A Brief History of the Monogram

During the Renaissance, artists and craftspeople used monograms to mark their work. The marks were engraving into plates, carved or burned into the wood of furniture.

Printers used monograms as a publishing mark, and papermakers incorporated their letters into distinguishing watermarks. Victorian monograms could be quite elaborate, with florid decorations and illustrations. Two of Mark Twain’s illustrate the range of styles. The Corn Logo is especially beautiful:

Mark Twain's Monogram Logo Stamped in Gilt

 

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) Monogram from the Collected Works

Contemporary Monograms for Weddings

Engaged | Enchanted | Entwined

Guidelines for Designing a Monogram:

Wedding Monogram Showing Name|Letter Positions

Keeping your last name?  Have a hyphenated name?  This is a handsome example of a 4 letter Wedding Monogram:

Four Letter Wedding Monogram - Not changing Surnames

Same Sex Marriage: There can be a joining of 4 initials or a joining of the two initials. If one person is taking the other’s name, then the standard 3 letter format applies. This is another example of an exquisite letter arrangement:

Custom Wedding Monogram with Calligraphic and Roman Fonts

Monogram as Watermark:  A custom watermark in the paper is a status symbol going way back. (How cool is a watermark?) To replicate that effect, it can be used as a background printed in a pastel ink.

Watermark Monogram: Letter Design Printed as Watermark Background on a Unique Wedding Invitation

A custom monogram can be displayed at the top or bottom of a body of text, on the back flop of the envelope, and so appropriately, on the front panel of your thank you notes.

Primping Your Wedding © : Simple How-To’s for Perfect DIY Details.

I am not a girly-girl – much to my mother’s dismay. However! I do love to fuss with a project until it is perfect.

Coming from a family of 4 girls, with a beautiful, glamourous mother, a sister who was a professional model, I can tell you there was a heck of a lot of primping in our house!  Self-primping, sister-primping, home-primping (mom was an interior designer), anything that could be fixed up, was.

The word ‘primping’ was a very active verb in our house. (“Stop that damn primping and get in the car, we are late!” for example…)

There was an unspoken rule: Primping did not mean splurging. Primping – when it wasn’t simply about a girl and her mirror – was always about being creative and resourceful. And caring. Caring to be the best you can be, caring to make a dinner party memorable and pleasurable, caring to make your environment as sumptuous and rich as you could muster. Primping means how can I make it better? How can I be better?  The result of all that primping was graciousness. Or, so our mother hoped!

From a Long LIne of Primpers

These tutorials are created with the intent to allow you some real time before your vows, before your family, husband-to-be, guests and helpers fill your day.

To Relax. Savor. Relish. And wholeheartedly Primp on your wedding day.

Let the Primping Begin!

Hebrew + English Wedding Invitations: Deep Letterpress

Two language invitations bring special challenges – best solved with artful design. This stately wedding invitation is letterpress printed in charcoal ink on 600 pound ecru cotton stock, and mounted on a letterpresss printed champagne frame:

Gold Border – framing letterpress printed  I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine – From the Song of Solomon 6:3 – in both English and Hebrew:

Curved Letterpress in English and Hebrew

Invitation measures 9.75 inches tall by 5.75 inches wide.  Impressive!

We’ll be posting this invitation soon. named it after a favorite customer, Elisheva.

Rsvp set gets mounted right to the back, using gold photocorners:

RSVP set mounted to the back of the framing panel: using photocornes.

The rsvp is 110 pound cotton paper, printed offset.

Close up of deep letterpress printed names in both English and Hebrew

Yes – the invitation is that thick and the letterpress, that deep! Sooo lovely!  Very classic, very stately, really rich. Just love how subtle this invitation is!

Green Wedding on a Tall Ship

Maybe it’s because I come from a long line of Irish sea people –  this wedding  really tickles my imagination:

Andrea Carroll's Sustainable Wedding on an Irish Tall Ship

Andrea Carroll is a woman close to my heart. Bespoke dress, recycled wedding invitations, and Irish feast fare.
From the Irish Times:

“It was difficult to find anything that would suit a large wedding, so we settled on one of the tall ships. We’ll be having our ceremony there and taking the boat out for a few hours.” In terms of traditions, though eschewing some, others will remain. “I’ll either have my dad or both of my parents walk me down the aisle,” says Carroll. “On a boat, space is limited, so we’re not quite sure what kind of aisle we’ll even have.”

Of course, any walking the bride down the plank jokes are not appreciated!  This is such a charming, highly memorable wedding. Includes taking the ship under sail. So natural in Ireland. And, so not theme park style.

How would I plan a tall ship wedding?  How would you?

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)