I was asked by Ilyssa over at Brenda Himmel Stationery to do an invitation for sweet Misty who works there doing graphic design. I was delighted! The guidelines included, no pink, no pastels, no cutesy. Uh oh, how do I make it look like baby without the cute??? Well, I do like a challenge, so here was what I ended up with. I typeset and printed the info for the tags, the return address, and the address on the front of the envelope. I then hand cut all the tags and labels for addresses. I then used stamp pad ink on a sponge to color all the edges. Punched wholes and added eyelets to the tags. Mounted scrapbook paper to card stock, cut the striped paper for the pocket and glued it to the base. Then added handcut flowers to the base as well. I tied fiber to each tag. I cut out pieces of canvas and rubber stamped "baby" on them and attached it to the fiber on the invitation tag with a tiny safety pin. The final touch was a ribbon around the pocket. Phew! After a day and a half of work, twenty-two invites were in the mail!
Here's a view of the whole background that the invitation sits on. The flowers that I glued onto the base paper I cut out of an envelope lining that I had leftover. The striped kraft paper pocket is from a Whole Foods hot bag!
A little surprise tag tucked behind the invitation with the registry information.
I had decided to do a few different background patterns so that not all the invitations were exactly the same. It was fun to play with the variety and still make the design work.