Ooo – la – la!

Two new designs for spring, summer and fall, both with a French flair. Collette is an eco wedding invitation, handmade cotton paper and 100% PCW recycled paper:

Collette + Desiree Wedding Invitations with French Flair

Desiree is a perfect invitation for a classically elegant wedding. You can stylize the ribbon any way you like: the ribbon is double wired and amazingly flexible. We love French ribbons!

Daryl just took some really great pictures of the Invitesite front area. Stop by and visit!  We can’t decide what to call this room. Cindy has done a great job making the space comfortable and engaging. The huge table at the front of the picture was made for Scott’s grandfather. The manzanita trunk is finished by Sedona artist Terry Mears. The wood back piece is actually a 125 year old composing table (for setting metal type).  We love to mix the old and the new, and the not yet dreamed of…

InviteSite's Showroom + Design Consultation Area

Customers have  been begging us for more Fuschia Invitations. Introducing Lollipop – a simply dandy DIY wedding invitation kit:

Lollipop! Bright Fuschia Pink DIY Wedding Invitation Kit

This style is perfect for destination weddings, or two language weddings. There is room for two invitations, one on each side. The rsvp set would be stacked in the back of the closed invite, held in place by the ribbon tie:

Pearl White Invitation Card: Two Panel Interior Lollipop Invitation Kit

InviteSite has 3 fetching plantable invitations for 2010.  Each is a booklet style, with a pocket enclosure, yet still takes standard postage. (As long as you tie the raffia in a tidy knot — without a bump.)  Three original letterpress printed illustrations in three colors:

Seedling Plantable Wedding Invitations : Wildly Popular for Green Weddings

Seedling Plantable Wedding Invitations have a letterpress printed cover, with original artwork by Scott Rubel. The design comes with planting instructions, printed with a matching design. We use luxurious Crane letter envelopes (100% cotton).

For your Purple Pleasure: The Plum Seedling Wedding Invitations:

Plum Seedling Plantable Wedding Invites: Letterpress Purple Flower

Again, Crane Lettra 100% cotton envelopes with baronial (pointed) flaps. Very textured presentation.

The third offering for Spring 2010, is Whimsey Grows — a really bohemian plantable wedding invitation printed letterpress in orange ink.

Whimsey Grows : Boho Plantable Wedding Invites with Cosmo Seeds

Let us know if there is a color or flavor we’re missing!

These designs are all 100% cotton recycled paper: the letterpress printed folders are 100% handmade paper. The interior sheets are 100% cotton rag, prints beautifully. Matching 100% cotton rag envelopes.

Sweet.

Thank you to all our customers that gave us such awesome and unasked for wedding invitation reviews on Wedding Wire. InviteSite won the Bride’s Choice Award for the second year in a row! Thanks to Wedding Wire, and thanks to our great staff who go the extra mile.

WeddingWire's Bride's Choice Award 2010!

Tabletop inspiration for a Winter Bridal Shower. Your friends will feel warm and loved.

If you keep your color palette simple yet rich, you will evoke a warm and rich atmosphere for modest budget.

Cindy draped faux fur over a lovely hand hewn bench. Gold paper mats under very simple flatware. Pine Cone Placecards.

Simple Table Setting in Rich Warm Colors

Lovely pastries from Europan, Pasadena California. Bread Pudding, lemon bars, homemade banana custard.

Appropriate invitations? How about Key West Eco Invitations? Sparkly and crinkly matching paper:

Key West Eco Invitations

Weddings are as much about passion as about love and family. May and Todd are having it both ways: their Burning Man Wedding this summer, and a large reception for their families later this year. (Invitesite supplied the DIY wedding invitations to the reception party.)

May is a fashion designer, she made every part of her amazing wedding attire.  We just loved this wedding!

May is so sweet and wonderful. This is such a creative and heartfelt wedding. The photography is fabulous. The wedding was all DIY, of course.  May did a great job – the details on her dress are perfect!

Curious Josh for totally inspired and passionate photography.

We wish them both love, passion and fun, forever.

People instinctively fall in love with magnificently crafted  handmade paper.  The subtly textured landscape of an artisan handmade sheet demands that it be given a higher purpose. You don’t waste it or throw it away. It just feels so good.

The natural deckle of handmade cotton rag paper

Paper’s rich and storied past is relatively unknown. (Fact: paper has been made out of trees for 130 years only. ) Couples we’ve worked with over the years are thrilled when they learn that the paper they are using for their wedding invitations has such a romantic history.

This is an invitation that we letterpress printed on an Italian handmade paper. Artisan papermakers have been making this paper at the same mill since the 14th century:

Handmade Italian Deckled Edge Paper Wedding Invitation Letterpress Printed Calligraphy

We designed and printed this invitation back in 1999. (Calligraphy from the master hand of Bonnie Nelson, South Pasadena.) People think that this edge is torn to get this look, but not the case. The deckled edge is an intrinsic feature of the papermaking process.

Making Paper by Hand: Materials

The best western-style  handmade paper is made from old clothes – rags. Specifically, cotton, hemp and linen make exceptionally gorgeous sheets. (Look closely at a paper copy of the Gutenberg Bible and be in awe. The paper is just stunning.)

Making Paper by Hand: Process

The rag is shredded and pounded in water  – to separate each filament of fiber and open up the cells of cellulose — letting water into the cells.  (Called “Stuff” or “half-stuff”  – the original meaning of  the word “Stuff”.) More water is added into the vat, the fiber and water forming a soup or “Slurry” which looks like this:

The Vatman pulls a Sheet from the Slurry Vat at Griffen Mills, UK.

That sheet in the picture above, is being formed on the “paper mould” — a 2 part wood and wire device. The bottom is called the “Mould”  which is a flat sieve of fine wire mesh (usually brass or bronze). The wire mesh is in a “laid” or “wove” formation or pattern — leaving its  characteristic pattern in the sheet.

The top part of the device is called the “Deckle“ — it holds the pulp in place during the very critical few seconds when the sheet is formed. The papermaker gives the mould a quick shake both forwards and backwards, to get perfect distribution of fiber. Deckle is a German word, meaning to hold or to contain.  The top part of the papermaking device holds the pulp on the wire sieve for the few seconds as the fibers interlock, forming paper.  The fiber bond is both  physical and chemical.

Some of the pulp escapes into the space along the edges, where the two parts of the mould come together. This thinner layer of pulp forms the beautiful feathery edges of a handmade sheet: the “Deckled Edge.”

More Paper Lore

Before the industrial revolution, paper was all made by hand. In the very early days, papermaking was a guarded secret, and mostly made for the Church, royalty and the aristocracy. It was important to know that a document was not a forgery.  Paper made for a patron contained a “Watermark” — which was the insignia that was sewn into the wire part of the paper mould. Custom watermarks are still a symbol of exclusiveness — and still used to prevent forgery.

Watermark: Wire Design Woven into the Wire Frame Mould

If you want to see some of the rigors involved in making superlative sheets of handmade paper, you can explore more pictures from Griffen Mills in Wookey Hole, Somerset, England. Sadly, the mill shut down its operation a few years ago.

It’s getting busy around Pasadena. InviteSite is up the street from the Phoenix Pavilion, where most of the floats for the Rose Parade get built. Here is a preview:

And another  view from my iphone:

View from Art Center South Campus

We were leaving late from InviteSite’s building yesterday, as usual. There is an incredibly beautiful building across the street from us, the historic Royal Laundry Building. It was designed by famous architect  Gordon Kaufmann in 1927. Kaufmann worked on the Hoover Dam and Scripps College, designed the LA Times Building, Hollywood Palladium, Graystone Mansion and the Athenaeum at Cal Tech. Sylvester Stallone used the Laundry Building for his boxing series, The Contender. Disney Stores International headquarters took over the building a few years ago and much of the product design goes on over there. The beautiful windows are mostly shaded:

Royal Laundry Building across the street from InviteSite

But, look up on the second floor – Snow White was visiting yesterday:

Snow White in Disney's Window

Amazing how iconic some dresses are. I looked up while getting into my car, and saw the headless ghost of Snow White glowing in the window….

Wonder what the good Mr. Kaufmann would think!