I've been dying to share these wedding invitations with you but decided to wait until after the wedding. Now it's finally time! (We're just home from our trip and have so much to tell. It will take a while to edit photos and jot down all the dream-like memories from the week.) When my sister asked me to design her invitations, her instructions went something like this: "Something wintry? With trees or mountains? And maybe some blue?" Naturally I turned to Pinterest for inspiration but wanted to create something that was uniquely Mari and Andy. Since their wedding location was a snowy, remote mountain lodge in Colorado, I sifted through photos I had taken in Colorado over the years and found a few we could use as a jumping off point. (I'll share the mountain save-the-date and programs next week.) To make the invitation, I started with the aspen photo below. I applied a stamp filter in Photoshop, edited like crazy to get the trees just right for the final effect and selected a thick watercolor paper to give the trees texture. (The blue is actually a bit darker and warmer than it appears in these photos, but I could not for the life of me get the photos to reflect the true color.) One of my favorite details highlighting the unique location was to include the altitude where the ceremony would be held (8,300 feet) on the invitation. The invitation suite included three additional inserts. Here's the reply card: Another of my favorite touches was the "Field guide to a mountain wedding" information card. The back of the field guide included a bit of crucial information: the ceremony would be held outdoors...in the mountains...in the middle of February. No one could say there was not fair warning! (Spoiler alert: there was so much snow that the ceremony ended up taking place indoors in front of a huge stone fireplace and roaring fire. The wedding party photos still took place outside.) We opted to include the rehearsal dinner invitation in the suite. This die-cut card made it stand out from the other inserts. And you can't design wedding invitations without throwing in some thank-you cards. We completed the package with my favorite Paper Source envelopes in paper bag, along with baker's twine. Here's what the final product looked like. Once you've been through it yourself, you realize that a wedding is not just a moment to celebrate your commitment but truly a send-off to one of life's grandest adventures. How lucky I feel to have been involved in preparations for my little sister's send-off.
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Happy Valentine's Day! I put these little hands to work making valentines for preschool friends and cousins. Stickers are serious business, people. She must have spent an hour making sure each envelope was just right. This pin served as our inspiration. (Full link here.) Our version was simpler: tiny white envelopes, stickers and pea seeds, but it will do the trick for all those precious 3-year-olds in our life. I hope your day involves lots of kisses and too much candy. Click here for more DIY & events inspiration.
Hello from snow-and-ice-covered North Carolina! I'm documenting our winter scenery and adventures over on Instagram today. Please join me there to see more photos. Click here for more nature photography by Calm Cradle Photo & Design.
I've always loved to keep travel journals, so I thought it would be fun to make them for all the tiny girls in my life who will be hopping planes to my sister's wedding this month. Sure none of them is actually old enough to record her adventures in words, but they're all stellar artists and sticker users. (Well, one or two of them might prefer to use stickers as gum, but still.) We also passed a copy around during my sister's bridal shower to record our well wishes for a happy marriage.
This pin inspired the simple binding method. (Click here for the full tutorial.) I sketched the design on my iPad, added text in Photoshop, used my wildly imperfect sewing machine skills to bind the books, then wrapped them with crayons and woodsy, mountainy stickers. (You could just pick a pretty paper or hand-draw the cover to simplify.) Now I'm dreaming of creating journals like these for each of our trips, but let's get real. It's always a miracle if we even have our gear packed before the cab arrives for the airport. To view more wedding preps, click here for engagement photos and here for bridal shower photos. In case you haven't noticed, this month is wedding central in my family. Last week I shared my sister's engagement photos with you. Still to come are posts on the invitations and save-the-dates, a travel gift I made for the little girls and—I’m sure—a million photos of our upcoming trip to Colorado for the wedding (and a healthy dose of skiing). Today I'm sharing some photos from the surprise bridal shower we threw for my sister a few weeks ago when she came to visit. The theme was simple: a winter wedding tea. Decorations included pine cones collected on our daily walks, boughs cut from our Christmas tree and winter-white tulips. Somehow I didn't get a photo of the complete spread, but here is the table mostly set. On the right, the wedding invitations and save-the-dates are displayed on a burlap-wrapped canvas. The menu included frittata, kale salad, muffins and baked cinnamon-sugar doughnuts. It wouldn't be a tea party without displaying these family heirloom silver cups my aunt passed down to me a few years ago. I used twine to make a pine cone garland for the mantel. Guests included my mom and sisters, as well as a cousin and friend who, lucky for us, now live in our area. For gifts, we chose an "around the clock" theme. Jeff turned pale when I mentioned "around the clock," thinking it meant a 24-hour gathering at our house. But have no fear. It worked like this: each guest was assigned a time of day and chose a gift that corresponded to something Mari might be doing at that time. (And thank goodness for FaceTime, so my sister who was stuck at home with sick kids could still join us.)
Happy wedding countdown! |
My new book is out! Click to learn more about it.Hello thereI'm Julia Soplop, writer and photographer. I believe there is something profound in bearing witness to moments of joy and pain in others’ lives. My husband, three girls and I live outside of Chapel Hill, NC. You can read more about me here.
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