Featured...Style Me Pretty Living!
I've begun offering some sort of little holiday goodie in the form of a free downloadable and printable pieces, and our Mother's Day printables are featured on Style Me Pretty Living today! You can check out the entire post here.
The collection of designs feature calligraphy and hand lettering, as well as springy yellow floral pieces. You can download the designs through the Studio Shoppe here! I did feature one design that was lettering only as well, in case anyone wants to keep it simple. For the Style Me Pretty feature, the designs were paired with envelopes from Paper Source in their colors Curry, Leaf and Chartreuse. I also paired the pieces with some vintage stamps from my own collection for a little added detail (little known fact, did you know that I have an extensive stamp collection?). Enjoy!
Instagram weekly
This week on instagram Im playing around a bit with a new font style that I've been working on and developing over the past few months...it still is nameless, but Im really liking it. It is long and sloopy with extending tails on either end. I'll be doing some workups on the most recently added calligraphy fonts for my sample packs and will post some more pictures of this style in action soon.
workshops | summer series with West Elm
I am thrilled and excited to announce my partnership with West Elm!! I have created a summer workshop series to be hosted by West Elm Philadelphia. Starting mid May and continuing every other week through August, we will be focusing on creating a memorable and personalized dinner party. We kept the cost down so everyone can come and enjoy the fun! You can register for the workshops through the Studio Shoppe here, as well as check out the details of each workshop. The evenings will include quickfire calligraphy and lettering classes, summer cocktail recipes, monogramming your table linens, personalizing glassware, and much more!
...in process - behind the scenes
There are always lots of projects going on around the studios. At the moment, the Philadelphia studio is working with Bespoke Letterpress in Australia on some envelopes in white ink on navy, and we're just starting a project with white ink on aubergine. I know I'm not alone in finding calligraphy beautiful, but sometimes I just love observing the simple beauty of works in progress...
April collaboration with the curious calligrapher
we love the curious calligrapher - the forum that margaret corely and fozzy castro-dayrit created to bring both aspiring and beginning calligraphers together. i love the camaraderie and support that exists here and i wold definitely recommend checking it out - so many resources, not to mention so much prettiness!
they have been offering a free downloadable desktop background each month and i was honored to have the opportunity to create the background for the month of april. i wanted to create something light and delicate including uplifting words about spring as well as some pretty blossoms. having recently relocated to portland, oregon after living in the deserts of arizona for five years, i have been so blessed by the beauty of the blossoming spring trees here in the pacific northwest!
i hope that you enjoy the background! you may download it here. what is your favorite thing about springtime?
Bespoke...Santorini Destination Wedding Invitations
When approached to create a suite for a destination wedding in Santorini, I jumped at the opportunity!
This suite differs from our typical work a tad...when building the ideas and design elements that this suite would be created around, I toyed with the idea of creating an illustration that embodied the classic Santorini buildings. We also wanted to incorporate the distinctive blues of both the classic Santorini rooftops as well as the surrounding piercing blue ocean. In the end, we nixed the building idea and decided to keep it a bit more simple and focus on the blues and the movement of the ocean.
I used a watercolor wash as a base in a vibrant cerulean blue, letting the wash be uneven in saturation. I then illustrated a map of the island itself and used that as an overlay for both the backers as well as envelope liner. I used a fairly flourished calligraphy style to balance out the simplicity of the suite.
Featured...Ruffled Blog
We had such a wonderful time collaborating with Absolutely Events on this suite inspirited by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We've walked you through the process we went though in creating the suite, now you get to see it in action!
Design: Absolutely Events
Florals: Rae Florae
Photography: Jackie Wonders
Featured...Ceremony Magazine 2014
We did some lovely calligraphy work in our Rilla style for a shoot for Ceremony Magazine. We always just adore white ink on blue paper! Florals by Adrianne Smith Floral and Photography by Jennifer Dery.
Studio Shoppe - all you need is less print
"all you need is less" print, hand scribed in a simple calligraphy font by our lovely Miss Jenny, makes a wonderful addition to any gallery wall!
...in process - behind the scenes
Part of our process is amassing several bespoke invitation suites, all their artwork and sketches, and shooting them all at once for the website, the blog, and any submissions pieces. This process involves paper, calligraphy, envelopes, liners, cameras, many hands (making for lighter work), step ladders, and coffee. Around here, we drink almond milk lattes.
The Moira Girls at Engage!13
We had the amazing honor and pleasure of attending this years Engage!13 conference. The conference is a luxury wedding summit comprised of the best of the best in the entire industry and included attendee from across the US, across the pond and around the world. We had the pleasure of meeting industry greats like Jose Villa, Ceci Johnson, Randy Fenoli, Todd Events, and so many more. Every last detail was planned with perfection, letterpress, and color coordination. Our first day of check in included our Engage tote bags (color themed, of course) with our first round of swag (a word I personally detest, but for lack of a better option, we'll use it here).
Here are some details shots of our day one at The Montelucia Resort.
Photographs by Chellise Michael Photography
Bespoke - midsummers night dream
Our last post told the story of the process and artwork behind a wedding invitation suite inspirited by A Midsummer's Night Dream. The final suite was a gorgeous combination of shades of blue, violet and purples with black details.
I really did enjoy working on this suite even though I went through a period of discouragement with the artwork and color palate.
The most colorful and my personal favorite part of the suite was the watercolor painting of a fairy hollow. I created a little vignette of trees spanning a space with colorful flowers and lots of blues. I used the artwork on a thin velum that wrapped the entire suite and held all the pieces together as well as the envelope liner and the back of some of the pieces.
The invitations featured a calligraphy monogram, banner and watercolor flourish. I wanted to keep the main portion of the invitation free of heavy artwork and focus on the calligraphy elements. I knew that the other pieces and the backs would hold enough color and artwork to balance the suite as a whole.
The back of the invitation suite was the artwork that took me the longest, as one could imagine, especially given that I redid the entire thing from color to shades of blue (see previous post for further background). I kept the artwork on the response card and reception similarly simple, but added some of the silhouettes as details.
As always, the calligraphy on the aubergine envelopes was a perfect match to the suite in opaque white ink. I lined the envelopes with the matching fairy hollow, with the reply card with matching calligraphy on its liner. I choose some vintage stamps to round out the design.
I LOVED creating the programs! They folded with the artwork contenting front and back. When opened, the bridal party was depicted by silhouettes with the bride and groom in the middle.
...in process - A midsummers night's dream
Today we have some background on the Midsummer Night's Dream suite we created for a photoshoot with Absolutely Events. You know me, I start with my sketches of all the different pieces and ideas and move onto the art pieces. This was a tough one; I knew the idea I wanted to work with and it just didn't turn out the way I wanted...I redid the artwork twice and still ended up reworking all the pieces digitally.
The artwork for this one was on the complicated side. I wanted to incorporate the design elements of a chinoiserie or antique damask and how different little scenes were depicted and layered. I also wanted a "fairy hallow" with shades of blues and purples.
I then put paint to paper, filled everything with shades of yellows, purples, blues and greens...and I hated it and did the entire thing over again in shades of blues.
Calligraphy Workshop San Francisco
We had such a lovely and amazing time teaching our first San Francisco calligraphy workshop! We had the beautiful Natalie from Natalie Bowen Design host us at her darling new studio in SOMA. Her studio has several workable rooms and a large patio out back. The entire studio is bathed in gorgeous natural light with an amazing collection of curated vases and florist tools...plus the MOST amazing wallpaper in her powder room!
For this particular workshop, we taught a specific font style. The kits included a white ink, black ink, pen holder, and 4 nibs. We also included a full lettering exemplar of the letter with several phrases and words done in the font as examples. We topped the whole thing off with some envelope and paper products from our favorite Paper Source.
Thanksgiving Downloads!
Thanksgiving has always been one of my very favorite times of year and favorite holidays. As much as I absolutely love Christmas time, I love that Thanksgiving is more quiet, calm, and truly is about time spent with our most loved ones and taking the time to be grateful for the many blessings that we have been given.
As you may or may not know, I am very thankful for my sweet little white rabbit named Andy. John and I are both pretty smitten with him! I wanted to create some Thanksgiving downloads that you could print out and use at home and decided that Andy would be the star this year - all dressed up in his feathers and his pilgrim hat. I think that if I tried any of this in real life, that I would get a not-very-amused bunny, but illustrated Andy likes to dress up!
The downloads are available through our studio shoppe at our studio shoppe!
I will be spending Thanksgiving with John's family here in Scottsdale and am making the cranberries and the dessert - pumpkin pie may be my favorite thing ever! It will be the first time in a few years that my parents will not be coming out, but I look forward to getting to see them at Christmas. What about you? Are you traveling for the holiday? What is your favorite dish to make/eat?
I hope that you enjoy these little downloads and that you all have the most wonderful time with your loved ones and take the time to be quietly thankful.
xoxo Jenny
Bespoke Invitation ... sage & rosemary
I loved working on this suite...hand drawn rosemary and sage, with touches of gold. The suite was designed around the wedding's venue, hosted at the Carneros Inn in Napa, California. We wanted to incorporate the feeling of the countryside and farm-to-table without leaning too far into the "winery" look and feel of things.
I always choose a group of descriptors for a design, whether its a wedding, invitation, or a home. For this suite, we choose: organic, rustic, elegant, easy, airy, herbal, farm to table, calligraphic,
I created a laurel from sketched and painted rosemary to incorporate through several pieces in the suite as well as their monogram. We then used it on the invitation, backer, velum wrap, save the date, front of the reply card, table numbers and the monogram on their hand drawn map. The other darling little design element of this suite that I really loved was the idea of taping herbs to a page and jotting their names on the tape...I really haven't any clue where the idea came from, I just thought it was a creative way of using the pieces. The "taped herbs" were used as backers for several of the pieces and also along the bottom of the reception card.
after the suite was printed, we had each piece run with gold foil to add little bits of gold sparkle into the watercolor elements. We decided against doing gold for the letter as we liked the look of the heavy black contrast. Naturally, all the envelopes were addressed in gold calligraphy ink.
...in process - rosemary & sage invitations
Whenever I begin a new design, there are a few very important steps. First, determining the look and feel of the event and making sure the lines of communication are open between the designer and the client. That may seem like a given, but seeing how much time we spend on artwork, its nice to only have to do it once!
For this suite, we started with our descriptors - organic, farm to table, green, airy, light, elegant, formal. We knew we wanted to incorporate rosemary, sage, a hand drawn map, bits of gold, and very formal cursive. The next step I take is to sketch out the entire suite. I do this for a few reasons - one, it really helps me determine what art piece I'll need, what spot calligraphy will be needed where, what pieces we're actually going to be working on and it also helps the client see the overall look and feel and how the artwork will flow from one piece to another (which can be difficult to communicate otherwise). These sketches are exactly what I show to a client as we work through the process - they aren't very clean or pretty, but the communicate the general idea.
After the sketch is done, I begin working on sketching out the artwork. Depending on the overall look and feel, sometimes I go straight to watercolor or whatever our chosen color medium is. In this case, I purposely chose to ink everything first to bring in an element of black.
Studio Shoppe - anything can be print
Growing up, I LOVED Shel Silverstein (I mean, who didn't?). When I cam across this quote, the rhyme of it just struck a chord with me, the words catching my heart. When I looked it up and realized who was being quoted, it was no surprise.
Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.
I love the idea of this hanging on the wall in the room of a little girl...then it should come in pink. If you would like it in pink, shoot me an email and in pink it shall be!
Presenting - Moira Studio Shoppe!
Jenny and I have made ourselves collected ourselves a lovely little pile of calligraphed quotes. She and I both are huge fans of Instagram (@designhouseofmoira and @moirainkcalligraphy) and we doodle quotes to post weekly. Our brilliant selves realized that they actually make really lovely gallery prints, and we thusly (and finally) launched our Studio Shoppe! Prints are available in a variety of sizes, printed on cotton paper and make will make someone very happy come Christmas time! You can visit our studio shoppe here.
Moira Ink Calligraphy workshops!!
We are so thrilled to announce the launch of our calligraphy and lettering workshops!! You can register for either our San Diego calligraphy workshop (October 26th) or San Francisco (November 10th) through our Studio Shoppe! We'll be adding an additional San Diego (La Mesa) class as well as a second San Francisco class soon!
Our calligraphy workshops will cover beginning calligraphy techniques, review and style and entire font set, learn and review basic flourishing, centering, ink types and mixing colors as well as the basic supply options. This workshop is perfect for soon-to-be brides (and their bridesmaids!) as well as industry professionals, shop owners (talk about having adorable signage!), crafters and scrapbookers, as well as anyone looking to learn a new skill set.