Alesia Zorn Calligraphy

Dream Wedding Giveaway at Abernethy!

I am so excited to be part of the Abernethy Center's Chapel Dream Wedding Giveaway!

Abernethy Center has 2 beautiful gardens and a lovely ballroom - and now they're building a chapel on their beautiful grounds.  To celebrate, they're giving away a dream wedding and I'm so happy to be contributing envelope addressing for invitations provided by The Wedding Cottage, and then table markers & place cards for the day of the wedding, which will be coordinated by Champagne Weddings & Events.

To find out how you can enter, go here!

Adventure to Paperland!

I'm just getting back from a trip to New England where we spent not-enough time visiting family & friends.  One of my adventures was to the Crane Museum of Papermaking with my sister & my husband (who must love me a lot because papermaking - not so much with the excitement for the civilians ;-) It was great for me and I appreciate their putting up with me!

Crane & Co. makes beautiful invitations and stationery and I frequently work with their products.  It was nice to go to the source. Sorry, other calligraphers, they don't make Letra envelopes on site so there wasn't anyone on which I could take out our collective frustrations.

Crane also has wonderful etiquette information on their website.  Their Blue Book is a must!

What not everyone knows is that all Americans work with their products every day as Crane is the exclusive supplier of the paper the U.S. Treasury uses to print money (dammit! no free samples!)

I managed to carry on.

This is the building that houses the musuem.  It used to be the rag building, where rags were broken down into pulp for paper.  Hence, the paper reference "rag content."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love this plaque, the lettering is darling!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's Zenas Crane himself.  Doesn't he look like a New England 19th century party boy?

Of course not, I don't think they existed back then.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's one of the cutey-patootey figurines that shows the process of paper making.  The entire display was made by Dard Hunter, a prominent paper maker and printer in the 20th century.  I have crazy friends who love to make paper and I direct them to The Friends of Dard Hunter to find more crazies like them. I have made handmade paper and it's as back-breaking as this model illustrates.  I will happily buy handmade paper and not even blink at the cost.

Oh! If you're a Portlander reading this, the word is "coucher" pronounced "coocher" like our crazy street.  It's really a word, that's why I took this particular photo.

And now the word "Vatman" has entered my head and I have the "Batman" tv show theme going through my head. 

And now so do you.  Mwahahahahahaha.

 

Floral Seating Cards

Oh-so-pretty!  Earlier this year I did seating cards for one of Marilyn of Portland Wedding Planner's brides.   The cards came from The Wedding Cottage - as did the invitations which had the same cherry blossom floral element.  Such a pretty graphic element to tie everything together.  The names are in different colors to let the servers know what entree to serve each guest.  Big thanks to Artistique Photographie for the beautiful photos!

Sweet Dreams Weddings & Events

I'm tickled to be mentioned on Sweet Dreams Wedding & Events blog today!  We shared a lovely bride named Tara, her wedding was just GORGEOUS!  I'm really happy to have had a small part in it with the seating cards - silver on eggplant - and the table markers, which was love in several languages.  You can see the blog post with more incredibly lovely photos here. 

ROAD TRIP!! Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club Bridal Show Saturday, January 29th

 
I'm really looking forward to hitting the road this Saturday with fellow Bridal Lofties August Veils, Paul Rich Studio and Event Cosmetics for The Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club Bridal Show.  I'm suddenly thinking there's a script for a buddy comedy in this little adventure.

We'll be there from noon to three.  I'll be demo'ing calligraphy on these sweet die cuts from Paper Zone on SE Grand Ave in Portland.  Coming from a die cutter, they can be on almost any paper!  We were using them for nametags and food signs at last weekend's event, they'd make sweet seating or place cards.  They were a big hit.  My wheels are spinning with all sorts of things for these cuties.  As always, much love to the PZ crew for sharing!

Come visit us and the gorgeous Pumpkin Ridge!

 

Big thanks to Continuum Photography for the photo from last weekend's event!

 

 

Wish Upon a Wedding's prize winning table!!

Last week, myself, Nadia Ly (owner Creations by Ly and president of the Portland Chapter of Wish Upon a Wedding) and Lisa Martin of Studio del Fiore  concocted a table top for the ISES Portland "Art of the Party" tabletop competition.  The contest was judged by visiting guests Pauline Parry and Dan Smith of Good Gracious! Events of L.A.  I am so tickled to announce our table won "Best Use of Theme"!!

The colors come from the Wish Upon a Wedding log0 (yes, friends, I am not the only one in the world who adores lime/olive/turquoise/teal together :-) The theme of the table was "Blissful Wishes" as that is the theme of the November galas WUW will be hosting all around the country.    

And while I'm on that subject, you can get your tickets for the Portland Nov. 18th gala here. 

 

Now for more pictures!

 

 

 

 

 

 

A close up of Lisa's floral, arranged in mercury glass.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gorgeous linens and table ware chosen by Nadia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A close up of a personalized menu.  I was so glad the inspiration came to me to honor past WUW recipients as the names on the menus, especially since some of them are no longer with us.

And now... the award!!  

 

HUGE thanks to Melissa of Continuum Photography for the incredible photos!!

Something "New & Blue" - thank you!

Big thanks to New & Blue in The Pearl for their blog post about me!  I've been very fortunate to have been working with Tatum and her excellent staff for a few years now.  I've always had a great experience with them & their clients - and somehow always seem to come home with "something new!" 

Not in Portland?  Check out their website, it's H-U-G-E!

It's going to be a fun reception!

I was very fortunate this year to work with a great bride who is a fellow Massachusettsite.  We've had a great time talking about things Back East, such as her fiance & his "married into it - Red Sox fan for life" tee.  And we had a wonderful time putting together things for her reception.

Amy's getting married in Vegas and my thoughts turn once again to becoming a wedding crasher.  Her colors are rich jewel tones, focusing primarily on red & purple.  How lush! 

 

Her blank escort cards were provided by the hotel - the writing space was a bit teeny but totally doable.  These are the unfolded fronts, the table assignment is on the other side.  I alternated names by the tables between red & purple, when they're all set up the color pattern will be random. 

Here are the wicked* fun table numbers - I had so much fun doing them, first the number spelled out in red watercolor, then the numeral on top also in watercolor.  The watercolor paper was then mounted onto a fabulous metallic purple cardstock.  I want to use this cardstock for wallpaper - and I'm not even a big fan of purple.

Amy also asked me to make a sign for their guest book.  Of course I had to use metallic purple ink - it's Las Vegas, baby!  The phrase is in quotes because they're providing their guests with a photo guide book to Las Vegas (see! more fun!  I want to go.)  She provided the really lovely frame & mat, it'll be great for a wedding photo later.  (I took this photo at The Bridal Loft before Amy came to pick up.  If you look in the reflection you can see some of Bead Alex's gorgeous jewelry.)

 Last but not least, Amy wanted me to write out quotes that she would post around the room at the reception.  They ranged from the sweet A.A. Milne quote "If you live to be one hundred, I want to live to be one hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you" to the more pragmatic Groucho Marx - "I was married by a judge.  I should have asked for a jury."  Ah, the sentimentality of my homeland.  The writing is in red metallic ink, mounted to purple cardstock with little gold corners.

I had a wonderful time with Amy and I think she did with me, one of her last e-mails to me said:

"Can you do calligraphy for just random things in my life, grocery lists etc, I don't want this to be over!"

Have I ever calligraphed a grocery list?  No.  Will I?  Of course!!

*It was also fun to speak my native tongue - like using "wicked" instead of "very."  I'm sure I also dropped an "r" here and there and words cannot tell you how lovely it was not to be picked on for saying "AWrange" instead of "ORange."

Soiree Special Event Planning - Countryside Villa - Bravo! Wedding Affair Nov. '09

I don't even know where to begin to talk about the lovely ladies of Soiree.  They've been so supportive of me, ever since I first went into business.  More than anyone else, they'll call and say "Can you write on...?" and come up with some cool new thing.  Molli is the fairy godmother of the chalk board menus, an idea that came about when she did a TV shoot on Eco-Friendly Weddings.  The chalk boards are a wonderful idea on so many levels!

This summer was no exception - a client of theirs had a magazine photo, she wanted these quilled hearts replicated.  They were so cute!  When I talked to Molli about her Countryside Villa, I asked her if she'd like more hearts.  (When I got the paper for the first job I bought a ream of paper and had the whole thing cut - I just did the math, that means there were 7000 strips, I've probably used about 200.  You like these hearts?  Let's talk!

These make darling (IMHO) place cards.  (Mary is my new sister-in-law, hi Mary!)

Here's how they look on the table...

I enabled the pop up on this photo so you can see the all the gorgeous detail on this tablescape, put together by Soiree and Crystal Lilies.

One other thing that I did earlier this summer made an appearance in the Countryside Villa room - tags!!

The tags attached to the little pear say "Eat Drink Dance" - wiser words were never spoken!  I used these tags for the Rustic client from earlier this summer (a million thanks to Crystal Lilies for sending the bride my way, there's more to come on that wedding in the next few weeks) - and that has started a new obsession for me - TAGS!!  All sorts of tags.  I want to put tags on everything (the cats are not amused.)  Keep an eye out for more tags in the future!

Encore Events - Moonlit Beach - Bravo! Wedding Affair - Nov '09

Working with Cindy from Encore Events is always so much fun!  Each time the Bravo! Wedding Affair comes around I can't wait to hear what she's thinking about doing with her theme for that show.  This past November is was an idea she's been mulling over for awhile - Moonlit Beach.  I love what she, along with Kay of Flowers for You, came up with!

This is the ceremony site - it's not just the freezing cold Portland temps that are making me dream of the beach!   (photo courtesy of Paul Rich Studio)

This is the reception area, isn't it lush?  When I win Powerball, I want to dine at lush tablescapes like this for every meal.  Every single one.  (photo courtesy of Jessica Hill Photography)

My contributions to the room was writing* on sand dollars...

... as place cards... 
 (photo courtesy of Jessica Hill Photography)

... and then the bride & grooms initials on the teeniest sand dollars - so cute!

(photo courtesy of Paul Rich Studio)

I can hardly wait to find out what Cindy has up her sleeve for the February Bravo! Wedding Affair!!

*I'd like to think when I win Powerball I would do my own calligraphy for my lush tablescapes... we'll just have to wait and see ;-)