of zigging and zagging to run our business from opposite coasts. Then after all that emailing, texting, skyping, calling, we tip the carrier pigeon and get down to that paper magic. I like production. Just me, my headphones, and a letterpress machine, or a sewing machine, or a paper cutter, or a scoring machine, or--well, you get the point. But working alone in a literal closet for a studio interacting mainly with said machines can make a person a little socially batty. A few things I've noticed brought on by working from home:
-Talking to myself.
-Answering myself.
-Opening the fridge 10 times more often than usual.
-High-pitched enthusiasm at the arrival of the UPS delivery person.
-Confused perception of facebook time and actual face time with my friends.
-Increased desire for a cat.
I'm about 10 paper cuts shy of institutionalization. That's why it makes it so incredibly awesome and worthwhile when we get a loving virtual embrace from our friends in the creative stratosphere. It's like a big, fat gold star sticker on Mrs. Piper's 2nd grade best helper board -- an animated .giffy one that turns into glitter at the end.

Some of the blogs that have hugged us lately are ones that we'd already loved and drooled daily over, but seeing our name on their pages made us love them even more. And we think you'd love them too. So here's a little hug back for those guys, with an extra sneaky toosh squeeze:

The Nesting Game

Our dear friend Molly's blog is the virtual lovechild of Martha Stewart and HGTV's Genevive Gorder. She and fiance Taylor have made a lovely home for themselves in a ranch style mid-century home in Atlanta, and they have taken us all on their fun journey of DIY, foodie goodies, world travel and the perpetual style hunt for home. My anticipation for Molly's Friday Five is rivaled only by that of my Friday ham & cheese croissant, often ingested in unison for max happiness. Her projects always turn out awesome and she makes you feel like you could even try some of them on your own. Check out The Nesting Game here!

Allison's Thoughtbubbles

Miss Allison is a stylish little chica, and her blog shows it. She features all the lovely things in her daily Richmond, VA life, from fashion and jewelry to decor to art. You just feel a little bit more hip and with it when you read along, like getting a little dose of her cool world intravenously through your mouse. Not to mention her ability to keep up with new music is ridonk. Getcha some of Allison's tasty bubbles here.

Badder Homes and Gardens

They have great taste and they cuss like sailors. Our kinds of chicks. These awesomely foul ladies have been a favorite read for years now, and the wit just keeps on coming. They feature rad home and lifestyle products that make you want to quit your day job and make gangsta cards for the rest of your life. What. What. So throw your hands in the ay-er and blogroll like you just don't cay-er. Ch-ch-check 'em out.

Creative websharers like these make us feel a little less alone and a little more like all those things John Lennon said were true:
Imagine all the people
Blogging all the world...

Oh no I dih-n't. Oh, yes I did.

Peace out, suckas. Weekend, go!
} jp-c

California Dreaming

2011-01-21T13:21:00.008-05:00

These past few months Jen and I have been traveling fools. Between the two of us, we've been to Florida, Arizona, Washington, Georgia, California... (I feel like I'm missing a few more states, but you get the picture.) My last bit of traveling ended recently in San Francisco where I met up with Jen to work on some new cards for our retail line. We thought it would be fun to commemorate our traveling by creating postcards that have the states we have traveled to.

Each card is letterpressed on both sides and is blank on the back for your message.

Right now we have California, New York, New Jersey, Georgia and Florida printed, but we have many more coming down the pipeline. We hope to eventually press all 50 states. We thought these little guys would also be really cute wedding favors, especially for a destination wedding

Jen and I thought it would be fun to send my husband a little love from Cali while I was in San Fran. So we wrote him a little note and slipped it in the mail without telling him.

He was so surprised when our Cali postcard showed up a few days later in our mailbox.

I knew it was a big hit when he proudly displayed the card in our fruit bowl. (Yes, we put our mail in our fruit bowl in the kitchen. It's the first thing we see when we walk into our house!)

If you are interested in getting your hands on these sassy state postcards you can find them on our Etsy site or at Urban Cottage in Atlanta.

~LGT

The January Blues

2011-01-19T11:52:00.012-05:00

January. The rock bottom of winter months. November and December are full of food, festivities and fun and then you hit January. Wham. All of the sudden you realize you're back to cold cut turkey for your sandwiches, and top 100 hits on the radio.

This January has been especially weary for those of us living in the south. The winter storm that hit last week paralyzed Atlanta for nearly 6 days.

Yeah, that's me skating across Peachtree Street.

And me breaking my "sled" on the really hard snow.

It's funny how a few inches of snow and too many hours on the couch can get me thinking about the holidays again. Maybe it's the nostalgia of growing up in the north or the fact that the holiday hustle and bustle is over, but as the tiny flakes slowly covered Atlanta, I found myself wishing our Christmas tree was still standing and our neighbors hadn't taken down their lights.

Jen must have had ESP because the day before the storm hit, I received a package of the custom holiday cards we had been working on. We were asked this year to create new custom holiday cards on top of the retail cards we had online and in Urban Cottage,Atlanta. We, of course, were excited and pleased with the outcome of these cards.

One card was for Jen's sister. Her super cute nephew was featured on it.

The other card was for my best friend's sister. Her three little boys are unbelievably adorable!

It was a nice surprise to get the cards when I did. The snow coupled with the unexpected mail made it feel like a mini Christmas all over again. Perhaps January isn't so bad. It's the month of last year's reflections and possibilities of this coming year. Who knows what 2011 will bring this year, but we hope it's a good as last year was to us.

~ LGT

How-To: Last Minute Wrapping (with jazz hands)

2010-12-22T13:51:00.032-05:00

Ahhh, it's that time of year again. Personally, the mad dash to wrap last-minute gifts is my favorite part of the holidays. The excitement. The mystery. The imposing danger of the plastic teeth on the tape dispenser. Can I get a witness? Well, this year we decided to share some of our little tricks to making your last minute gifts look not only like they were thoughtfully purchased months ago, but also wrapped with love and plenty of time to spare.

The Strip
Ever wonder how the department stores make gifts looks so professional? Here's a little trick that you can add to your own gifts that's really just a few extra folds away. Cut your wrapping paper leaving a little more length than usual to get it around the gift. Take one end of the paper and fold it in about 1". Then fold it over in same direction again, the time about 1-1/2". You should have a little extra room inside the fold, like this:

Then, take the entire piece of paper and flip it over, so the fold is on the bottom side. Taking that same end, fold it back about 1/2", bringing the folded strip back around to the top of the paper. It should look like this:

Wrap your gift as usual, bringing the folded strip over to the opposite edge of the wrapping paper and taping the unfolded edge under the folded edge.

Tape top and bottom ends of the gift as usual. You can add a bow to this or wrap some ribbon along the folded strip, and tah-dahhh! Department store look with DIY love.

The Petal Bow
Sure, anyone can throw a bow on a gift and call it wrapped. But that's just not how we roll here at Farewell. One of my favorite homemade bows is easy to do and adds a lot of dimension to your gifts. It just requires a thin strip of wrapping paper about an inch wide and anywhere from 15"-20" long. The longer the paper, more full your bow will be.

Starting at one end, carefully bring the end of the strip in about an inch and tape it down. Be sure not to create a crease at the fold, just let the end bow out from the taped end. It should look like this:
Then fold the long end of the strip back and crease. Repeat the first step, taping each little bow to the same end of the paper.

Keep doing this until your strip of paper ends and tape the ends together one last time. It looks like flower petals from the side.
Place it on your gift and admire from every angle.

The Paper Wheel
This little guy is a crowd pleaser, let me tell you. It looks great and it's a fun way to bring in different colors and patterns to your gift. Start out with a few strips of different patterned wrapping paper, varying the widths from 1"-2.5" and about 12".

To start off, fold one end of the paper. Then fold back the opposite way, leaving a little length on the end that's longer than the folds. Like this:
The whole thing is basically one long accordion fold. Keep folding back and forth until you have reach the other end of the strip, leaving another extra longer tab on that end. This will make it easier to tape the wheel together. Once you have all the folds, take the piece and pinch it in half, creating a fold that makes it look almost like a fan. Then fold it back the other way, creating a crease in the middle of the fan.
Turn the wheel over and, keeping it pinched, fold one half of the longer tab down over its other half and tape them together. Then do the same to the other side.

You'll notice if you lay them down, the fan expands like a caterpillar. In order to keep the wheel centered, pull both tabs toward each other in the middle, line them up and put one longer piece of tape on one edge and fold down.When you turn the whole thing over, you should have a beautiful paper wheel.

You can fold the tab flat to the bottom of the wheel and that gives you some surface area to attach a piece of tape to adhere the wheel to your gift. Repeat the wheel on the other strips of paper and cluster them on the gift.

Here are some other little ways you can jazz up your gifts with some odds and ends from around the house. I like this clever one for Dad gifts—it's as easy as cutting out the shape of a tie and shirt collar with other wrapping paper. I make this one for my stepdad, because usually there actually is a dress shirt or tie inside.

You can also do paper airplanes or birds for a child's gift, a guitar cut out for a teen, or an apron for a foodie friend's gift.

Ribbon? We don't need no stinkin' ribbon. If you run out of the side goods (or if a sneaky family member stole them to their room to wrap their secret gifts) you can always take some buttons and string them around a gift. Loved and lovely.

Okay, hope you found our little gift accessorizing tips helpful and not too hard to do. Even if it doesn't look perfect, people always seem happy to open a gift that's been wrapped with some handmade love.
Lisa and I are both headed to Seattle to visit our families for Christmas, we'll post from there if we get a chance between gifts and eggnog binges.

Peace and paper love this holiday to you and yours!

} jp-c

Silhouettes Part II

2010-12-20T12:22:00.013-05:00

As promised, here is the silhouette project I created for our living room walls. It's a bit different from Molly's design, where she spray-painted the silhouettes onto canvas, I actually used cut paper to create the profiles. I wanted a nice accent piece to compliment the colors of the living room. Right now the colors are a mish-mash of yellows and greens:

Here is a good representation of the pillows in the room.

(Sorry I don't have a very good picture of the actual living room right now, but here is some of the decor.)

I originally thought I wanted to use 3 different colors with 3 different patterned papers. Here were some of the options that didn't make the cut, but nonetheless, they are still are very pretty.

I finally chose 1 pattern and 1 color. Here was the final result:

In case you, do-it-your-selfers, wanted to know, I basically did the same thing as molly. I took side profile pictures of the "fam" then outlined them in illustrator. (You don't need to do that, but I did). Then I cut out the profiles w/an exacto knife. Once I created that template, I outlined the patterned paper with our silhouette and followed the same steps as listed above. I then slapped some black paper behind the patterned paper and, wholah, the project was complete.

You can find all the paper samples listed above at either Paper Source or Sam Flax. It seems Paper Source has a wider variety of colors and patterns, but Sam Flax is a bit cheaper. Either way, you're bound to find some yummy paper goodness between the 2 stores.

Thanks again, Molly, for your inspiration!

Inspiration Monday: Silhouette Season

2010-12-13T11:13:00.013-05:00

It seems silhouettes are a popular trend these days. They create a unique statement and always look modern and fresh. Obviously, the idea of the silhouette as an art form has been around for ages, though in the past they seemed to have had an air of sophistication and stuffiness to them. But in the last couple years, the silhouette has been making a comeback and it hasn't just been side profiles that are popping up in home decor. Dogs, birds, people jumping, playing guitar and doing karate moves, have been showing up just about everywhere, even in mainstream stores such as West Elm:

and Anthropologie:

We hope this trend stays around for awhile. We've always been a fan and have actually created some invites with silhouettes on them. This one was for a friend's son's 1st birthday. They wanted to have a party that was kid and dog friendly:

A lovely friend of ours and author of the entertaining blog "The Nesting Game" recently sent out her Save the Dates. (A little background info on the couple: Molly is a writer for an advertising agency in Atlanta and her fiance is an art director, so we knew these Save the Dates would be fun and unique.) As soon as I saw the envelope in the mail I knew it was their STD. The invite came in a kraft envelope w/ their names and address embossed on the back flap. In retrospect, I wish I would have kept the envelope for a picture, but my husband happened to be walking into the kitchen as I was staring at the envelope, considering saving it for later, but the odd look on his face made me quickly toss it in the trash. (Sorry Molly). The Save the Date, however, was the main attraction and Jen and I knew right away we had to give a little shout out to Molly on our blog for creating such a unique STD.

A few months ago Molly had blogged about creating silhouettes for their hallway with pictures of their family. They created these colorful works of art that, of course, everyone loved:

Their Save the Date was a nice spin on the same project:

Thanks to Molly's blog and their Save the Dates I've decided to take up my own silhouette project since our living room walls are still pretty bare. I'll have to update the blog when I complete it. Until then, keep clicking on Molly's blog and checking back with us for some new inspiration heading your way.

~LGT

Baby Shower Invitations: Eyelet Fever

2010-12-09T17:01:00.011-05:00

There must be something in the water, folks. We’ve got a lot of clients that are bringing some cutie pies into our life. People are straight up burning with the fever de bebe around here. And of course, as two young, newly(ish, for me at least) married gals, what do friends having babies makes us want to do?...

Make pretty paper, of course! (What'd you think we'd say?)

For her sister-in-law’s upcoming baby shower, our client Alana wanted an invitation that celebrated the girliest of girlie. {catch the sneak peek from last week here.} Well, we pulled out all the pink lacy stops for mom-to-be Nickole and Baby Girl Beseau and incorporated some pretty eyelet fabric.

We’ve been, ahem, eying the lovely ways the lacy fabric is used a lot lately, and there are so many things that eyelet fabric can lady up for just the right delicate touch.

{ found via: pillow, apron, sundress, curtains, necklace, buttons }

We’d been saving our own cut of eyelet fabric that we found ages ago for just the right piece, and it went perfectly with Alana’s girlie theme.

Throw in a cute image of the birds from Baby Girl Beseau’s nursery bedding, matched with a zigzag stitch, it was just the antique chic look Alana was looking for.

As you can see, we weren’t shy about the feminine color palette, and adopted a mix of pale pink and green, accented with a nice, vibrant pink (one might even liken it to Honeysuckle, Pantone’s new pick for 2011 Color of the Year).

And there you have it, some baby shower love to get all the ladies excited for our club’s newest member!

} jp-c

Sneak Peek: For a Special Little Lady

2010-12-02T17:10:00.004-05:00

Hey y'all! Busy week for us gals, but I just wanted to post a little taste of some baby love we're working on for a shower next month celebrating the arrival of a super little sweet pea...

{Hint: It's not a boy.}

Stay tuned for finished pieces...Now, back to sewing!

} jp-c

Embellish the Embellishments

2010-11-30T13:59:00.006-05:00

Oh, Anthropologie, how we love you! We love your attention to detail and those little special touches you add to every nook and cranny of your store. The window displays are amazing and the home goods are to die for.

We really appreciate every little nuance that Anthro has to offer, so when we were in the store last weekend, we couldn't believe our eyes when we saw the little embellishments they are now adding to their hand-held items such as candles and ornaments. Being that we love to embellish our own products and really pride ourselves in coming up with new and unique ways to make our cards stand out, we of course, saw the time and love that was spent into adding these touches to their products. They are soooo cute:

A little, wooden ornament was added to this candle.

Who doesn't love little mittens?

Cinnamon stick to add to your tea?

Cut-out matchbooks. An easy way to spice up plain, old matches.

A crossword puzzle with your morning coffee. Smart!

My friend that works for Anthro said that every store creates their own embellishments for their holiday products. It just depends on the visual specialist as to what they will create for that year. If you're in Anthropologie try to find these hidden gems. We couldn't get enough of them and we hope to find more as the season continues...

Royal Jewels

2010-11-18T10:25:00.012-05:00

The engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton has been all over the news. And let's face it, we don't really care about the proposal story or how their relationship blossomed over the last 9 years. We ladies only care about one thing when it comes to this fairy tale wedding - that amazingly spectacular, blue sapphire engagement ring. Words cannot describe how gorgeous that 13 karat sapphire is. And the fact that Princess Di picked it out herself back in 1986 (when lord knows what kind of engagement ring was "en vogue" then) makes it all the more poignant.

To commemorate the engagement of the royal couple, (and that unbelievable jewel Kate Middelton is now wearing on her ring finger) we thought we'd show you a wedding suite that has similar "royal" qualities to it. We created the invitation for a couple who were married on New Year's Eve. The wedding was a black-tie affair at a beautiful antebellum house in Virginia. To create and upscale feel for the event, we added our own jewels to the invites.

Congrats William and Kate. Here's to a beautiful royal wedding. If you need some invitations to the grandiose affair you know where to reach us ;)

Wrap It Up

2010-11-13T12:45:00.009-05:00

It seems the holiday shopping season has gotten a head start this year. Christmas trees, outdoor lights and holiday cards have been in stores for a good month now. We normally don't start thinking of the holidays until after Thanksgiving, but we couldn't help but get into the Christmas spirit when we stepped into the Container Store the other day. **Just a little side note: Jen and I LOVE the Container Store. We could spend hours in there. We could probably live there. That's how much we heart that store.** So it was no surprise that when we saw their holiday wrapping paper we absolutely melted.

The colors and cheerful and fun. The patterns are sleek and modern without being too overdone. As usual, the Container Store did not let us down. Here are a few quick shots of some of our favorite rolls:

Look how cute the boxes are, too! Candy Cane nirvana.

And this little box is ridiculous! It's actually a tin jar that looks like a log. What a manly way to wrap a gift.

We were excited to see that many of their color schemes and patterns were ones we used on our holiday cards this year:

So if you want to get a jump on your holiday shopping, go to the Container Store and get some of their fun gift wrap. Your presents will be the cutest gifts under the tree. And don't forget to send out your holiday cards early. Our designs on Etsy are ready for mailing!

Inspiration Monday: crochet flowers

2010-11-08T13:42:00.014-05:00

My sister is an avid knitter. She can be seen with knitting needles and yarn just about anywhere. A perfect example is this picture of her watching the Steelers game at a bar near my house. (Yes, she's drinking beer and knitting.)

So when we were concepting designs a while back, we thought it would be interesting to add something a little more tactile to our cards. We had seen crocheted flowers on clothes, bags, scarves and other items...

But we have never seen a really cute, simple card with a crocheted flower on it. So, here are the cards we created! We letterpressed each card then took the flowers my sister was kind enough to mail to us and hand- stitched the flowers to each one.

Eventually Jen and I need to learn to crochet. (For those of you who would like to learn how to crochet a flower, here is a really helpful link I found). My sister was kind enough to supply the flowers for this batch of cards, but I'm not sure she'll be so willing for the next time, especially since our phone conversation went something like this:

"Can you crochet some flowers for our new letterpress cards?"
"Sure."
"Can you crochet, like, 100 for us by this weekend?"(I had called her that Tuesday night.)

I should probably send her a thank you card...

Inspiration Monday: Ruff Translation

2010-10-18T13:38:00.012-04:00

The thing I feel like people ask most of our work is, 'How did you guys ever think of that?" I'm compelled to quote the ever-wise Lucas from one of my all time fave movies, Empire Records: "Who know where thoughts come from. They just appear."

It's true. Like pure kismet, ideas do just appear. Unless they don't. And that's when we hop online to our trusty design blogs for some distraction and, perchance, some inspiration. Kis...net. (Yes. I just did that.)

One of our latest series of cards was born of just such fortunate blog-wandering happenstance. Our design idols at Apartment Therapy had some lovely things to say about adding ruffles to your home. We fell in love with this chair from Aiveen Daly.

Now, this isn't the first time we've found divinity in fabric, but it was less about the fabric itself and more about the way it's been used. The ruffles add such an unexpected touch to a classic chair!

And, so, we asked ourselves, could we be so lucky that fabric ruffles could have the same awesomizing effect on a set of letterpressed thank you cards? More wisdom from Empire Records, and we knew we were guided by a force muck greater than luck. We were sitting on top of a good ole fashioned good idea!
Mixing solid and patterned fabrics with different colored thread and ink made for an eclectic little batch of fun notes.

Throw in some colorful envelopes, and there you have it, folks--some tactile, gratitudinal note cards that would hopefully make anyone's day. Would it be totally ridiculous to send a thank you note to the blogger gods for inspiring us with such a rad thank you note?

} jp-c

email us at info@farewellpaperie.com if you're interested in purchasing some ruffle cards of your own. they'll also be up on etsy very soon!

Fall Flop

2010-10-14T09:07:00.012-04:00

The weather in Atlanta has been HOT. Normally I really enjoy warm weather, but 85 degrees in the middle of October is not pleasant, even for me. Since I'm originally from Pittsburgh, I start missing the cool weather around this time of year. The leaves are supposed to be changing. I should be wearing sweaters with leggings and cute riding boots. I want to smell leaves burning and fireplaces... It was a "balmy" 60 degrees this morning and I could still feel the humidity in the air when I walked out to my car this morning. Needless to say, I am OVER summer.

This past weekend Jen and I had a lovely event at Urban Cottage to showcase some of our new letterpressed cards. It was called "Fall Love", but it felt nothing like fall. It was, again, at least 85 degrees and all the vendors in the show were sweltering. As I was sitting there, wiping the sweat from the pits of my legs (you know, that area behind your knee) and fanning myself with one of our cards, I thought to myself, "If it can't feel like fall here, I'll at least do something fall-oriented to suffice my craving for all things autumnal." (Well, I really didn't think that, but I did call Justin to see if he was willing to go to North GA the next day to find some fall activities. Of course he complied.)

.... Enter the Corn Maze.
So, I thought it would be super fun to go through this corn maze in Cleveland, GA. The website brags that it's the largest corn maze in GA , so it had to be good, right? After an hour-long car ride my anticipation was building. I couldn't wait to see this awesome maze. Pulling up to the farm, my hopes began to sink. Country music was blaring from a loudspeaker near the parking lot (aka: a field next door) and the owners (or maybe friends/relatives of the farmers?) were sitting in lawn chairs right beside the opening of the maze staring at everyone that was going into the corn. Granted, there weren't tons of participants at this point in the day, being that it was 4pm on Sunday AND it was at least 90 degrees, but there were some kids running in and out of the stalks of corn, so we thought it couldn't be that bad. At the entrance Justin and I were handed this:

And were told to find all the checkpoints in the maze. THAT WAS IT. That was the game. You were supposed to trudge around dead corn and look for checkpoints 1-7 to win.... NOTHING. I thought this maze was going to be massive. I thought we were going to get lost in all this luscious, green corn and after milling around for an hour we'd emerge on the other side of the corn like in Field Of Dreams and feeling victorious.

Let's just say we were in the maze for 10 minutes. Between the blazing sun, the phony paths that other people made through the middle of the maze, and the outrageously loud country music we gave up. I didn't even use my map to get out of it! I felt defeated and deflated. My fall fun was a huge flop. The car ride home was quiet. I must admit, I was pouting and cursing the stupid south for their hot weather and country music. "If we were in Pennsylvania...." I kept arguing. But we weren't.

The "view" as you approached the maze

Supposedly you could see the maze from this high view point, but it just looks like corn to me.

Trying to make light of the situation...

As we are leaving the mountains, Justin decided to pull over and check out one of the roadside stands that advertises the typical produce,trinkets and BBQ. I hesitantly got out of the car and walked around the grounds with arms folded and a frown on my face. I saw bushels of apples, some lawn ornaments and planters full of mums. I walked around the corner and spotted pumpkins... Then I saw squash... and apple cider.... and jellies and jams... I went inside the store and there were TONS and TONS of canned fruits, homemade breads and apple fritters! NO BODY makes apple fritters down here! I began to run around the store and went into a shopping frenzy of "pumpkin-this" and "apple-that". This was the Fall I was looking for.

One of the many rooms in the little roadside stand we stopped at
on the way home. Jellies, jams, honey and dressings as far as the eye could see.

Sixty dollars later and a car full of pumpkins, we head home. I am quietly content and glad to have found such a cool place in my hour of desperation. Now if only the cool weather will follow suit.

-LGT

Fall Love at Urban Cottage

2010-10-01T10:05:00.003-04:00

Well, it's been a hectic summer. Weddings, honeymoons, trips to San Fran, cars being stolen, computers breaking, moving to a new place, turning 30... you see where I'm going with this. Somehow, though, amongst all the madness, Jen and I have still managed to stay busy. Not only have we been working our booties off on our custom work, but we have been working on our retail lines as well! To help kick off our retail line, we are going to be at Urban Cottage's Fall boutique show. It starts October 8th and goes through the weekend. So if you're in Atlanta and have some time to browse the Highland shops, stop by Urban Cottage to see our new designs. It starts at 6pm on Friday.

Hand Did

2010-08-05T14:32:00.009-04:00

There's nothing quite like a hand-painted sign. The craft and precision it takes to actually paint perfect letters onto the side of a building and make it look like it was some kind of decal or stencil amazes me. It wasn't until I was in design school that I realized I had a love for this art form. A teacher of mine had us travel around Atlanta and take pictures of hand-painted signs. At the time I thought it was pointless and unnerving, since I had just moved to the city and wasn't sure of my bearings, let alone which neighborhoods to visit where I wouldn't have the potential of being robbed or car-jacked. (I suppose I was a bit more skittish back then). But after meandering around the city for an hour or two, I realized how much of this signage was actually out there and how much I really enjoyed looking for it. Growing up in suburbia everything was new and plastic and neon, but in the city, everything seemed more raw, imperfect and dirty. I was hooked. I have no clue what I did with those original pictures. I'm sure they are sitting on a hard drive somewhere, never to be viewed again. But ever since that day, I've taken to looking for old signage and the south has some of the best signs out there. Here are some old-school signs:

Can you believe how amazed I was when I was in Mexico and saw that everything was hand-painted! It was beautiful. Here are some signs from my honeymoon in May :

Yes, this truck was hand painted. I wish my zoom would have worked better to see the brush strokes!

A hand-painted street sign.

This was on the beach, so people wouldn't step on the sea turtle nests.

I'd like to think that all of these tid-bits of inspiration seep into my and Jen's brain and trickle out when it comes time to create new invitations. So, you can imagine how excited we were when our newest client asked for a southern twist to her rehearsal dinner invitations, even though she and her fiance now live in Australia. The bride is originally from Florida and they are getting married near her home town in October. Even though the groom's family is from England, they elected to have a southern buffet for the rehearsal dinner. (which was a nice gesture, if you ask me, since English food really isn't on my top list of fav ethnic foods.) We created a few options to emphasize the beachy aspect of the dinner location, but were really happy when the bride and groom chose the one option that really stood out in our minds. Perhaps I was subconsciously working while I was on my honeymoon, taking in all the beautiful signs. Or I was digging into my design past to recreate what started my sign obsession. Either way, we think it turned out to be a pretty sweet design.

Mexico here we come!

2010-07-29T13:49:00.004-04:00

So I finally made it to the honeymoon. Those couple of months in between our wedding and honeymoon felt like years in my world. Though I have to admit to Jen, and everyone else there that told me to wait for the honeymoon, that they were right. It was nice to look forward to something after the wedding.

Our trip to Mexico was lovely. We stayed in a cabana on the beach and literally drank the best mojitos and ate the best guacamole I ever had in my life. Our eco-chic cabana (aka: no AC no TV) was literally 20 steps from the beach. If you ever go to Tulum, Mexico, I recommend to stay at La Zebra. It was beautiful; pristine beaches, friendly staff, and amazing food. Keep in mind though, Tulum is not very large town and therefore it seems rather sleepy. If you want to get away from it all, then by all means, go here.

I'm just going to post a few pictures from the trip. We figured we owed you a new post, since it's been a few weeks since our last one. Jen has had family in town and our honeymoon took a good chunk of July, so we'll be back on track by next week. On a good note, we have been pretty busy w/ an upcoming wedding, so we'll get those pics out soon.

Until then, imagine you are on the beach and you can feel the cool wind coming off the Mexican Caribbean and the soft, white sand between your toes. Have a Corona to get in the mood if you have to!

~LG(T)

Going Green.

2010-06-10T13:52:00.013-04:00

Just when you thought we had done all we could do with green-on-green, we've taken it even further. For Lisa and Justin's July 4th weekend post-wedding celebration in her hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, we wanted the invitations to have the same personality of the Savannah invitations, but not quite as formal. Maybe, just the chiller, laxer cousin of the originals? With a little P-Burgh flair, of course.So we called in the fabric troops once again, and recycled the placemats from Lisa's wedding to make some awesummerific Pittsburgh invitations. I tell ya, we've gotten some major mileage on these bad boys—literally: they've gone from Atl--> SF--> Atl--> Sav--> Atl-->SF --> Pitt. Whew.

The way I figure, they'll carry all the good times and fun memories from Lisa's wedding with them to the reception in Pittsburgh. :)

} jp-c

Guacamole, Mojitos and Margaritas. Oh my.

2010-06-03T17:35:00.010-04:00

Only one more month until Justin and I leave for our honeymoon. If anyone ever asks your opinion about taking a honeymoon right after the wedding or waiting, tell them to go right after the wedding. Jen and her husband had a month between their wedding and honeymoon and loved the idea of having something to look forward to. They totally suggested we do the same and others agreed. Don't get me wrong, I like having a little motivation to make the weeks pass by quickly, but I'm the kind of person who hates to wait. I can't stand waiting in lines, at a traffic light, or even for the end of a movie sometimes. I always read the first and last page of a book when I'm deciding to buy it. (I can tell many of you are cringing at that thought right now.) But the point is, this past month and this upcoming month are DRAGGING. July cannot come soon enough. I can't wait to get my toes in that soft, white Mexican, eat guacamole till my heart's content, and drink my worries away with mojitos and margaritas. Until then, I'll just have to live vicariously through the travel channel and the YouTube videos of Tulum that Justin keeps making watch before we fall asleep every night.

A current client we are working on, has me definitely thinking about travel as well. Her wedding is next year on the beaches of Florida, but she wanted to have a travel theme for her invites since she and her fiance both love to travel and have lived in numerous countries. (Her fiance is from England, she's from the States.) We already created her Save the Dates, and are working on her actual invitations right now. She wanted something fun to symbolize their love of travel, so we thought a plane ticket would be a cute tie-in to their theme.

We actually used one of her old plane tickets as a model for the Save the Date.

Our client also wanted a little logo for her theme, so we created this "Love is in the air" logo.

This side actually was perforated like a real ticket.

So, if anyone has some good suggestions on how to make time go a little faster for me, I'd truly appreciate it. Normally I can't believe how fast the months fly by, but I guess I really need a vacation!

~LG(T)

The Big Debut

2010-05-27T15:53:00.005-04:00

So the big day came and went. It was a hot, steamy day in May but it was soooo much fun and was such an amazing time that I wish I could get married every month (minus the planning headaches and money issue). Everyone commented on how great the decorations looked and even my wedding planner said she absolutely loved them and thought our ideas were very unique. (Score for Farewell!) So, here are the pics. I have yet to get photos back from my photographer, but he just had a baby boy about two weeks ago, so he's been kinda busy.... Enjoy!

Set up for the wedding. Green fans and cute, little green puffs.

The guys before the wedding.

Me and my dad.

This is where we had the reception. It's an amazing organic restaurant. If you are in Savannah, GO here!! You won't regret it.

Set up at Cha Bella.

Our arrival at the reception.

Our menu board.

Our amazing desserts, thanks to tsp. bakery.

Paying homage to our dog, Harley, who couldn't be there.

Finally, all the vintage glass in action!

More overall decorations.