Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone! I took a break from blogging because we were closed for two weeks during the holidays but we are back and back with a fresh new website.

As 2008 ended, I was able to take some time and reflect upon the year. There were so many great things that happened for us as a company (i.e. our celebrity clients and being published in InStyle!) but I am reminded of the reason that Papeterie exists. Besides the goals of us wanting to offer stylish stationery for our clients at an unattainable price, and being able to do something we love that also pays the bills, we strongly believe in our hearts that Papeterie is here so that we can use the company to make the world a better place.

We are still exploring what that might mean exactly, but some small steps including donating 5% of our net proceeds to World Vision, the ASPCA, the Humane Society of the United States, World Society for the Protection of Animals, and KIVA.

My dream ultimate goal? I would love to open a no-kill shelter for animals.

Check back soon as we add the option of being able to choose from our list of charities that you would like us to donate the 5% too.

And again, Happy New Year to everyone and congratulations to you all that got engaged over the holidays.

The New Cosmopolitan Collection

A year in the making, we have finally launched our line of invitations with a full splash of color! Inspired by Sex and the City, the staff voted for "Cosmopolitan" as the name for the new line.

You might remember me blogging about this a year ago and wonder why it takes a company so long to launch designs or a line of invitations. Besides the creative process, there is a lot of testing on different papers to make sure that the quality will be acceptable. We have finally found a cardstock that is environmentally friendly and heavy enough for this beautifully saturated line.

Here are some of the designs. For more, please go to the Cosmopolitan section.

Bridal Shower Invitations

Brides aren't the only ones that can have all the fun picking out invitations! We've launched several new designs for the bridesmaids looking for something fun and modern for the shower.

Ornament Wreaths

I have been trying to decide how to decorate my home for the holiday season. My husband usually puts up lights on the outside but I am more of the interior person. I was browsing through Etsy and found these gorgeous ornament wreaths from seller littlepapoose. Some people are just so incredibly talented! My living room decor is in chocolate, tan, and blue with dark cabinetry so I think that the blue ones would be perfect. Of course, I tend to have a hard time making decisions when it comes to beautiful things (I just want to buy it in every color!). Hopefully, I can settle on something before the season is over!

Real Wedding: Sue and David

Earlier this summer, we had the pleasure of designing Sue Lee and David Moon's wedding invitations (picture coming soon!). Sue and David were married at the Hotel Bel Air and their theme was a 1920s Hollywood glam executed by Kelley Gin of Picture Perfect Event. Victor Sizemore Photography did a fantastic job at capturing the day and the vintage theme.

We used the Rococo invitation design from our Classic collection for the placecards and table numbers.

Congratulations again to Sue and David!

Digital Calligraphy

Nothing can really replace the beauty of hand calligraphy. The slight imperfections of the strokes and the beautiful flourishes are just a perfect finish for your invitations. Because it's done by hand, you can imagine how much time it can take and therefore, the correlating price. So I encounter a lot of brides asking me for alternatives if they do not want to write their guest list by hand or do sticky labels.

The alternative is something stationers call digital calligraphy or computer calligraphy. Simply put, it just means that we will help print your envelopes for you with our printers. If your stationer offers this, it can be a great saver for your hand! Not to mention, the prices are more affordable than hand calligraphy. There are several options that we offer at Papeterie. 1) Black ink with a font of choice (Picture 1 is in a script font that I love to recommend for digital calligraphy) 2) Colored ink with a script font and 3) Colored ink with a motif! (Shown in pics 2,3, and 4).

Using a motif as part of addressing unifies the invitation set. If the motif has been repeated too many times in your other stationery, sometimes it's good to use just a part of it (picture 2 is a good example of this)

Stay tuned as I will be posting more on different ways to dress up your mailing envelope!

Photo Program Book

Have you ever sat at a wedding reading the program and trying to match faces to the names of the bridesmaids and groomsmen? In a long list of diy projects the year that I got married, programs were definitely on the list. I wanted a program that would have pictures of our wedding party since they were such a big part of the wedding, but mainly being practical, I also wanted our guests to know who these special people were.

So here is how they looked like.

The program was made up of nine panels. The first being the cover and a panel each for the other categories (Parents of the Bride, Parents of the Groom, etc.) Warning: Do not attempt this project alone! This is a great project for your wedding party to help out.































This program became quite a popular item at Papeterie! Here's a variation that we designed for one couple.

Font Obsessed

For many of us in the industry, October would be the start of our low peak season. A lot of exciting things have been happening and please do check back as we are planning new things for the upcoming year.

I have many real weddings to catch up on but for now, I would like to introduce a new font that I've been obsessed with! We recently purchased this about two weeks ago. Rachel Zoe collects vintage dresses. I am obsessed with collecting fonts and graphics (fortunately for our customers, fonts and graphics get used for new designs!). Once I'm obsessed with a font, nothing seems to compare! Here are some items that we recently designed with the new font (it would be the script).




This font is so lovely and beautiful to me because it mimics hand calligraphy. For our flat printed collection, you can add guest address printing in this font for $1.25 per envelope.

Inside Weddings Summer 2008

Hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth of July! The heat has definitely announced that summer is here and another one of our custom beach invitations were featured in a magazine. We've done many variations of this invitation but this particular one featured in the Summer Issue of Inside Weddings is our popular papyrus wrap with the blue and white invitation mounted inside. For a touch of softness, the wrap was finished in a navy satin bow instead of a our usual tag or some embellishment.

The Shower Invitation

After weeks of delay, I finally designed the invitation for my brother in law's baby shower. The difficult thing about being a stationer is that a) people expect a fabulous invitation so there's that pressure and b) you can't just do an evite or buy generic ones and neither do you want to!

Here's the invitation!

New Look!

We have redesigned the website and we hope you like the new look! Besides the aesthetic change, we had started this project more for navigation improvements. Now you will notice that we have separated our wedding items between flat printing and letterpress printing so that there is no need for that extra click. Another new feature is that you can directly order samples of the invitation designs right on the product page instead of going to a whole separate category for ordering.

Yes, of course we are working online proofing...stay tuned.

Real Wedding - Jean Min and Hubert Chan

Jean and Hubert got married on March 1, 2008 at the Burbank Equestrian Center. Their wedding invitations were pressed in pear and pinecone and their wedding decor included bursts of apricot and red. Here are some pictures of their wedding stationery that we also designed. I love the cookie station that they had (top right)

Photography by Evoke Photography,
Event Design by Kelley Lee Gin of Picture Perfect Events

InStyle Weddings Summer 2008

We're totally honored to be featured in the latest issue of InStyle Weddings! This invitation was custom designed for a beach wedding. It is chipboard backed and wrapped in our sand colored cardstock. Tucked in a sinamay bag, it'll be hard for guests to miss this beach event.

Return Address Printing Part 2

As mentioned in a previous post, when you opt for return address printing for your invitations, we do more than just print you text. This is another great example from the Queen Anne invitation.

weddingchannel.com

What a lovely surprise to see our invitation for Melissa Shing featured on the front of weddingchannel.com! The invitation was letterpressed in blossom and pinecone inks and finished with a pink mulberry belly band and chocolate ribbon bow.

New Look Coming Soon!

Stay tuned, everyone! We are giving the website a facelift! We are always trying to improve the site for our users so thank you everyone who have been so supportive of the site! In addition to the facelift, we will be soon offering some neat tools as well for our brides to be.

Inspiration Board #1 Hamptons Summer Theme

A big thank you to Kelley at Picture Perfect Events for this awesome inspiration board for the baby shower we are planning for brother and sister in law. I can't wait for the day to come...first things first though..I still have to design the invitations! This board has been a big help as I've started the design stages. I've been referring to it every few minutes when I've felt stuck.

Planning a Baby Shower

My husband and I are hosting a baby shower for my brother in law in July. Yes, it's a hot month! It was difficult trying to figure out what time we should have the party start which also affected the location. So we decided to host it in our backyard with a Nantucket, summerish theme and I've enlisted the help of the fabulous event designer, Kelley Lee Gin from Picture Perfect Events to help turn my vision into reality. Here is a picture for inspiration. Kelley already has some wonderful ideas for decorating. We are having a taco station for food and are thinking of serving lemonade in glass jars. Not your typical theme for a baby shower, but I've never been known to do typical! Stay tuned in July for pictures on this event.

mywedding.com websites!

Papeterie has partnered with mywedding.com for free wedding websites that match some of our wedding invitations from the Classic line. The websites are completely free and have come such a long way from the ones when I got married. You can now have a blog and add music along with tons of photos. Best of all, they match some of our most popular wedding invitations! Check out these designs in Trellis, Scroll Pattern, Damask Border and Palm Tree.

E! News Again

So this is long overdue but we were featured on E! again for the second baby shower invite for Jessica Alba. It was such an honor to have done her shower invitations, and that it's big news for Papeterie to be mentioned on E! Like the first one, we letterpressed these on lavendar wildflower seeded cardstock.

Hot Off the Press

We just finished this letterpress job over the weekend and I am in love with the turquoise color of the monogram! The design is simple and classic but the turquoise just gives it a nice punch of color.

Jessica Alba's Tea Party Invite

We are still looking for the clip but here is a scan of the first shower invite (we did 2 and the second one can't be released until after her second shower). This was a little folded invite that we letterpressed on seeded paper (plant it and it will grow into wildflowers) and was included with a tea cup that was sent to guests.

E! News

Last night, we were mentioned on E! News tonight for the baby shower invitation that we designed for Jessica Alba's tea party shower. Clip and picture upload coming soon, but it was so exciting as they showed the invitation. Our pressman was screaming (he doesn't scream).

Return Address Printing

Many of our customers don't realize that when they opt for return address printing as part of their invitation package, that we do something more than just print your address in black ink so I thought I'd share some examples! Since we have put up a picture of a set on the front page of the website, we have gotten many questions regarding return address printing. So yes, if you order return address printing with your invitations, we actually try to incorporate a design with it. Here is an example of the dandelion and the starfish:
And when the pattern is difficult to make a design, we still will at least put a decorative box around it:

Notecard Spotlight

Though we still can't reveal specifically who our first celebrity client is, I can post a picture of the baby notecards we designed for her use after her baby shower. Stay tuned as we launch our Baby section with a collection of thank you cards.

New Designs!

We've just added 2 new designs to the handmade section. Since the trellis in the "Classic" is so popular, we decided to incorporate it in an embellished version called the Desiree and Mark. I absolutely love the colors! The strawberry cover is so refreshing and the ink was a darker strawberry for the flowers. The inside allows for tucking of the enclosure cards on the left hand side.
The second new design is a variation of the Julianne and Brian in a horizontal version. I love this as well because of the tiffany colored cover (at Papterie, we sometimes have a hard time designing with colors other than pinecone or java just because it goes with everything!) and the white bow. This is so lovely for a classic and elegant wedding! The inside is designed in swirls and has a pocket for holding enclosure cards.

Of course, invitations in this collection are customizable with ink colors, over 30 cardstock colors, and ribbon colors. I can not wait to post more variations of the invitations in the handmade section that we have designed for different clients.

Invitation Spotlight - Tara K.

We have just finished letterpressed invitations for one of our wonderful clients. It turned out so beautifully that I just had to showcase it. The invitation is a variation of the "Sarah and Brady" in our handmade section. It was going to be flat printed originally but Tara decided to go for the letterpress and I'm so glad she did as greens are just so crisp with letterpress. The set was letterpressed in apple and java inks. The invitation is mounted onto apple cardstock with a chocolate ribbon band. The enclosure cards can be tucked in the back of the invitaiton underneath the ribbon.

Swirls and Flourishes

I've been a little obsessed with swirls and flourishes and have been for the last 6 months. So get ready...you're going to be seeing a lot more of these designs coming from us in the next two months! This is one that we just recently finished to replace the Julianne and Brian in the handmade section.

Plantable Paper

I discovered something new this week! Our celebrity client has requested plantable paper for her shower announcements and I've never heard of that people! Apparently, it's paper that you can just rip up and put in soil, water, and wildflowers will grow out of it! How eco-friendly is that? After we finish her job and if all looks well, I think I will lobby for us to offer it for those of you that are having "green" weddings. The only thing is, because of the paper thickness, it can only be letterpressed.

Camellia Redesigned

I have been working on redesigning some of our letterpress invitations. The "Camellia" is the first to get the makeover. I don't have a before picture anymore but it used to just be the camellia at the top with the text. Now I've added a pretty border. What a difference that can make!

Renamed!

I've admitted in my previous posts that I am not the most creative to naming our invitations lines so the whole "flat panel invitations" in both flat printing and letterpress printing has bothered me for a while. So I was happy to change it "classic" upon the request of our pressman. Same invitations, great design, better category name...

Happy V Day

I've been working so much that I have forgotten that it's Valentine's Day!! Hope everyone had a wonderful one!

Baby Things

I haven't posted lately but besides the busy wedding season, we actually have been working on some very exciting projects! Though our baby line is not online yet, we do offer announcements, shower invitations, as well as thank you cards. We can't name our celebrity clients just yet, but we are working on some thank you cards, shower invitations, and a party invite for a baby line launch!

Amidst all this, I should probably mention that I'm 7 months pregnant!! I'm expecting a boy this time around and can hardly believe he's going to be joining us in two months.

You Name It

So I admit that I'm not the best at naming our invitation lines or the invitations itself. I'm glad that a lot of you still enjoy the designs and don't punish me for my lack of creativity in the naming arena. My latest "dilemma" is naming our new collection of invitations that will be coming out soon. The only thing I can think of is "full color" but they're not all full color. Hmm...I've posted some of the styles here (the ones shown here are full color but they won't all be that way). If you have any suggestions, let me know!

Is it big enough?

Thanks to those of you that alerted us regarding our website mishap. The site has decided that the font we have been using is too small and decided to upgrade itself to a VERY readable size. Unfortunately, I can't agree with the site and think that it is not aesthetically pleasing. Hope our webmaster can win the war against the site soon so we can have our old, great looking site back.

It's Back!

We had taken off our Envelopments invitation during the site and collection redesign back in August but I'm happy to announce that it's back!! Here is the newly redesigned square pocketfold (available in the handmade invitations section). Like the others in the collection, this is customizable with cardstock, ink, ribbon colors, and of course, motifs! We are also offering this in the diy section for those of you that are crafty and have the time to put them together!

Specials

We are currently offering a 20% off these LETTERPRESS invitation styles:
Circle Monogram
Butterfly
Pinecone
Dogwood
Double Happiness
Bloom
Circle Monogram
Retro Circles
Tapestry
Heart Scroll
Pearls
Flower Toile
Starfish
Modern Initials

The special may expire at any time so please email us at info@papeteriestore.com to place your order!

Website Update!

We are always looking for ways to improve our website so that shopping will be easier. I'm thrilled to announce that we have added a new feature to our thumbnail product pages. Now, if you hover over the thumbnails of each invitation design, a magnified version will appear so that you don't have to click on each one to see the beautiful designs. A big thank you to our webmaster!

Visually Impaired

So people assume that since I am the Creative Director, that I would be a visual person. I think that it's a fair and valid assumption but the truth is, I'm not! Many times, it's actually really difficult for me to see a full design of an invitation until I see it on paper. So it's perfectly understandable to me when I have customers that email us asking to see a "proof" of the colors they selected for their save their dates before they purchase. Of course, we can't really do that but now what I've thought of is that we will upload more pictures in each product page of new color combinations that our previous customers have used to help those of you who are like me to visualize what your color combination will be like. Don't see your color combo? Just ask us and we can upload one for you. Here I'm showing a pic of a save a date a recent client chose. I love her color combinations and would not have thought of this, but love the final results. Go Shannon!