Postcard Wedding Invite

So I thought I'd share the wedding invite deigns I've been working on for next year, oh, did I fail to mention I'M GETTING MARRIED?? Yes madness, blissful joyful ecstatic madness! Rob and I have decided to go very simple and produce postcards for our wedding invites. As much of the décor I've been making has been made from burlap & lace I suppose the invites needed to match!

 Yes yes it's a bit brown I know, but when printed on a gorgeous textured paper it will look STUNNING. The frame on the back is there so I can write in the guests addresses... 

Many of these fonts are from of dafont.com though the address font is a photoshop standard. We were looking at printed.com in order to get them printed, they have such an excellent array of papers!

You may be asking why I've squished the text so close together, well the postcard may have the edges trimmed and therefore I had to keep all vital info well away from the sides.

Had to create two postcard backs, one for reception guests and one for the after dinner guests. Sadly we can't fit in everyone, but the dancing at 7 will also include cake and cheese so everyone should be happy. 

I realise I'm posting this on the internet for all to see, NO WEDDING CRASHERS GOT IT?

Beautiful Budget Money Savers for Dining

I thought I'd share with you some of my sneeky tips for saving a little bit of cash when hosting a dinner party. I'm currently planning my wedding and therefore every penny counts! It needs to be beautiful but also big and budget. I have many mouths to feed and water, and quite a few tables to decorate. I've had a few friends on the case too. My mother's growing the flowers for the reception and I've been collecting cheap and cheerful vases to display them from various hospice shops, but I've found.. if I do say so myself... an INGENIOUS money saver for vases. Now I'm doing this for a wedding but there's no reason you can't apply these tips for any social occasion.

UPCYCLE THOSE COFFEE JARS!

Everyone knows someone who's a coffee addict, perhaps you work in an office where it's constantly being restocked; my fiancée's family just happen to plough through the stuff. Therefore my darling mother-in-law-to-be has been setting aside the coffee jars...

Just add a bit of twine, glue and lace and voilà!

These are gorgeous,  the perfect size for the flowers I'm going to be filling the tables with and the coffee jars themselves are a fantastic shape, very sort of art deco. I think I'll invite my friends around for coffee a bit more in the run up to my wedding, or take a greater interest in making coffee cakes! I'm going to need quite a lot of these babies.

WATER BOTTLES

I'm doing the old school hall hire for my wedding, we have a caterer sorting the food but my fiancée and I have decided to provide all the drinks ourselves. Obviously there will be plenty of wine, but guests always need water too! I had considered doing a mass buy of big plastic water bottles and putting them on the tables.. but I don't quite fancy the look of the plastic bottles with their labels sticking out all over the place... and I had considered Ikea bottles as they look nice, just top them up with tap water and put them out on the tables, perfect, great, oh wait... Two problems. One, I live in Jersey and the closest Ikea is in Southampton, and two, for the amount I need to buy... 60 or so... it would cost more than I am willing to spend... and then what do I do with all of those bottles afterwards?? Solution! Clear wine bottles! The restaurant I used to work at would soak off the labels from old bottles of Rose, clean them up and then use them for tap water.

So I got to work on it yesterday, the biggest challenge was knifing off the metal cuffs around the necks of the bottles, I did end up cutting my thumb quite a bit so if you do give this a go wear gloves if you can. I have 19 at the minute... so just encouraging my chums to drink up and save me their bottles!

Alternatively they make gorgeous candle holders.

Leaving Party Invites

Normally I stink with text or anything graphic designey, but I feel these invites went rather well. Gave my friend Rachel a choice of two. She went for the red in the end, good choice I feel, it was my favourite. Fonts from DAFONT.COM, check it out, its an awesome website. 

Splattered ink all over the page and then edited white text on the top. Simple but effective. 

Teaching Verb Illustrations

Really enjoyed this project, it was a series of illustrations for a tutor teaching verbs. 

Reading

Studying

Running

Swimming

Jumping

Dancing

Eating

Crawling

Playing

Window Cleaner

My rather charming boyfriend needed a drawing of him with window cleaning gear for his business cards. Ta Dah! Funnily enough I didn't know he had a green squeegee or used blue cloths, but coloured it that way anyway... what are the chances? 

Dominoes Table

Floor Painting

Image Drawn for a blog post discussing floor refurbs. 

Swivel Chairs

Whenever I have the pleasure of house sitting for my friend Rachel, I find myself spending most of my time in her Snuggle/Swivel Chair.  Not only is it roomy enough for two and very comfortable, its quite fun swivelling back and forth. I always make sure guests give it a go as they seem to enjoy themselves in it too, as long as they can fight off Rachel's cat Sushi, who has laid claim to it.

Bus Revamp

Image for a Blog post about a revamped 1959 Chevrolet. 

Octoseat

Illustration As part of a social media campaign about statement seating for a furniture company

February Drawings

Had a day working in my sisters shop and during the quiet hours managed to finish off a few drawings.

Saturdays outfit, though I wish I looked this cool (and had the owl) in real life :)

Bit thick on the outline here...

I never do winter theme drawings, so there you go.

And as always, birds birds and more birds.