Litterae + Valentines

I'm so ecstatic to share some big news with you! Today I have launched my own little online shop called Litterae, which means "letterforms" in Latin. As my husband teaches Latin, this seemed like the perfect name! I will be selling custom valentines until February 7th, and then will be adding an edited line of stationery products later in the spring. I'm beyond excited about this new venture, and was so thrilled to be able to finally share it here on the blog.

More about the valentines! My darling friend brought me back a stack of old french letters when she came back from visiting Paris this winter, and that is what inspired the theme for the valentine project. The custom valentines include a note scribed in jet-black calligraphy on the back of vintage 1920s postcards from Paris. They are mailed in cream-colored envelopes, lined in handcut, handmade, marbled yellow paper from Bangladesh. The envelopes are sealed with a swath of gold washi tape, and then the whole thing is mailed to the recipient with vintage postage stamps. If your handwriting leaves much to be desired, or you just want to forgo the traditional card route, this is a wonderful solution for you!
The valentines will only be on sale until February 7th, so don't hesitate to snap one up because quantities are limited.
A big thank you to Grace Bonney for her post on Design Sponge this morning!

Ciao.

Happy New Year to you, a bit late! I am so excited for the unfurling of this year; I have high hopes for the many good things that will come out of it. We are so blessed in so many ways- too many ways to count, really! My heart is feeling so full of gratitude for the many blessings in my life as I enter 2012.
Something I'm looking forward to most most most of all is the trip to Italy that Nick and I are taking later this year. We are out of our minds with anticipation, and been listening to Italian tapes to try to learn a bit of the language before we leave. Do you have any recommendations of anything we shouldn't miss? I'd love to hear!

Photos from Brian Ferry's amazing series notes on italy, posted last year.

Merry Christmas!

Welcome, all wonders in one sight!
Eternity shut in a span;

Summer in winter; day in night;
Heaven in earth, and God in man.

Great little one, whose all-embracing birth

Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heav’n to earth.

Taken from "In the Nativity of our Lord" by Richard Crashaw


Photo of a snow-covered Mt. Lemmon, taken this Monday by Miss Melissa Kruis.

Clementine and Hello!

It has been forever since I've hopped on this blog; life has been too busy for me to keep up! I will try to post more often this coming year. I have so much I want to share, and need to carve the time out to accomplish it.

I hope you are having a merry season so far. Today has been a beautiful, wintery, rainy day in Tucson. Puts me in the Christmas spirit!

I just wanted to share this photo of some totebags from the darling Vermont shop called Clementine. I did the lettering for their logo, and love how it turned out. It looks so charming on the bags! Check out Emily's blog here. Wish I lived in Vermont so I could stop in!

Photo from the Clementine blog.

Suites for the Sweet.

My little sister is getting married, and I wanted to share these details from her invitation suite. I think they turned out so gorgeous. We had the invites letterpressed with a charcoal gray ink on thick cotton stock. And we decided to use vintage postcards for the RSVP cards, and so she and her fiance started collecting them- mostly images of old churches and cathedrals, but some of gardens and landscapes. We lined all the envelopes with handmade Indian woodblock paper, used vintage stamps for all the envelopes, then sealed them all with an antique gold wax. The best part of the project was spending hours assembling them together- sister memories are the sweetest!

Love you, Katie and James!

Little Details

Loving these details from a recent suite I worked on with Sarah Parrott, especially the custom seal and the shade of blue used for the swath of fabric holding the pieces together!

Nephew Sweetness

I'm the proudest aunt of the sweetest little bundle of joy, Levi Benjamin! Doesn't he look like a little angel?! Congratulations, Katie and Hoss- I'm totally in love.

Spread on Once Wed

Wanted to thank Once Wed for including me in this spread today....love the invitation with the crane!
Photo from Once Wed.

Tribute to Jimmy

I was honored to be able to help Laura commemorate her brother Jimmy's life in tattoo form. He passed away in a car accident earlier this year, and she wanted to have this done as a tribute to him. I think it is beautiful, and I pray it will bring her some measure of comfort every time she looks at it. xo.

Personalized invites

Simple, homemade, personalized invitations for a shower I'm helping throw for my beautiful sister-in-law Katie and impending baby Levi! I can't wait to meet my nephew in a few short weeks!

Carrie and Ryan's Suite

I was super honored to do the calligraphy for the wedding of the brother of one of my best friends, Heather. It was such a joy to collaborate on the suite with Heather, and see them come to life. Each one was different and unique, according to the specific envelope liners, vintage stamps, and colors of wax and twine used. Congrats, Carrie and Ryan, and blessings on your new life together!
Photography by Heather Baker.

Harmony....

I've been loving Fleet Foxes' new album so much lately, and it has reminded me of my extreme keenness for Simon and Garfunkel, developed increasingly over the course of my childhood. I have such fond memories of lying in the living room with my mother in the summer, listening to S & G albums. The harmonies on the title track of Helplessness Blues, in particular, are just so reminiscent of Simon and Garfunkel, I can't believe it. And I love it.

Congrats, David and Shanin!

Congratulations to David and Shanin, a lovely couple I had the pleasure of working with a few months ago, who were married at The Gene Autry House at The Parker, Palm Springs. All of the event design, florals, and day-of coordination was done by the amazingly talented ladies over at Bash, Please. I was blown away by all the gorgeous details! Max Wanger did the amazing photography. See more lovely photos and info over at 100 Layer Cake.

Photos from 100 Layer Cake
and Max Wanger's lovely photo blog.

Written by Hand

I've been meaning to post this forever, but am just finally getting around to it! Was super honored to have been included in the article "Written by Hand" in the Spring edition of Martha Stewart Weddings. So many talented calligraphers were featured, and I felt so honored to be included. Thank you, everyone over at MSW!

Hello, Summer!

Hi there! Can't believe it has almost been three months(!) since I've popped in here. This has been an absolutely insane wedding season. I can't wait to share some of what I've been working on with you! I love my job.
And can you believe it is full-fledged summer already? At least here in Tucson it is. I'm determined to make the most of summer in the desert this year. Although I think that will entail getting myself up to higher elevations as often as possible and waking way before the sun rises to take advantage of "the cool" before the day begins. What are your favorite things to do to beat the heat? Ideas, please!
Top: Vintage postcard I found in NYC a couple years ago.
Bottom: Photo taken in San Diego last month.

xo

Happy Valentine's Day, all!
Give those you love an extra helping of smootches! xoxoxo

Red Folk Heart Card from Dutch Door Press.

whew.

Whew! It has been an insane couple of weeks, with valentines, logos, wedding suites, tattoos, and some other custom projects devouring all my waking hours- not to mention my ever-present nemesis: my inbox. Looking forward to things slowing down a bit in the next week or so. Being able to eat a proper dinner, hopefully? Exercise? I need to regain some sort of balance here. But it is sure lucky that I love what I do, since I've been doing so much of it lately!
Here are some shots taken during the HH valentine process earlier this week.