Ollie's birth announcements

Speaking of Ollie turning one, shall I post his birth announcement? Yep, I'm really that on top of blogging.  I almost didn't post about it at all, but I really love how it turned out so I think it's still worth sharing.

Our dear friends, Kirk and Eva of Sycamore Street Press, offered to letterpress whatever I could come up with for Ollie's announcement, and I couldn't resist an opportunity like that.  I decided to experiment with a large block of color, which is not really suited to letterpress printing which indents the paper, but I've been curious to try it and I never get the chance when I'm designing things for clients or the Pop line because I can't afford a disaster.  I figured that I would give it a try, and the worst scenario would be that I'd be out the price of the plate and have to start over.

 Luckily, thanks to Kirk and Eva's hard work, it turned out beautifully!  It was legible and still had a great indent.  The color was a little uneven and salty, and we knew it would be before we tried it.  I actually like it that way because I think it really highlights that it is handprinted.

 We are very fond of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are around here, and since Ollie is known for his loud growing noises, it seemed a suitable tribute.  That's another reason doing a personal project like this is so fun, I couldn't have used licensed characters as inspiration like this on anything that I'm paid to design.

I cut the envelope liners from Paper Source wrapping paper because they didn't offer that pattern in the size that I needed.  I love the pop of color it added.

 The pool-colored envelopes are also from Paper Source.

 I added a wrap-around address label that I designed and then they were off (six months late, but it's never too late to send out a picture of an adorable baby, right?)

Birth Announcements

I have quite a few creative projects to update you on too. It sad really that it's taken me so long to get around to share this one. This year my friends Nikki and David had a beautiful baby girl. Eva asked me if I'd like to help create birth announcements as a gift to themi (Eva is ALWAYS thoughtful like that). I came up with the design and Eva handprinted them on her letterpress.

Nikki and David like to keep things fairly simple with clean lines so this is what we came up with. (I wish I had switched my camera lens to one that would catch the whole thing in focus).

I actually sent them a few designs to choose from and their daughter Audrey immediately fell for that little penguin family.