Beautiful Babies

Along with having the pleasure of designing invitations for weddings, we also have had the honor of designing announcements and invitations for the other most important event in someone's life--having a baby ;) Here are a few samples of what we've been up to lately on the baby side of things:

We had the pleasure of working with the Romero Family on designing an announcement for their son Austin James (isn't he precious?) Here is the first design we came up with, a simple folded design with a ribbon closure and a peek-a-boo of the baby.

Our second design was an accordion fold announcement...

Showcasing the precious newborn:

This allowed the couple to show off multiple pictures of the baby...hands, face, and feet.

And our last design was a simple and sweet rectangular announcement:

How do you choose?
The new parents went for the accordion design, they liked it modern sweet design and how it revealed their beautiful bouncing boy in multiple shots. After the creation of this concept, it has become a huge success with other parents.

This next project was for a baby shower. The inspiration was the baby's nursery, which exudes sweet elegance with the pinks, frills, and feminine details.

We tried to incorporate all of the elements of the nursery in the invite. The invite was actually a small pillow which was mailed in a small strawberry box with a striped green sash. The event information was printed on the fabric, and backed on light green card stock to give it some sturdiness

We used pinks and greens, and a small rosebud on a diaper pin to incorporate the sweetness of the new baby girl's nursery.

Finally, to give it some sparkle, we attached three tiny rhinestones to the three "i"s in the mom-to-be's name.
The result was pretty, soft, sweet, and feminine.

Now what mom-to-be wouldn't want that? :)

Wonderful Weddings

We have been incredibly busy the last couple months here at 2 Hearts B 1! It is definitely wedding season, and we have been meeting with brides with all kinds of wonderful, beautiful ideas for their weddings! Inspiration can be found everywhere, and lately we have had the opportunity to create invitations that are inspired by the visions of our brides!

Here is a small sampling of the invitations we have created lately.

Inspiration for this invite was that the couple was getting married at the Figueroa Hotel in downtown Los Angeles and wanted to play off this blue door with a Moroccan feel.

Photo courtesy of Figueroa Hotel

We took the beautiful colors and intricate designs and incorporated them into a gatefold-style invitation.

This next couple chose a color palette of emerald green, chocolate brown, and silver.

The result was fresh, romantic, and elegant.




Finally, our next bride was inspired by all things soft, feminine, and elegant...hence her palette of pinks, whites, and silvers, accented by flowers and pearls.


Here are some photos that inspired us:

Photo by Stella Alesi Photography via Style Me Pretty

Photo by James Abel Events via Style Me Pretty

And the inspired results:

Stay tuned! More weddings to come!

Hooray For Hollywood

I have said it before and I will say it again. I love LA! Getting to work on projects for celebrities, movie studios, producers, and TV shows is so much fun.

Recently, I had the pleasure to put a packet together for Nick Cannon and Mariah Carey. They were looking to have invites made for a housewarming / anniversary party.

Cannot begin to tell you how exciting it was to put these samples together. They were inspired by Mariah's love for white, pink, purple and butterflies.

Mariah already has a personal calligrapher on staff, (crazy, right?) so to have her ask to look at my work, was an honor.

Mariah and Nick ended up going digital for their invites, instead of old school. Hopefully, I will work with them in the future.

But, I was lucky enough to be touched by another star with a job that did go through.

I did a rush job of Fifty pieces of custom stationery for Will and Jada Smith.

They loved it so much. I got hired to do more.

I did a hand calligraphied line of family stationery with "The Smith Family" on the letterhead.

How I got the job you ask? All word of mouth.

I was fortunate enough to do Will’s agent's calligraphy for invitations which then led to this referral.

I had to make many different samples showing off different lettering styles til they found the perfect one.

Hooray for Hollywood!!!

Unveiled Revealed!

Unveiled Revealed........We were graced with the presence of bride-to-be, Eva LaRue and her fiancee. It was great to have her come by and be interested in our work. I wrote out her daughter's name in calligraphy. Hope it will lead to much more.

Thanks to all who came out to support me out at "Unveiled" on March 28th for 2 Hearts B 1 Designs first time exhibiting with Plan A events. It was a great turn out of brides. We got to make a lot of connections and do some networking among other vendors in the event industry.

The booth consisted of my calligraphy with 2 Hearts B 1 Designs and the beautiful letterpress printing of Blue Note Press. Together, we made a fabulous team!

Here is our booth display, showing off some stationary, invitations and tags.
Our cherry blossom branches featured tags showing off the idea of using this at a reception for your table assignments. It was a an eye catcher and a great hit!

I did calligraphy on site, writing out couples' names on strips of paper provided by Blue Note Press to be used as bookmarks.

All this fun took place on the street of Melrose Place on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the beauty of spring. My dearest thanks go out to my assistant, Kylie Guglielmetti and my husband, Tim Pham who helped set-up, tear down and initiate contact with each bride out there. Thank you to my collaborative partner, Autumn Michelle Foote from Blue Note Press. She always continues to rock and amaze me. We gave out favors of letterpress cards graced with my calligraphy of Grazie, Gracias, Merci and Thank you mixed with Michelle's expertise in printing, giving a chance for all the different ways for brides to say thanks. 2 Hearts B 1 Designs and Blue Note Press are unveiled and ready to design, create, and bring your vision to life on paper!

Unveiled

What do Gordon Ramsey, Mindy Weiss, Monique Lhullier

and

2 Hearts B1 all have in common??

We will all be featured at Unveiled; Bridal Style Revealed

Sunday, March 28, 2010 on Melrose Place

This will be a collaboration of letterpress designs from my dear friend Michelle Foote at Blue Note Press and calligraphy from moi.

We will have our own booth, so stop on by!!!!

I can't tell you how excited I am to be participating with these heavy hitters.

Check out Michelle’s website

bluenotepress.com

and

unveiledevent.com

And as a little treat friends and clients of mine can use discount code FF10 to get $5 off each ticket.

See you on Melrose Place!!

The Result is in!

The result ended up being the envelopment one was the favorite. Although, my client modified it from the previous horizontal design into a vertical one.

She also loved to have a touch of ribbon, so we came up with a belly band idea using black satin ribbon and the harajuku girl as the buckle that held it all together. The harajuku girl paper I scalloped punch from a flat sheet that is called Japanese Collage paper. You can find it at Paper Source.

My dearest thanks go out to Annie Pierce and Elizabeth Upton who were my helpers to put this project into full swing.

My suggestion for invites is dressing up an envelope. That's the first thing that your guests see before opening your invite. It's your first impression. Anyone would be happy to get something in the mail that is colorful and festive. So, skip the plain o'l white boring envelope and pizazz it with a little fun. I used a stardream onyx envelope. I scalloped punch another harajuku girl for the envelope, so that there is a sense of continuity throughout. I custom created 2.5" return address circle labels for the back flap of the envelope. A great source for labels in www.onlinelabels.com. They have an assortment of colors, sizes and shapes to suit your needs.

My next blog will feature save-the-dates. Some will be my designs as well as some will be inspirations from others. Stay tuned!

Harajuku Shower

I had a client who asked me to make baby shower invitations with this as my inspiration.

She was creating a rock and roll, harajuku lover, gwen stefani type vibe for her girlfriend's baby shower.

These girls have loads of inspiration. They inspired Gwen, and they totally inspired these invites.

I used hot pink and black, drawing from the photo of the dolls that the client sent me.

Here are my samples. Still waiting to hear from her.

Can guess which one she chooses.

The first invite is a simple #10 size card.

I jazzed it up by using a backing paper of stardream azalea. This adds color, contrast and a thickness that makes the invite seem more substantial.

I also rounded the corners which makes any plain old card look chic.

I used these awesome japanese graphic girls for all the invites!!

For the second sample I did an homage to the kimono.

I started with a half moon enclosure. Then added some piping, and made the obi belt out of my graphic paper.

The invite slips right in to the enclosure!!

For all of the invites I used the same print formatting, A great source for freee and inexpensive fonts is http://www.dafont.com/.

Bring in da noise, bring in da font!!!!

Peek a boo!!

For my third sample I used a gatefold card. Secured the invite to the backing and then decorating the hidden flap.

I then used a circle hole punch on the top flap to reveal a bit of my harajuku girl.

I loooove the reveal when this invite is opened

My last sample could be my fave. But how do you really choose between your babies??

This invite is all about the layers. The stardream envelopment, the shimmery black backing paper and the crisp bold invite.

The whimsical touch is the closure.

Notice the ribbon in my girls hair. I love her!!

Stay tuned to see what my client picks. Any ideas???

Results will be revealed.