Will You Be My Bridesmaid?

bridesmaid-card

We are so excited to share this fun project we just completed for one of our favorite customers whose daughter recently got engaged.

The bride was looking for a creative twist on the standard “Will you be my bridesmaid?” cards. Together we came up with the idea to create sets of paper dolls representing each of the bridesmaids.

will you be my bridesmaid cards

Her colors are orange and navy blue, so we decided to “dress” the dolls in the fabulous Oxford gift wrap sheets from Smock. Then, we had our favorite Charlotte calligrapher Grace Edmands pen each of the girls’ names in orange ink. We printed the invitation on a 5×7 card in navy and orange inks, featuring a poem created by the bride.

Our original inspiration was from this OnceWed blog post by Anna Bond of Rifle Paper Co.

What do you think? Please share any creative ways you’ve found to invite bridesmaids to the wedding party.

Crane & Co. Craftsmanship: A Photo Collection

Today we thought you’d enjoy a guest post courtesy of Jessica from Crane, with a behind-the-scenes look at the incredible craftsmanship that goes into the Crane & Co. brand of stationery and invitations.

crane & co. thermography operator

We are constantly in awe here of the intricate, beautifully hand-crafted work the employees in our printing and stationery factories do day after day. Many of them have been here for decades painting borders by hand, engraving names and images with enviable patience and making sure each and every detail is absolutely perfect before our customers open that Dalton Blue box.

With that in mind, here is a collection of images – taken by our wonderful resident photographer, Trisha — of some of the hands that make such fine craftsmanship possible every day.

Crane & Co. Pink Ribbon Baby Stationery
Adding the finishing touch — a pink ribbon — to our Ecru White Baby Notes.

Crane & Co. Die Cut Envelopes
Getting die-cut envelope liners ready to be placed inside our 100% cotton envelopes.

Crane & Co. duplex cards
Precision is just one of the details we pride ourselves on, which means each duplexed invitation is hand-measured for a perfect border.

Crane & Co. hand bordering stationery
That colorful border you see on each Crane & Co. invitation or note card you receive is lovingly hand-painted by one of our oh-so patient and skilled borderers.

Crane & Co. personalized stationery
A Crane & Co. employee checks the alignment to make sure all the type on this personalized stationery is equidistant from the edge.

Navy Swiss Dot Invitation
A belly band is carefully placed around a custom-made invitation.

Thank you to Crane & Co. for this informative and enlightening collection of photos. What do you think? Did you ever realize the amount of hand-crafting that goes into these pieces?

We’d love to show you more of this premiere line of wedding invitations, event invitations and stationery here at Salutations in Chapel Hill and Charlotte, North Carolina.

{© 2011 Blog Boutique | Crane & Co. | Photos © Crane & Co.}

We Love Bella Figura

Bella Figura offers one of the most extensive collections of letterpress wedding invitations for style-savvy brides, printed on exclusive 100% reclaimed cotton paper made just for Bella Figura by a 500-year-old European paper mill. Bella Figura’s letterpress invitations have been dreamed up by some of the nation’s most sought-after designers and calligraphers.

Bella Figura’s latest designs capture up-and-coming wedding trends ~ envision clean, minimal typography, fanciful calligraphy stylings, bright and vibrant colors, and motifs inspired by fabric patterning. In addition to expertly designed letterpress invitations, each Bella Figura design suite also features letterpress save the dates, menus, thank you notes, place cards, reception cards, programs, and coasters.

As eco-conscious weddings have grown in popularity, Bella Figura stands out as an iconic industry leader. A true environmental letterpress shop, Bella Figura uses 100% reclaimed cotton tree-free paper and eco letterpress inks, in addition to being wind-powered, a member of Green America’s Green Business Network and donating 1% of sales to environmental causes via 1% For the Planet. For employees, they offer free bus passes to encourage use of public transit and subsidize 20-week Community Supported Agriculture memberships with a local organic farm.

You can see more of this fabulous line of letterpresses wedding invitations by visiting Salutations in Chapel Hill and Charlotte, North Carolina.

{© 2011 Blog Boutique | Bella Figura | Photos © Bella Figura}

Making Spirits Bright with Envelopments

What better way to brighten the holiday season than to send your love on a beautifully printed holiday card? Whether you wish to send your favorite family photo or a heartfelt sentiment, printed communiqués make a great way to spread the joy of the holidays. Envelopments has created a myriad of designs to inspire and help you create an unforgettable holiday card!

Whether your taste is bold and graphic, or traditional and subdued, it’s the perfect way to send warm wishes, party invitations and your favorite family photos.

Pictures with St. Nick are always a great way to spread holiday cheer. Use the outtakes from a photo shoot to play with the “Naughty” and “Nice” theme.

Progressive parties are a fun way to celebrate the holiday season by traveling to neighbors’ homes and sampling different dishes. This invitation uses a Pocket Fold to fit a sign-up sheet and map in the pocket. Favor containers decorated with a label and ribbon send your guests home with an extra treat.

Large typography and a modern take on a menorah are printed on this beautiful Hanukkah card.

Ring in the New Year with friends, family, and Envelopments paper cut into confetti! This invitation uses a Portable Pocket which shows only the champagne bottle graphic, and upon pulling the card out of the pocket, the party information is revealed. Envelopments original artwork of a champagne bottle and playful typography are a fun way to expand on the countdown theme. Use a decorated envelope to enclose confetti as a party favor for guests.

Whatever the holiday you celebrate this time of year, our selection of holiday cards aim to brighten your season with thoughtful sentiments and innovative designs. So get creative this year: turn a Christmas card into an ornament, show off your family portraits, give an excuse to throw confetti into the air, but most importantly create a custom holiday card that truly reflects you and your loved ones.

You can see more of this fabulous line of Envelopments card stocks, pocket folds, and envelopes and get help creating your custom holiday greeting cards, photo cards, and holiday invitations by visiting Salutations in Chapel Hill and Charlotte, North Carolina.

{© 2011 Blog Boutique | Envelopments | Photos © Envelopments}

Smock’s New Wedding Collection

We have just brought in the new Smock wedding collection and we could not be more excited to share it with you. The collection features fourteen smashing new letterpress wedding suites that may force even already married couples to get married again. Think rich and saturated colors, hand lettering, organic shapes, and really amazing bamboo paper, made just for Smock in a 500-year-old European paper mill. All Smock products are made in upstate New York.

Smock’s all-new letterpress wedding invitations feature fashionable must-have embellishments, including unique die cuts, letterpress folios and pocket sleeves, hot new inks, hand bordering, and strong design, all printed on Smock’s luxury bamboo paper. These modern designs are about strong typography and pure wedding style. In addition to the wedding invitation, the new album showcases custom postage stamps, as well as letterpress save the dates, rehearsal dinner cards, menus, wedding programs, social stationery, favor tags, escort cards, reception cards, reply cards, direction cards, and web site cards. Several designs feature Smock’s exclusive calligraphy fonts.

One of our favorite features of Smock’s new wedding collection is the all-new Design Library. On trend with the latest styles for weddings, this new design library allows us to work with brides to make a design truly their own, with a gorgeous selection of hand-drawn and one-of-a-kind motifs; new inks; new fonts; new patterns; folios; sleeves; liners, and much more.

Smock is a true environmental letterpress and stationery line. In addition to printing on sustainable bamboo and 100% post consumer recycled papers, Smock is also wind powered, a member of Green America’s Green Business Network and donates 1% of sales to environmental causes as a member of 1% For the Planet. Smock offers free bus passes to employees to help encourage use of public transit and subsidizes 20-week Community Supported Agriculture memberships with a local organic farm. Smock regularly partners with organizations such as the Amazon Conservation Association, the Pesticide Action Network, and American Forests to help promote environmental causes that affect the globe.

You can see more of this fabulous line of letterpressed wedding invitations by visiting Salutations in Chapel Hill and Charlotte, North Carolina.

{© 2011 Blog Boutique | Smock | Photos © Smock}

Bella Figura is Here!

Did you hear the collective intake of air, inhaled in awe, as we opened up our beautifully packaged new line of custom letterpressed invitations? Or maybe you heard the harmony of oohs and aahs as we ran our fingers over the thick, pillowy card stock with gorgeous, deep impressions? Perhaps you heard the thunder of jaws simultaneously hitting the floor as we got our first peek at the work of some really talented designers. What you’ll most certainly be hearing next is the buzz of inspired brides who have fallen in love with some of the most distinctive invitations ever to land in a mailbox.

{We’ve had the albums for one week and we’ve already placed three orders ~ each one its own unique treasure.}

Just wait until you see all of the amazing goodness that is Bella Figura. This is what we saw when we first opened up the box! {Talk about capturing the essence of the moment!}

The albums themselves are a work of art. . . .

And, customizations? To your heart’s content ~ with no additional fees!

And, with respect to Salutations’ new mission, this gem doesn’t just meet the criteria ~ it knocks them out of the park! The luxurious paper is all tree-free cotton, the inks are vegetable-oil based and low VOC, the printing facility is 100% wind-powered, the company donates 1% of sales to environmental causes, and they’ve partnered with American Forests to help slow global warming by planting trees.

Bella Figura is a sister company to one of our all-time favorite lines ~ Smock. So, it’s no surprise that the line is simply amazing, but even we were blown away by a line that is even better than we’d imagined. We are simply giddy at the opportunity to offer more fabulous designs from a team of really stellar people who we already know, respect, trust, and love!

We can’t wait to show you the new Bella Figura collection.

Salutations Wedding Slideshow

Click to play this Smilebox slideshow

Here’s a sneak peek of the wedding slideshow I just made for the Carolina Inn Bridal Fair in Chapel Hill this weekend, featuring loads of luscious letterpress.

Enjoy the drop-dead gorgeous photography by superstars Richard Israel, Smock, Nancy Ray, and Kristin Vining.

What’s your favorite?


Hot Off the Press! Invitations printed while you shop

Does this scenario sound familiar?  You need to send invitations out for an event, but the month got away from you and suddenly it’s time to mail out the invitations.  But you have no time to order invitations, wait a day or more for a proof, and then go back to pick up the invitations days later when they are printed {or wait for invitations you order online to be delivered}.  No problem!

Salutations is thrilled to announce that we now offer while-you-shop printing on dozens of invitation styles, including baby shower, bridal shower and all-occasion invitations {even spooktacular Halloween invitations like this one!}  We call it “Hot Off the Press.”

If you’re like me, you know intimately the meaning of the saying “If it weren’t for the last minute, I’d get nothing done.”  It seems that these days, we are all up to our eyeballs in “To Do’s” ~ whether it’s work, carpools, volunteer activities, or all of the above.  We all have too many things to do and not enough hours in the day in which to do them.

At Salutations, we are all about problem-solving and making life simpler for our customers.  We have seen the above scenario played out every day and we feel bad having to charge rush fees to move invitation orders up to the front of the print queue and still not be able to offer same-day turnaround.  So, we’ve worked hard over the past few months to set up a different system.  Imagine this scenario:  You walk into Salutations and select any invitation that is flagged with a “Hot Item” tag; we prepare your proof on the spot for you to review on our new 22-inch monitor; when you’re happy with the proof, we print the invitations for you right then and there; you walk out with your printed invitations ready to mail; your guests receive their fabulous invitation in their mailbox, reply right away and mark the date on their calendar because they’re so excited about the event; your guests are impressed and amazed, wondering “How does she do it all?”

In order to provide you with this lightning-fast turnaround, there’s a wee bit of fine print:

1.  Hot Off the Press items will be printed in the same typestyles, ink colors and layout as shown on the sample.  {We’ve made sure the samples are set up with great fonts and layouts. We promise not to let you walk out the door with ugly invitations!}  Of course, you can always customize the typestyle and layout of any invitation ~ it would just put the invitation into our normal turnaround time of proofing within one weekday and printing within two weekdays after proof approval.

2.  Hot Off the Press printing is available for quantities of up to 40 invitations and {if you’d like} return addresses.

3.  Our goal is to have your invitations printed within 15 minutes.  However, it could take up to an hour if we have a large print job running through the printer and we’re not expecting you.  Feel free to give us a call to make an appointment so we can ensure that our printers will be available and to minimize any waiting time.

4.  Hot Off the Press printing is available from Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Many of our Halloween invitations are part of the Hot Off the Press program, so come on in and kick off your Monster Mash planning in easy, effortless, Salutations style!

Salutations welcomes Ceci New York

We are thrilled to introduce our brides to the luxurious White Label Collection from Ceci New York.  High fashion and exquisite craftsmanship are now available at a ready-to-order price.  Ceci New York is a design studio with an eye for detail and exceptional quality, expertly integrating trendsetting style, luxury, and innovation within every piece.

As the only North Carolina stationer to carry this collection, we invite you to call or email us today for a preview that includes: Save-The-Dates, Invitations, Thank you Notes, Menus, Programs and so much more!  Take a sneak peek at some of the designs on our Ceci New York Photo Gallery.

Each invitation suite is fully customizable by changing elements such as ink colors, typestyles and layout. The options are endless, with the line organized into four collections: Ornate, Destination, Botanical, and Classic.  Items are available in both letterpress and offset printing.

Lisa Hoffman, the founder and creative director of Ceci New York, is a world-renowned graphic designer whose work is synonymous with style and luxury among celebrities and design-savvy couples. The highly respected, custom stationer has received many awards for her trendsetting work and was most recently named one of the Top 25 Trendsetters by Modern Bride Magazine and Expert Stationer by New York Magazine.

Brock Moran Home: The Registry Launch Party

Last Thursday, I attended the launch celebration of Brock Moran Home‘s new wedding and gift registry.  Boy, was it fabulous!  Between the sophisticatedly elegant style sense of Brock McLendon, the meticulous attention to detail by Brock and event planner Dina Berg Blazek, the phenomenal sips and snacks catered by Chef Paul Verica from The Club at Longview, and the jaw-droppingly beautiful floral arrangements by Elements and In Bloom Ltd., the whole evening was inspirational!  And I haven’t even mentioned the expansive selection of top-notch tabletop lines now offered by Brock Moran for wedding and general gift-giving ~ lines like Arte Italica, Bernardaud, Jean Louis Coquet, Julisca, Pickard, and Reynaud.  Wow!!

We were thrilled and honored to be selected by Brock to design the invitations and gift tags for this momentous event.  We had the invitation letterpress printed by Dauphine Press on luxurious Crane Lettra stock in Espresso and Leaf inks.  We flat-printed the invitation to the exclusive preview in the store to match.  The invitation was then enclosed in a dreamy chocolate brown end-flap envelope, and hand-addressed in white ink,  topped off by a custom tulip postage stamp from Zazzle.

The gift tags for the guest gifts were also letterpress printed by Dauphine Press in espresso ink.

For a reaction to the invitation by an admiring invitee, see this blog post by designer Traci Zeller.  For photos of the event, see the post Brock Moran says ‘Welcome Home’ by the highly talented and ever-joyful Drea Cunningham of Casey Cunningham Photography.

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