Save the Date: Abi & Spencer’s Art Nouveau Wedding

February 12, 2016February 10, 2016 ~ Bess Paper Goods & Gifts ~ 1 Comment

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Just before the holidays, I finished up a save the date card for the boyfriend’s sister. Abi and her fiancé are planning an Art Nouveau themed soirée this fall and wanted their invitation suite to give guests a peek at what’s to come.

Once I saw Abi’s Pinterest board—full of soft candlelight, sparkling chandeliers, swirling illustrations and hues of cobalt and gold, I knew I had to use this amazing shimmery paper I had experimented with a few weeks prior. I love that while it definitely reads gold, the paper is actually more of a champagne hue, free of the brassy or yellow hues that can make gold look cheap.

I created a two-color design inspired by motifs of the era: vaguely nature-inspired, but stylized into pure decoration. The white ink I used to print it plays beautifully off the iridescent paper.

I struggled quite a lot with the typefaces for this project, primarily because I don’t particularly like fonts from this era. I offered several more modern options that fit with with the design motif, but in the end, Abi and Spencer preferred typography that was historically accurate, and I was able to find several typefaces that I liked and worked well together!

I’m so pleased with how the save the dates turned out and can’t wait to get started on their invites, stay tuned!

Call for weddings: 2016!

September 10, 2015September 8, 2015 ~ Bess Paper Goods & Gifts ~ 4 Comments

Well you guys, it’s official: the 2016 wedding season has begun! Couples are starting to inquire about invitations left and right, but one on-the-ball bride already has her save the dates printed, and probably in the mail! Adrienne wanted the ever-popular coaster save the date, but she wanted the design to reflect her fairly formal wedding. I created a design that employed traditional typefaces and a fancy, yet very legible, script.

She also wanted to feature the crest of her future family quite prominently, so I created a vector illustration from the image of the crest she provided. I love how it looks in the gold ink! And my favorite part about these coasters is that I was able to get a fairly deep impression on the gold printing without the coaster cracking as it often does. I added a few filigree flourishes in a dusty rose pink that’s part of her wedding color scheme and voila! The perfect save the dates.

Getting hitched next year? Now is the time to order your own save the dates—coasters or paper! Get in touch here :)

Warm Gold Wedding Invites

March 15, 2015February 26, 2015 ~ Bess Paper Goods & Gifts ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been reshooting and pitching letterpress projects to various blogs lately, and it made me think about all the projects you missed while I wasn’t blogging last year! So, I’m going to start reminiscing and featuring a few of my favorites over the next couple weeks. Remember: if you see something you like, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

First up: One of the other wedding invitations I had on my plate last year. This one was a little simpler than Amy’s wedding stationery extravaganza, but no less beautiful.

When the bride, Melissa, contacted me, she already had a design for her invitations worked up—and it featured a crest that the groom had drawn himself. I love that the couple worked together to create their invites! I helped Melissa with some of the technical aspects of the files while she had a trial version of InDesign, and converted the leaves to vectors myself.

Since I have two different gold inks (one that prints like shit but is very sparkly, and one that is not so sparkly, but more more reliable when it comes to print quality), I sent Melissa a few test samples with different proportions of each ink to choose from. Then, I spent a couple hours chopping up some lovely Pearl white Lettra paper and got to work!

The invitations turned out beautifully, with the simple design really showing off the impression one can achieve with letterpress.

Drinks are on Me

February 7, 2015February 4, 2015 ~ Bess Paper Goods & Gifts ~ 2 Comments

Though I’ve been hard at work on the new collection, I found a little time to reprint our sold out beer, wine and drinks coasters! I’ve got four sets of each in stock (unless I decide to keep some for myself…). Get them here!

Beer here!

December 6, 2014December 5, 2014 ~ Bess Paper Goods & Gifts ~ Leave a comment

With all the new wood type I’ve added to my studio lately, I’ve been wanting to create more type-based prints. I started with this fairly simple beer print last week and I love it! It was a huge challenge to get it locked up in the press, but totally worth it!

It was also a huge challenge to get all the different fonts to print evenly. I wanted some paper show-through to give it a vintage feel, but some letters were so worn they didn’t print at all on the first few passes. Lots of extra packing behind the letters and some careful balancing later, voila! My new favorite print. Available in the shop—perfect to give that man in your life this season!

beer_4767 — Each print in the limited edition of 14 is numbered and signed by yours truly!