Alee & Press » paper love

Build your own letterpress

alee — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:02:10 +0000

It doesn’t get much better than finding a template for a mini Vandercook paper press! I immediately stopped what I was doing (anything for a distraction) pulled out my exacto knife, ruler, bone folder, and glue. Those 15 minutes were heaven and now I have the cutest press ever. I wonder if Justin would mind if I decorated our Christmas tree this year with multi-color mini Vandercooks. Thanks to those over at Baltimore Print Studios for the diy… you guys rock & definitely just made my day!

If I only had this Coccoina glue to put it together with. Isn’t this the most beautiful packaging for glue? It’s made from potato startch + its suppose to smell like Marzipan! Might be worth a little taste…

She said yes…

alee — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:26:18 +0000

We designed and printed these for my engagement party that my parents threw. It wasn’t just any engagement party either. It turned into a 3 night escape into the mountains, in Idaho, at some of my families cabins. They hosted 85+ guests in cabins and took everyone white water rafting! It was incredible to say the least, and one of the most memorable weekends we’ve ever had. How cute are these invite postcards? They were duplexed (2 different sheets glued together) and went through the press more times than I want to remember.

Grandma Latte

alee — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:47:06 +0000

New custom stationery design for Grandma Latte. She didn’t want to be known as just Grandma to her grand kids, so being a huge lover of latte’s, she started having the kiddos call her Grandma Latte and it stuck. We think that it’s pretty cute and the stationery definitely speaks to this very stylish grandma.

Crafty Friends

alee — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:17:32 +0000

My dear friend Martha (used to work with her over at Iconologic) designed her save-the-dates + wedding invites and came over one day and we had some fun on the press. Aren’t the love birds so cute?! I can’t wait for her wedding to see how all her other ideas play out… You can see more over at 100 Layer Cake here and here.

"Our Sweet Day in May"

alee — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:19:12 +0000

It’s official. I’m now Mrs. Clarno and get to spell my name out every time I say it. I may stick to Thomas for that sort of thing and still don’t know how I feel about changing my name. Anyway, the wedding was amazing & only a few things didn’t go as planned, but I was prepared for that! Our photographers, Ella Blue, were AMAZING and posted more of our images on their blog. It’s a bit sad that it’s all said and done. I had so much fun over the last year planning every little detail, that most people probably never noticed. But that’s fine with me, I definitely noticed! Now, on to married life & getting to obsess about everyone else’s weddings!

Remember our save-the-dates? I had all our guests draw a picture of their face and then send it back to us as part of the rsvp card. It was a huge hit with most of our guests… although a few didn’t really understand the request! (I know it was out of the norm but it was very clearly worded…) I then used them to design the cover of our guest book which I think turned out pretty dang cute. We had a bunch of colored pens on the table so people could draw, write or doodle anything they wanted in our book.

You are invited…

alee — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:46:33 +0000

The wedding invitations that I’ve been hounded about by everyone. They’re here! I had originally planned to just use an existing design from our wedding collection that I love but soon realized that that idea wouldn’t fly. So after weeks of designing and printing, I had produced the most elaborate invites to ever come out of our studio! Each invitation went through the press 12 different times (you should see my arm!) and then required some intense production work. Since our wedding was where I grew up (Walla Walla, WA), and was going to be a destination for so many of our guests, we wanted to include a lot of information for everyone. The Walla Walla Valley is home to over 100 wineries, and being big into wine ourselves, we thought it would be a great idea to showcase some of our favorite wineries. We used it as a way to lure some of our out of town guests to this small town in the middle of nowhere. We wanted something completely different, but still refined with a lot of personality. The idea for the invitation was based around this custom designed foldable map of the area and the rest just fell into place…

The actual invitation made up the band that held the map shut.

The invitation suite came inside of glassine envelopes with “Our Sweet Day in May” logo attached to the front. It was then mailed inside of a heavy duty envelope. White hand calligraphy was used to address the invitations.

Backside of the invitation suite. Hand illustrated flowers poke through the band. Once the rsvp card + event cards are removed the stick people, used on the save-the-dates make their second appearance.

Hand drawn wine tasting map included different tasting iternaries and marked all our favorite wineries in the valley. All wedding venues + favorite local restaurants were pointed out.

Save-the-date

alee — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:26:12 +0000

These were the save-the-dates for “Our Sweet Day in May”. We asked our guests to doodle pictures of their faces and send them back to us. Getting the mail has never been so fun!