Wedding Favors Part 2

After my previous entry on favors, I presented the idea to my mom and fiance. Both thought vanilla extract was an awesome, unique idea. So, I bought 4 lbs. of vanilla beans in bulk and 108 amber glass bottles (12 8-oz., 96 4-oz.).

The larger bottles will go to some of the key players-our officiant, our parents, John's grandma-just as a way to show them a little more gratitude for all their love and support.

Following this tutorial on Ruffled, John, my dad and I cut up over 500 vanilla beans (!) and placed them in handles of vodka to steep. They are currently housed in the dark in my old mini-fridge from college, since they're supposed to stay out of the light. I go over and give them a good shake every now and then (once a week or so).

Next came the fun part: designing a label for the bottles! I started with a soap label (found on GraphicsFairy's amazing blog of vintage art) and massively cut it down:

 - all the excess border

- the text "Savon Olgalia au Muguet" 

+ "John & Dana's Vanilla Extract"

+ Border I cut out from another random label

=

Ta-da!

But, of course that wasn't enough. What is the use of extract if you aren't much of a baker? What ever will you use it for? That's why I decided to make a recipe card for one of our favorites, Saveur's Honey Chocolate Chip cookies. A hole will be punched in the top left corner and the card will be tied around the bottles with twine.

Front of card

Back of card

Though, depending on how much printer ink I want to buy, I may just print the recipe side and tie that on. We'll see how ambitious I get.

I love the mismatched vintage vibe of the paper goods. My goal is for things to be quirkily mismatched and yet cohesive in their aesthetic.

Invite Suite: RSVP Cards

In deciding to design and print my own invites, I knew it would be a lot of work, but I didn't expect the process I have gone through (the countless hours, and I'm not even done yet!). Case in point: the RSVP cards. Just a simple little card with which to reply and tell us you're coming, right?

Well, you know me. I have about 3 different designs mocked up with multiple fonts. You have to play around to see what works (or, at least, I do, since I'm not a trained graphic designer and I need to see different combinations to know what will look best).

Here is one such version. This was the starting point, a vintage french soap label with the text removed.

Which I then took and made a "backside" which extended the open space for text:

Then I had to settle on RSVP wording. I don't want to simply have a "yes" and "no," so I looked up all sorts of different ways to word the card. Some were overly cutesy ("I'll be there with bells on" and "Can't make it, but heard there will be people wearing bells"), some were silly ("I'll be there come rain or come shine!" "Sorry, out of umbrellas and sunscreen.") and others were stupid (many of them). 

Since the wedding is so vintage themed, I wanted something classic without being boring, and a little elegant. I settled on using "in body" for yes and "in spirit" for no. I like it.

So, then it was time to play with fonts.

...And several versions later, it was getting frustrating. I then decided the images needed something even more visual, so I thought putting a little divider or image between the two sections would help:

They're definitely cute. But the diamond seems a little out of place with the rest of the image. So then I went for background images, which consisted of three steps:

1) Dig up my old letterpress image files from briarpress.org
2) Open them up individually in GIMP (freeware photoshop-type program), add an alpha channel, select all the white in the image, then clear to make a transparent background.
3) Add the transparent image as a new layer to the RSVP card, and edit the opacity of the image to make it lighter and put it behind the text.

The result of all this was that I ended up with two that I liked:

What do you think? I think both are pretty great, it's just tough deciding. Perhaps once the other pieces fall into place, one will look better with the other elements. 

I know it's weird to design such a small part of the paper goods first, but I was just drawn to this image and it screamed RSVP card to me for some reason. I couldn't tell you why. This isn't to say these are the RSVP cards, end of story. By the time the invites are done I might go with something completely different.

Note to all fellow brides: DIY IS HARD. Just so you know. I am undertaking all this because I am stubborn and it's a labor of love, but don't think it isn't insane of me.

My new desktop wallpaper...

Found here via Lucas Sharp. Lots of pretty typefaces to behold!

A fanciful reminder to pursue what makes me happy in life, from cooking a good meal to learning silversmithing to listening to a good record.

I'm talking both the mundane and the exotic elation. Joy is something to be found in the steam of a teacup and the letter in your box that changes your life forever. Euphoria is to be found in a marriage proposal and in a moment going through your jewelry box where you pull out an old favorite piece you haven't worn in a while. Find joy in the simple things: a satisfying home-cooked meal, a few moments of freedom to play an old video game, a good conversation with a friend. Enjoy the little moments in this season of gloomy days where the color seems to have been bleached out of the landscape.

Love of Typeface

After seeing the results of the font-design contest on Design Sponge, I was so in love with the peacock font by Sommer Sheffield that I vowed to track it down. This meant opening an account at veer.com.

I know, right?

I don't mind, though, because I got 10 free veer credits that I can use to get a font if I so choose. No sign of the peacock font, though. Bummer. I guess I assumed it would be on there, since they sponsored the competition. I hope I can track the font down.

Did I mention I love fonts? I have way more on my computer than I'd care to admit. I get many of them from dafont.com. They're rather wonderful.

Anyways, back to Veer. They let you make a little album of saved favorites, and even demo each font with a little line of type. Here's the contents of my album thus far:

Do you sense a theme?

Fonts=pretty. I like to look! I've barely scratched the surface at Veer, but I'm sure I'll while away plenty more hours looking through their wares.