invitations - week two

And we're back for week two! As promised, this week I will be posting some of the great ideas I received from readers since last Monday. I want to say thanks so much to everyone who shared their photos and stories. Now let's get started with an invitations follow-up!


I really adore this invitation sent in by Audrey Diehl. This was the great work of her sister, designer Marley Diehl of San Antonio, TX:

"My sister did the invitations for my wedding (which is on April 14), and since we're getting married at a small, mid-century hotel near Palm Springs, our reply cards were inspired by the popular mid-century hobby of paint by numbers. She took photographs of our hotel and traced them, scanned them into her computer and then we had them offset printed onto postcards. We ended up using 2 designs (I have attached an image of one of them). We included a small pack of colored pencils with our invitations, and then our guests colored the "paint by number" images before they mailed back the rsvp."




And moving on to another type of printmaking, here is gorgeous silkscreen poster invitation by Erin Jang:

"I designed our invitations like a poster, since we are both huge fans
of rock posters and the silkscreened look. we had them printed at a
silkscreening rock poster printer in seattle (the printer does several
posters for subpop label and for other indie bands). we rolled them up
with a separate information sheet of directions, maps, etc, tied them
with beautiful trimming ribbons and mailed them off in tubes. our
guests loved them, we were ecstatic to hear that many people framed
them and hung them on their walls.




"I also added a couple examples of another handmade invitation I put
together (pic of yellow/orange invites w/polka dots). I created the
illustration of a crab and bear (b/c of nicknames their friends give
them) in love for the rsvp postcard. and the main invitation was
easily printed on a home printer and the corners were rounded with a
corner rounder clipper you can easily buy at any craft store." Check out more of Erin's work here.


Carolyn Burgess Sellers and her husband used the block printing method for this charming design:

"We hand carved linoleum blocks for our reception invites. I wanted them to be like little pieces of art that our guests could keep, even frame if they wanted too. On the backside of the love birds block print, was the invite."


And, after successfully creating her own invitation on her Gocco printer, Heather Toupin now has an etsy store for custom work. The printing quality is lovely and has a beautiful antique look.



Joelle McNichol and her husband of London, UK based their cool wedding programs on a Fanzine design style:

"My invites were... designed to look a bit like a gig flyer. A lot of our ideas came from our shared love of independent music and the style that goes with it. We had them printed on nice textured heavy weight cream paper".






Finally, here is an invitation created by Lisa at Good on Paper. I featured a lot of letterpress last week, but had to include this because of the really unique design.




AND, I'm very pleased to announce that Debbie and Harold at Boxcar Press and
Bella Figura, have greatly expanded the guide to creating artwork for letterpress. Please check it out!