InviteSite  Makes  Invitation Tickets & Menus for Duke & Duchess of Cambridge BAFTA Event

Inspires New Letterpress Wedding Invitation Line

We had to keep it a secret for months: The InviteSite team produced the invitation tickets and menus for theDuke and Duchess of Cambridge BAFTA Brits to Watch event in July. It was truly a BLAST! So, in light of that honor — we created a line of letterpress wedding invitations that use the same really lush and thick ecru cotton paper and rich antique gold Italian pearlescent carstock. We named the design after the isle in Wales where the Royal couple reside: Angelesey.

Monogram Letterpress Angelsey Wedding Invitation

This is the menu Scott designed and printed letterpress on 600 gms 100% cotton cardstock. A photo of The Duchess of Cambridge’s actual menu from the BAFTA Dinner:

Menu for the Duchess of Cambridge for BAFTA Gala - First Calligraphy Version (Scott Rubel Invitesite design, calligraphy by Bonnie Nelson

This is how the menu looked on the table:

Table Setting, BAFTA Brits to Watch - Menu designed by InviteSite team

Pasadena Wind Storm December 2011

If you had trouble reaching us last week, apologies. A powerful windstorm blew Pasadena this way and that. Gusts were clocked at over 100 MPH, and thousands of huge, grand trees were flung down. Roots of three giant old trees ripped up the sidewalk on a short block of Green St, a popular stretch of Old Town Pasadena:

Pasadena Wind Storm Green St Downed Tree

Castle Green in the Background

The magnificent Castle Green is in the background, which helps give a sense of scale to how large the downed trees are!

Scott and I live in the hills between downtown LA and Pasadena, and we got quite a show. Transformers blew all over the city and the arching electricity illuminated the dancing trees. The winds were not sustained – like in a hurricane –  more like whirling invisible devils. Quiet, then some mad spirit would explode through the trees. Quite a night.

Finally, more than a week later, power has been restored to most of the San Gabriel Valley and Los Angeles.

Tornados and freak storms roared through America this year – changing lives, families and entire cities, forever.

2011 is The Year of the Big Wind.

In 1903 William Butler Yeats – the great poet of romance and unseen spirits – used ‘in the year of the big wind“  to end  In the Seven Woods, the first book printed by  The Dun Emer Press (later the Cuala Press). The phrase has haunted me for years. Such a beautiful, sweet book. Printed by women on handmade paper made in Ireland, printed and published by Elizabeth Corbet Yeats, WB’s sister.

Colophon for In the Seven Woods, Dun Emer Press, 1903 WB Yeats

Thanks to UC Santa Barbara Center for Modern Literature, Materialism and Aesthetics for posting an image of my favorite colophon from my favorite poet.  Oh, and my favorite fine press, The Cuala Press of Ireland.

A famous (among women letterpress printers!) photo of Elizabeth at work printing:

Elizabeth Corbet Yeats and her fellow letterpress printers, 1903

First LA Green Festival this Weekend – Join Us! Booth 751

Nation’s Premier Sustainable Event for 10 Years

Get Your Green ON.  Hey! It may be Halloween weekend, but no reason not to match your Orange to your Green. 

InviteSite is exhibiting at LA’s first Green Festival, put on by Green America and Global Exchange. Our booth number is 751. We are going to have a special drawing for $500 gift certificate toward Holiday Cards – or whatever other InviteSite offerings tickle your fancy. 

Photo above is most likely from the San Francisco Green Festival, which is a thing of beauty. Really fabulous. So much fun/

So please, stop by and say HELLO.

Bees go Crazy over InviteSite’s Wildflower mix Wedding Invitations

~ Brides Keen on the Design and Value ~

Ok, so I’ve got tabloid fever with all the news out of England these days. So forgive the overblown title!  But truly, we are just lovin’ the new seed paper we’ve gotten in for Invitesite’s extremely popular plantable wedding invitations. Nothing I love more than seeing stacks of beautifully assembled wedding invitations. Yes, ma’am…

Plantable Wedding Invitations that Support the Bees.

Handmade cotton rag paper embedded with:

• Black-eyed Susan
• Sweet Alyssum
• Spurred Snapdragon
• Bird’s Eye
• Baby’s Breath

These wildflowers self-seed after blooming. The wild flower selection was carefully selected to help support bee colonies all over the country, many suffering from Hive Collapse Syndrome.

The seeds for these flowers are smaller that the Comso seeds we used in our papers last year.   A detail of the letterpress printed art on THE NEW SEEDLING  PAPER for the Seedling Wedding Invitation:

Detail Seedling Plantable Invitation : Letterpress Art

Display of Whimsey Grows Letterpress Printed Plantable Invites

Here are some images of the various flowers. If you click the photo, it will take to to the website with the specific botanical information.  These flowers do well in the northeast and midwest, though most are drought tolerant for southwest gardens.

Black Eyed Susan Wildflower

Black Eyed Susan is the State Flower for Maryland.

Sweet Alyssum Wild Flowers

Sweet Alyssum is native to Southern Europe, but has naturalized in America.  The plant is very hearty, loves the sun and is heat and drought tolerant.

Spurred Snapdragon Wild Flowers

Spurred Snapdragon are also naturalized on the northeast part of the US, but grow throughout America. We find them at our local farmers markets. One of my favorite flowers, my mother grew them in our garden.

Bird's Eye Wild Flowers

A flowering herb, Bird’s Eye is native to California.

Baby's Breath Wild Flowers

Traditionally associated to Weddings because the flower was so often used it bridal bouquets and flower arrangements. The wild flower is extremely hardy and sun loving.  Bees love this flower!

And lastly, Scott’s hand drawing looks so spectacular on a stack of Plum Seedling Wedding Invitations:

Stack of 8 Plum Seedling Invitations is as high as 50 standard Wedding Invitations. This stack grows Hundreds of Wild Flowers.

Custom Stationery for Weddings and Events

Unless you’ve visited  InviteSite’s showroom and extensive print shop, you wouldn’t know our history of custom design and letterpress printing. We still do a good deal of custom design work and elaborate stationery production for Los Angeles area clients  - many who have become friends over the years.

In the spirit of collaborative design, we recently launched 3MusePress.com – a site to showcase custom invitations for weddings and events.  These are more elaborate and collaborative projects and designs are priced on a per project basis. 3 Muse Press is still in development and we look forward to challenging projects to fuel and inspire us.

Invitesite is so well known for DIY, that we thought posting our custom work here would only confuse our visitors.

All comments as 3 Muse develops are eagerly welcomed!

Simple Wedding Invitations | Sweet Romance

Simply, when an invitation card is minimal, the paper must be rich and the type must be exquisite. Letterpress, engraving, or fine silkscreen: recommended.

To celebrate the simple card with lovely printing on very good paper, we launched a line of super affordable eco wedding cards this year, and the response has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic.

The line is so affordable, that most couples have had us design and print for them.  The paper is 100% cotton, thick, and made in the USA.  It is the same paper all the high end letterpress designers are using and we pair it with affordable, handsome envelopes, real pressed flowers, and lovely handmade paper bellybands.

These invitations come in standard but large envelopes — the cards measure almost 8 inches tall by 5 and a quarter inches wide.  Some designs are horizontal — with the pressed flower along the side:

Sunflower Pressed Flower Wedding Invitation

SUNFLOWER  - the design above, is priced at $1 an invitation, if you want to print it. (heads up, the paper is really thick, so only works in a printer that can handle thick cardstock)

Vivid + Glamourous Real Wedding at The Palace Hotel San Francisco

Sometimes we are simply astonished by the talent and taste of our clients. Alyson bought her invites from Invitesite – which isn’t the defacto reason she has good taste! The photos below are evidence of  her full spirit and tremendous vision. She worked with us in the final month before her wedding on a special ceremony program to honor their blending of Greek and Filipino heritages – and we got to know her better.  She and Scott (InviteSite’s owner and lead graphic designer and letterpress printer) designed  a custom letterpress printed wedding ceremony program to compliment the spectacular wedding she and Nick held in September 2009.  Their wedding was featured recently on Style Unveiled in San Francisco.

You can see the full post here: what a spectacularly elegant and gracious wedding! These photos with text are excerpts from Style Unveiled:

The photos featured in the photo montage are from Verite Wedding Photography of San Francisco. Gorgeous work.

Helen’s comments: I especially love the table settings. The colors and organic materials help make the atmosphere warm and inclusive – qualities that can get lost in a large and ornate room with such grand space.  Brilliant. It looks like palm leaves were woven as runners — might be a nod to Alyson’s Filipino roots and rustic sensibilities.

An Italian gold pearlescent paper was chosen for the cover of the wedding programs – and we letterpress printed classic Greek key pattern as full bleed borders.  A detail shot :

Detail of Aylson + Nick's Wedding Program

Jason Ritter filming at Rubel Castle

Jason Ritter (star of NBC’s The Event) has been shooting at Rubel Castle (home of InviteSite’s Scott Rubel’s first letterpress print shop. His actual home, too.) all last week.  Scott still has 3 of his presses at the castle, and cabinets full of type.

By all accounts, Jason is a great guy and would have fit right in, building the castle, back in the day. Meanwhile, he happily donned the Rubel Castle tee shirt — and looks simply dashing:

Jason Ritter proudly wearing Rubel Castle Tee Shirt

All that vintage horse and wagon gear in the background.  Ritter’s got really neat stuff in his eyes — wish him and The Event well.

LOVE IS … A CARROT  HEART ???

Yes – -we do love orange around here. Still, finding this in the bunch of Valentine’s Day late night noshing carrots from our own home fridge. Well. We just had to heart it,  Carrot luv: How weird is that???

Carrot Heart : Organic Too

From the garden of my favorite organic farmers at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market. Randomly retrieved from a crispy bunch on Valentine’s Evening.

2 for 1 coupon Via Green Bride Guide

Calling all DC, Maryland, Northern Virginia brides! InviteSite is joining the Green Wedding Pavilion at the Washington DC Bridal Showcase. SUNDAY, January 16, from 11 – 5 PM.

GreenBrideGuide has a 2 for 1 coupon:

Courtesy of Green Bride Guide

More information at http://www.greenbrideguide.com/green-pavilion-washington-bridal-showcase

We’re exhibiting with some really great green wedding vendors. Stop by the Green Wedding Pavilion. InviteSite has some exclusive offers just for the show.

We’ll be showcasing some new designs: new pressed flowers, really amazing prices ($1 – $1.50 an invitation).