ALESIA ZORN CALLIGRAPHY & ENGRAVING

Adventures in Engraving

This year, I was lucky enough to receive an invite to be a vendor at Distillery Row's Black Friday event.

 

Distillery Row is a collective of craft distillers in the Portland area.  My, oh, my... marionberry vodka, cranberry liqueur, rye whiskey, cherry whiskey (makes an excellent hot toddy if you feel something coming on, I'll write you a prescription), gin, aquavit... really, it was fantastic.

 

Besides the distillers, there were other superstars of the Portland food & beverage scene... here I'm engraving on bottle of Serrano Ginger Lemongrass sauce from Marshall's Haute Sauce.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nom, nom, nom... had to buy a jar of my own because...um...not to would be rude.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

Among other things, I engraved a bottle of vodka for Portland rock royalty and he would have been the highlight of this post if I hadn't met McKenzie and Drew.   This darling engaged couple brought this bottle of rum to my table for me to engrave.  They're opening it on their wedding day, then saving the awesome shaped bottle as a keepsake.  They were so cute and excited, I loved hearing about their wedding plans why I was engraving, it gave me a great case of warm & fuzzies - and this is why I LOVE my job.

Thanks to Cindy Rosen of Encore Events for being my own coordinator and C.F.O. for the day - as well as taking photos!

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The Next Big Thing - Engraving!

The Next Big Thing - Engraving!

I'm officially adding a new weapon to my arsenal... a high speed engraver.  Seriously.  High speed, think dentist drill.  I'm now engraving on glass and metal and my "coming out party" is at Distillery Row's Black Friday Event.  Below you see some of the tasty, tasty items that will be for sale from our famed Portland artisan distillers.  Then I'll engrave all of your Christmas presents!

Come join me at the Melody Ballroom on Black Friday, do your Christmas shopping and have a wonderful time!

As always, a million thanks to the generous and fandamntastic Paul Rich for the photos.  He was the recipient of a couple of these bottles but that doesn't begin to pay him back for his awesomeness in willing shooting GLASS items!

Such A Delightful Family

I've been incredibly lucky to have worked with a great family all the way from Save-The-Dates in March through the wedding this past Saturday.  I loved working with the bride and mother-of-the-bride and the groom was great and patient during the first consultation (most grooms squirm like a 4-year old in church.)

My part of the wedding was providing calligraphed escort cards, table markers and not-your-usual guest "book."  Lauren, the bride, was such a joy to work with all along the way - and she was studying for the bar during the save-the-date and invitation stages.  Once we came to the final part she was downright fun.

The fun started with her choice of lettering, my Contemporary Celtic.  These are the escort cards.  For those unfamiliar with the term, escort cards tell guests at which table they're seated.  For these cards, the table assignment was written inside the card.

The table markers were sooo much fun to do.  I did a watercolor background in Aztec Gold and lettered table names over it, then mounted everything to metallic card stock.  The tables were named after whiskeys...

  Last, but not least, my favorite part of the project - the "guest book."  When Lauren and I discussed guest books, she told me she wanted something different.  She didn't want her guest to just sign their names on a line, she wanted them to leave a message.  After discussion about different types of books with different types of pages, I suggested a keepsake box with message cards.  She lit up.  More discussion, this time about boxes.  I'm so happy with the final result.

We commissioned a box from a local woodworker and while he worked on the box I worked on lettering the couple's names and wedding date.  Once both were done, off to the laser engraver! 

 

The cards and pens were on the table with the box, guests were asked to leave a message.  I did the first one to get people started.

I'm so happy to have met these wonderful people and to have had a small part in their gorgeous day, but sad to say good bye to them. Although I also do birth announcements... :-)

Big thanks to Cindy Rosen of Encore Events who took photos for me because I was far too impatient to wait to share!