ALESIA ZORN CALLIGRAPHY & ENGRAVING

USPS Shenanigans - Postal Rates Increase Jan 27th

It's a new year and it seems an annual event that it's time for new postage rates in the U.S.

The new rates take effect on January 27th, just in time for mailing invitations. 

Good news for wedding invitations - the new stamps are CUTE!

Here's the new 2-ounce or "invitation" stamp.  I see (sooooo many possibilities, the mind wobbles ;-)

The price increase is from 65 to 66-cents.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the 1-ounce stamp, what a fabulous stamp for your RSVPs!

These are "forever" stamps - first class postage goes up from 45 to 46-cents.

 

 

 

 

If your RSVPs will be postcards, there's new stamps there too!  Postcards go from 32 to 33-cents and will look like this:

If you're mailing your invitations soon, please remember your RSVP postage should be valid for the pricing structure AFTER January 27th.

When To Mail Your Invitations

I've had a few conversations this week about the timing of addressing and mailing invitations and that's inspired this blog post!!    Etiquette says they should be mailed 6 to 8 weeks before an event.   You're fine on the 6 weeks side of the scale if you've done any of the following:

• sent out save-the-dates
• you've already directed guests to your wedding website where they can find lots of info on travel & accomodations
• your guests are local 

If you haven't done any of the above (not that there's anything wrong with that ;-),  you're better off at the 8 weeks side of things.

"Great!" you exclaim! "I'll get them out even sooner than 8 weeks!!"  "Nope," says Goldilocks (that's me) , "you need to time it just right."  If you mail them too early, you could run into all sorts of circumstances:

• Someone moves unexpectedly. Happened to a client when the real estate market took a sharp nose dive and their poor Cousin Trent AND  his cockatoo (long story) were evicted when their landlord went into foreclosure.
• Sadly, someone passes away
• Someone breaks up
• On a more lighthearted note, you address an envelope to Mr. & Mrs. John Smith, Susie and Baby Sister - and Baby Sister is born Baby Brother (true story, I'm imaginative but even I couldn't make that up)
• The RSVP is soooo far away, with a devil-may-care-I-have-all-the-time-in-the-world attitude, it is stuck on the fridge or in a "to do" pile and then it drowns in more time sensitive business.  I shamefacedly admit to doing that twice.  In the past month.  Yes, I know I should know better, that's why I made up the word "shamefacedly."

6 to 8 weeks, my friend, it's the best way to go.

(A million thanks to Paul Rich Studio for the photo of my envelope!  The script is dip pen Flourished Formal Script done with a sparkly white ink and a vintage Spencerian #1 nib)

 

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.

 

Postage Stamp Love

No, not a postage stamp that says "love" - this is about my love of postage stamps.  U.S.P.S. really has it goin' on right now, especially since they've increased the number of "forever stamps!"  Let's take a look at a few now!

 

A wedding cake really does, in a very subtle & elegant way, shout "wedding."   This is a lovely stamp for mailing the invitation, conveniently the post office also has the Wedding Roses stamp for RSVPs.  The two look so pretty together! 

 

 

 

 

For the more adventurous, there's the Garden of Love stamps and I adore these!  Yup, I've made this big, I want you to see the detail!  It's like a puzzle from "Highlights" magazine - "How many hearts do you see?"  I'm going to suggest bucking the etiquette rule that says "only one stamp per envelope" and say if you need more than 44cents, double up on these lovelies!

Just a few pieces of advice - don't assume the amount of postage you'll need to mail your invitations, check and double check how much postage is needed.  Don't forget that the postage is determined by more than the weight, if you have square envelopes or french flap envelopes (oooh, I sense another blog post in the making!) you'll need to add extra postage.

If you need a large number of the same type of stamps, order directly from www.shop.usps.com  The nominal shipping amount will be far less expensive than you spending time and gas running around town.  You have better, more bride-y things to do!

Now I'm going to look at postage on-line for a little while longer, really, just a little ;-)

Shake it up! Colors and lowercase!

One of my brides this year had great imagination, especially when it came time to letter her envelopes.

She chose an invitation suite that also included save-the-dates so her theme was consistent throughout.  Everything was very crisp & modern.

Since all of the lettering on the invitations was upper case, we decided to do all lower case for the envelope addressing, in brown to match the save-the-date ink.

 

 

 

(She ordered her things through The Wedding Cottage, so the samples here are addressed to Petrel, the owner of The Wedding Cottage.  The samples will be in the mail today and will take up permanent residency with Petrel.)

 

We saved the big wow for the invitations - purple, all lowercase script.  It was very fun to do, but hard to remember to keep everything lower case!

What to do, what to do...choosing invitations

Suppose you own a bridal boutique... let's say in Beaverton, Oregon.  You're getting married!  What invitations are you going to pick when you have a zillion to choose from?

Here's what Petrel, owner of The Wedding Cottage in Beaverton chose!

I wish you could touch this - they're letterpress invitations.  There is nothing like the tactile experience of letterpress - the heft of the paper, the lovely, deep impressions... man, I'm such a paper geek.

I was VERY honored when Petrel asked me to address her invitations.  I HAD to do brush lettering to be evocative to go with that cool, scripty "love." 

Best wishes to Petrel and Jacob for a long, happy future!

P.S. What do you do when you own a bridal boutique, you're getting married and can't choose from all of the fantastic wedding professionals in Portland? Have a destination wedding in California!  Smart choice!

P.P.S. The two taupe-y colors - on the envelope and on the invitation - are a much closer match in real life, again I plead ignorance in the strange and foreign ways of Photoshop.

Lookit all the colors!

Aloha!  I've just finished a very fun envelope job for a florist who's having the perfect destination wedding in Hawaii.  I was given the paper samples from the invites - purple, fuschia and a lime green.  My brush lettering was requested and I was given free rein on the colors, I obviously had a blast!

 

Brown & gold/gold & brown

I'm still digging out from the trip from Nashville.  I got home Sunday night and dove immediately into work on Monday morning.  More on Nashville and this week's job later.

Right now I'd like to revisit the week before I left.  What a great week for contrasts!  The first part of the week I addressed in metallic gold ink on matte brown envelopes.  The second half of the week the exact opposite - matte brown ink on metallic gold envelopes.  I really couldn't have planned this better if I tried!

The white post it tape is over the return addresses, to protect the innocent.  I wanted to show the orchids going over the fold on the gold envelope and that sweet bumblebee on the brown envelope.

Now I'm goign to try and gather my work product from Nashville and take some pictures.  More to come!

The Most Special Job of All

I've already admitted that I'm hooked on the vicarious warm fuzzies I get from helping people celebrate their special occasion.  The warmest, fuzziest and most special jobs of all are for family.  I was so honored to be able to do the invitations for my baby brother's wedding (I'm getting all teary-eyed as I type - ya big sap!)  It was a wonderful wedding, full of love and lots of fun.  Welcome to the family, Mary!  It's too late to go back now!

The backer card is Royal Magic Majestic Blue, the metallic papers in this line are the sparkliest & prettiest metallics around.  The invitation is printed on white Perle' and the blue diamonds and big, chunky rhinestones.  The lettering is Pointed Italic.  The envelopes were lettered in the same style with sparkly navy blue paint.