Paper Goodness

Studio Sneak Peek: Wild Peony

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"Wild Peony" copyright courtney khail stationery and design (feel free to share, but please give credit and link back to my site)

This week's new design is the Wild Peony. Often I think people view peonies as a more luxurious, delicate flower (probably due to it's super short growing season and therefore they aren't locally available year round) but for this design I wanted to give it a more wild, "freshly picked from a garden" feeling. Kind of a mixed bouquet of sorts- with small delicate blooms combined with the lush peony and then juxtaposed against the hardness of the berries. I really enjoy seeing when different textures and unique pieces are combined in arrangements and decided to bring that into this design. (This is a common theme throughout my new designs so you may here that a lot over the new few weeks.) Not only does it bring visual interest, but it also creates more depth to the piece.

As for the invitation, one of my best friends got married at Boone Hall Plantation in South Carolina and I loved the entire feeling of the place. (There were gardens, tree lined drives, and huge green fields all on the water.) It had such a beautiful balance of the wild and the traditional so when I was designing thinking of where to take the invitation to showcase the "Wild Peony" design I knew I wanted to pull inspiration from that experience. Hope you enjoy it!

stamps

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designed by Coral Pheasant found via Beast Pieces

why don't we all use big stamps more often? This is such a cool (and easy) twist.

So as you probably already know... it's Friday! Any big plans for your weekend? I'll be spending the rest of the day at the printers, painting, and (fingers crossed) watching the Braves. Might even get to see my mom and sister tomorrow morning and then Sunday is a special special day because it's my Dad's birthday!!!

Oh and did I mention it is FINALLY cooling off down here? No? Well, it is. And thank goodness because I've been dying to wear my boots and my cardigans. Sigh, I love cool weather.

Happy weekend everyone!!

picnic invite

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J. and I are hosting a couples picnic in the park and given that I love invitations (never would have guessed, right?) I knew facebooking this just wouldn't do. Also, since the guest list is small I knew I could really go over the top with materials etc. without killing myself with the price or the workload. This is the final product (read on to see how I made them!)

copyright courtney khail stationery and design

First, I hit up Lowes. Thanks to a really nice man in flooring, I picked up a (rather large) sample of AstroTurf for free. Luckily though, AstroTurf really isn't that expensive so even if I had to buy it, it wouldn't break the bank.

Second, I headed to the fabric store and found a plaid that would fit perfectly with the decorations for the picnic and bought 1 yard of it.

At home, I cut the AstroTurf into invitation sized rectangles (really really messy btw) and then cut the fabric into smaller (but still proportional) rectangles. After that I cut small pieces of scrap watercolor paper I had and hand wrote the main information for the picnic on them. I then hand sewed the fabric to the AstroTurf and then hot glued the info onto the middle of the fabric. (I have yet to master the hot glue gun. I always burn myself!)

If you have ever looked at the back of AstroTurf you'll see that it is REALLY ugly. (Add not so straight hand sewn threads and it's just that much worse.) To hide all of that, I covered the back with regular kraft paper. (I had a huge roll of it thanks to my mom since she knows I like to wrap all of our gifts in it.) In addition to making it look cleaner, the paper also gave me the space to write a little more about the party on the back (like direction info, what to bring, etc.) without cluttering up the front.

Lastly, I slide them into envelopes I had hand addressed in black ink, sealed them up and mailed them out!

What do you all think? Do you like them as much as I do?

from the studio: sonja and blake

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It's been too long since my last "from the studio" so today I thought I'd share my latest custom invitation!

copyright courtney khail stationery and design

A little back story:

When Sonja first emailed me, she knew she wanted a custom handwritten invitation, but wasn't 100% sure what she wanted those invitations to look like. She and Blake are both outdoorsy and very active (they got engaged on top of Mt. Rainer!) so we both knew their invitations had to have a natural vibe- wild, but still elegant. After we talked colors and wording, Sonja told me that their venue is covered in California poppies and Indian paintbrush blooms and we both knew right away that one, or both, of those had to be incorporated. I drew up a few different options, but in the end we all fell in love with this one! Having the viewpoint from slightly below makes the guests feel as though they are walking through a poppy field, while the bright orange blooms pop against the hand penned black ink. I love how these came together! And with each one just slightly different from the next, they really do look like a field of poppies when seen together.

Hope you enjoy!

Awards for the everyday

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I love this idea! Pretty sure my husband would make fun of me, but I'd be alright with that. Plus, I know he'd secretly love it.

via how about orange

On a side note, yesterday I spent 7 hours "spring cleaning." I have never seen the baseboards so clean! Of course, then I realized I spent 7 hours cleaning, and to catch up worked until 2am. Good thing I'm a night owl! Hope everyone is having a lovely week so far- be back tomorrow!

Lauren + Kyle (Studio Peek)

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copyright courtney khail stationery and design

Happy Friday everyone! I hope everyone is having a great day and that everyone's weekend is just as wonderful.

I wanted to share an invitation I created a little while ago for the lovely Lauren. She and her husband to be Kyle are getting married this month and are having a small intimate reception to celebrate. To let friends and family know of their plans, she asked me to create an invitation inspired by the old tradition of guests receiving a hand written note from the bride (or bride's family) inviting guests to the celebration. Because Lauren is using white hydrangeas as her main flower, she chose my hydrangea design and I painted them with the light green and yellow washes that are commonly found on "white" hydrangeas. Inside the note card, each guest was greeted with a note hand written especially for them. I had a great time making these for Lauren, and wish the two of them the best! I hope your wedding and marriage is everything you both hope it will be.

And can I just say one more time how much I love that the hand written tradition is coming back to the wedding scene? It's just so personal and special!

Peek into the Studio

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the invitationscopyright courtney khail stationery and design

the rsvp envelopes copyright courtney khail stationery and design

Just wanted to show you all a little of what has been keeping me so busy these past few days.

This is an order I've been working on for a while now and I just finished the last envelope! It's so rewarding to see everything complete.

I also thought I would show a few things that have been going on this week outside of work.

A few images from our Valentine's Night dinner:

the table
yuuumm. I could live off of antipasto platters.

A lovely card from one of my best friends in Boston (I love getting letters in the mail. Almost as much as I love her!)

this made my night :)

And lastly, this showed up in the mail earlier in the week:

If you can't tell, it's the March issue of Martha Stewart Living. I didn't order it for myself, J didn't, and my mom can't remember if she got it for me for Christmas or not. Either way, it was a great surprise!

Now, I'm so excited it's finally the weekend! Tomorrow we're going out to celebrate one of our friend's birthdays (and maybe sneak in a morning hike,) but tonight I'm hoping for a relaxing night in :) Have a great weekend everyone!

hayley + ben

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Happy Friday everyone! With the week coming to a close, I thought I would share my most recent finished work.

Hayley and her fiance' are having a small intimate wedding, but that in no way meant she didn't want beautiful invitations, etc. Despite being far apart (she's in Australia and I am here in the US) she contacted me a little while ago to see if I could design something for her.

I don't think I could have said yes any faster! Small wedding in Tasmania? Heck yes. Sounds like my kind of a party :)

Hayley really loved the peony design, but wanted it painted in shades of green as opposed to the reds or purples I normally do. She preferred brighter greens, so when painting the invites I paid close attention to blend the blues and yellows carefully, using just enough blue for depth, but mostly allowing the cheeriness of the yellow to pop. For the text, I took inspiration from "the old days" (personally I find weddings from the past to be much more intimate than today) and decided to hand write each invitation. Because Hayley wanted each person to be invited by name, this was a perfect fit! It took a few tries to make them perfect (thank God for my light table!) but I am so pleased with how these turned out.

Hayley has been such a joy to work with! From the very beginning she was really open to new ideas and seemed to trust that my creativity (and type A personality) would create something perfect and unique for her. For example, she was all for having me address black invitations with stark white lettering (a look I am absolutely in love with) in lieu of plain white envelopes. And to have everything unified, she asked me to create matching programs (I'll share these after the wedding so I don't ruin the surprise!) and place cards. I am so excited for these two and can't wait to see pictures of their day! With all I have heard, I know it will be amazing.

So what do y'all think about them?

Anyway- thanks for letting me share and I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend! I'm hoping to make it to a friend's birthday party tonight (I've tried to squeeze too much into one night so we'll see) and then have a nice relaxing Saturday and Sunday. Any big plans for you all?