Inspiration Day: Holy Jackson Hole!

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!

Ya'll Come Back Now

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!)

Wedding Invitations: Old Fashioned Lemonade

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

Baby Shower Invitations: Eyelet Fever

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

Inspiration Monday: Ruff Translation

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!

Going Green.

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