My (printed) Watercolor Note Card Line Launches Today!

watercolor note cards now available at courtneykhail.com!

You can buy these over in my shop!

Well hello again! I can't believe it's been two months already. Okay, that's technically a lie. I can believe it because SO much has been going on these past two months. Before we get to the big news (spoiler alert, the title gives it away) Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I kept meaning to stop in and wish you those when they were a little more relevant, but then... well to be honest, I forgot. Between making cookies with friends, hosting our first annual Christmas Costume Pub Crawl (J dressed as Ralphie from A Christmas Story- pink bunny footsie pajamas and all), and traveling back east to visit friends and family for Christmas (which was so wonderful! in addition to getting to spend quality time with family and see some of our very best friends, my dad picked up our favorite desserts from this one special bakery so I pretty much ate my weight in fritters, doughnuts, and danishes. It was glorious.) well, between all that I just didn't really remember to stop by here. I did get some reading done though, so now I don't feel so bad when I think about how long it's been since I've read a real (well kindle, but thats going to have to count) book. What about you? Get to do anything fun? Hoping so! Even if that "something fun" meant getting some time off of work and lounging in pajamas all day. Lounging in pajamas is one of my favorite activities.

Now that we're all caught up... time for the big news! Remember how I kept alluding to "something big in the works" and posting photos on Instagram with sneak peeks? Well now I can finally tell you!

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photo via my instagram feed

Over the past few months (well more like last 6 months) I've been really busy trying to make a dream become a reality. From narrowing down my designs, painting, inking, painting again, meeting with printers, cursing printers, meeting with more printers, finally finding a printer who understood my vision and was willing to take a chance on my vision, to researching paper, sourcing paper, running press stops to check colors, tweaking the illustrations, designing a catalog, shooting the finished products, and updating all of my branding stuff (did you see my new logo over on Facebook, etc? I love it. It'll be on the site soon!) it's been a crazy ride. But it's been SO worth it.

Now, five years after launching my company, I am finally offering printed note card sets!!

And I am so stoked/excited/amped. (And a little shocked five years has passed so quickly!)

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photo via my instagram feed

So if you're thinking "but Courtney, I thought you already had a stationery line?" Well you're right. I did. Well, I do. But before, I hand painted EACH and EVERY card. And while I loved them (and y'all seemed to love them which made my day every single day) I realized they cost more than I wanted them to (but I couldn't lower it due to the time and materials necessary) and you all kept telling me how "you save them and only send them to very very special people."

Which was awesome. Kind of. I loved that you all cherished them, but my whole mission is to provide a touch of beauty and luxury to your lives, while nurturing connections and memories through letter writing.

And, well, if you never SENT them, I was actually providing you pretty art that stayed wrapped up beautifully in your drawer. Which is not exactly the same thing.

So I started asking and realized that as long as I kept painting them, you'd keep squirreling them away. So that's when I shared my thought of printing them with the hubs. (I find it helps keep me on track if I tell people my goals. Mostly because then they ask how it's going and I feel like I better have something to say haha) He encouraged me to go for it and soon after I started trying to find a printer.

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photo via my instagram feed

The problem? I had very high expectations. If I was going to do this, I wanted them to be amazing.

The best paper (a luxurious, super thick, 100% cotton paper to be exact) and I wanted the printing to look JUST like my painted ones. Which wasn't easy. But I was determined, and that paid off. Eventually I came up with a two stage printing process that would not only capture the subtle variations in the watercolor, but also capture the bold, raised (this was key) line work of my illustrations. So yea, each card is actually printed TWICE. It's definitely more work, and a little pricier, but it is so worth it. I kid you not, they look JUST like my hand painted ones.

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photo via my instagram feed

Which of course, is exactly what I wanted.

So there is my big news! (Yay!) My note cards are officially available in printed versions, and you can buy them from my shop (and if all goes well, from brick and mortar stores in the near future.)

I'd love to hear what you think about them (and would really really love if you could help spread the word about the line!) And on that note, I also want to say a big thank you to everyone who has encouraged me and believed in me- that includes you. I wouldn't have been able to do this without your love and support. So again, thank you. Thank you so so much.

Now let's go write some letters.

Studio Sneak Peek: Modern Daisy

copyright courtney khail stationery and design (feel free to share, but please give credit and link back to this page or my site)

Like I promised last week, I will be debuting my new designs each Monday that we're away. First up is the Modern Daisy. I've loved Gerber daisies for forever and knew I wanted to create a design inspired by them. Only problem is that daisies can sometimes seem boring or childish if done wrong. So, instead of going to traditional route of illustrating from above so you would see all of the petals (you know, like how you first learned to draw a flower in elementary school) I decided to draw it from a upper left hand view. This way it's still recognizable, but combines both a side view and a view from above. Given that it's a more modern and artsy design, I decided to paint the gallery view of it using a calming cool palette instead of something more expected like red or yellow and paired it with two different very thin sans serif fonts. (Of course, as is the case with all of my designs, this can be painted in whatever color you prefer and if you are ordering invitations and would like a different font choice I'd be happy to do that as well.) What do you think?