a little antiqued and a lot lovely.

Posted on July 22nd, 2010

I was so happy to be mentioned on Style Me Pretty for Negar and Peter’s wedding invitation… We worked together last summer to design the perfect invitations that would set the tone for their romantic nuptials at the California Club in Los Angeles. What they really wanted, and I think we delivered, was a very timeless invitation that was subtly romantic…. and not at all “cute”… something that they will love as time passes…. something very classic.

To get there I used hand calligraphy for print for their names and charcoal grey ink (I liked the idea of it being grey instead of black as if years had taken their toll and faded the print) with just a little bit of victorian floral embellishment… popped in my inked up press and mashed on a textured but cleanly cut stock…. et voila. It did just the trick.

thanks to Gia Canali for taking the pictures… again! check out Gia’s blog for some other photographs of this wedding and invitations…

Brown Paper Bag Packages

Posted on July 16th, 2010

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As I was printing some brown paper bag envelopes yesterday for a wedding invitation, I was thinking there’s a lot of thinking time in printing, but also I was thinking about where I got this penchant for the good ole grocery bag.

Tiny Pine was started 7 or 8 years ago when I sewed presents onto chopped up trader joes bags and then sewed those onto cardstock for last minute birthday cards. I sold those for a while and made a sort of card line. They were cute and quirky. I know where the sewing thing comes from… , my mom and several aunts and uncles worked at Mr. Casuals for 30 years – a sewing factory in southwest Virginia that produced Ralph Lauren and Osh Kosh and lots of sort of high end jeans and pants and such. My grandma made many many quilts (my mom too). It’s almost genetic.

But why do I love the brown paper bag?

Well, I got a delivery on my doorstep yesterday for my Birthday Present. Every package from my mom looks like this. She literally puts everything in a brown paper bag and wraps it with tape and addresses right on there. The shape doesn’t matter (I’ve gotten round packages) AND she also sticks crazy stamps and stickers on it. I almost don’t want to open it I love it so much.

PS Here is another good example of reusing. That paper bag got a good work out before it got to me.

Thanks Momma!

blog times = good times

Posted on June 29th, 2010

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especially when it’s Martha Stewart’s Wedding Blog!!

I was so so super excited when Yifat Oren gave me the word that Kristina & Jesse’s Wyoming wedding invitations were shown by Martha this morning. HOORAY! I felt like Tiny Pine Press hit the wedding blog jackpot!!

I love this invitation. It’s classic Tiny Pine. I mean, there are pine needle clusters stitched on every invitation. Can you get more piney?

The save the dates were also one of my favorites… with the tinted photograph of the property delivered to the guests, giving them just a peek at where they would be traveling to.

So now a new goal has been reached, and I can rest a bit before working towards a new goal of getting Martha Stewart to follow me on Twitter……

Thanks to Yvette Roman for the pretty photo of the stationery!

my favorite typewriter…

Posted on June 27th, 2010

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This week I finished a sweet trifold letterpress save the date cards in my favorite tyepwriter font. As I was feeding the press, mashing the letters all at once, I thought about how much easier we have it these days, that I only had to type these letters all out one time (or actually, copy and paste) and the ink up the press, just passing them through the clam shell individually.

Not to dismiss the work! these cards were all scored, hand torn, and hand fed, scored, and the tied with two colors of thread. Still a lot more organic than just pushing print.

Plus sustainable on cotton paper, with soy ink. these cards may look charcoal and ivory, but they are really green! and look soooo vintage.

too many good things to choose just one.

Posted on June 16th, 2010

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When Gia Canali and I sat down to figure out her new business cards, we instantly fell in love with a few different combinations. She wanted to have something very organic and earthy feeling, but Gia’s photography really is magical, so we needed to get that in there too….

This amazing amazing tree free faux leather paper showed up…

so earthy and l0vely but not sturdy enough to make a card out of (but definitely durable enough to make an outfit from… that’s coming soon). we would have to mount it onto a thicker card.

A Super AWESOME bonus about this faux leather is that the dark brown side is pretty great, but the reverse side is a delicate soft pink color. Here begins our dilemma. We will end up using both sides.

For the cover weight base stock, we used one of my very favorite handmade papers in this muted plummy color. This is where we get our “magic”. This cottony stock is full of sparkle.

Mounted, trimmed, and printed in two runs… Gia wound up with 4 variations or so for her business cards. Isn’t that fun?!

ps… these photos were taken by Gia… of course!!

letters through time

Posted on May 30th, 2010

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So, I am going to go out on a limb and admit that I love girly romantic movies. I will also admit that I was excited to see “Letters to Juliet” this weekend with a couple of 10 year old girls. Let’s call it “research”, right?

I have to say that the movie was very predictable, even for my young friends, and more than anything I enjoyed the main prop, the letter to Juliet, that was aged and weathered as it had been trapped in a brick wall for 50 years, as the story goes.

I instantly remembered this envelope that a friend of mine sent to me recently. He reused an envelope that had been addressed to his mother by erasing the pencil and removing the stamp. The envelope is lined, thankfully, since the liner is the only thing holding it together, yellow and vibrant as ever.

The best part about this old re-used envelope is the texture. It’s ragged and almost soft yet crispy. It reminds me of cockle onion skin (my very very favorite of the old school writing papers).

Needless to say, when I got this envelope in the mail, it was obvious to me that THIS is the best form of recycling. No chemical processing, no electricity used to re-make this envelope.

Makes me think that I should start using pencil for my correspondence…. so in the future, someone can do the same thing with my envelopes….

Tiny Pines + Hipstamatic = The new old fashioned

Posted on May 25th, 2010

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Whenever I hang out with Gia Canali, I get bitten by the photography bug. She was showing me her iphone photos using the Hipstamatic App, and I took a notion to download that myself. I was hoping that all I needed was a program to make my photos look like hers…

Well, turns out that taking good iphone photos not as easy as just paying $1.99. BUT I was able to start learning how to use my new took as I stitched this weekend.

These photos are of an invitation I am working on right now. My client wanted to have a similar look to this invitation which i designed almost 6 years ago. (I used a black and white “film” to convey the idea that this is the OLD invitation, just so you know )

This new bride is getting married near a pine forest and really loved having that visual element stitched on.

For her, we brightened up the paper a little bit, freshened up the typeface with an added script element, printed letterpress on handmade cotton paper with a slight shimmer – using a cool grey ink color and stitched in a subtle green since her wedding isn’t in the fall… (though you can’t actually tell from my old fashioned photo…… hmmm….)

Every invitation was stitched with the sewing machine but guided by my hand which definitely requires complete concentration, and lots

of tunes in the background.

Since I am quite fond of pines so the hours of stitching breezed by as I concentrated on each one and their limbs.

Obviously, some are taller than other, wider than others, etc. but together they make an elegant stitched tiny pine forest.

lovely on the day of

Posted on April 24th, 2010

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Jessica and Greg are one of my favorite wedding couple clients of the year. Their taste is super elegant and modern… We were really working with a white on white, monochromatic feel for the wedding stationery. I think they were really consistent all the way to the reception…

Their wedding invitations featured a my rendering of Jessica’s wedding dress lace (which was kept quiet from Greg, btw) printed letterpress on handmade paper with white ink.

and these images from Jesssica and Greg’s reception are from wedding planner Mindy Weiss’s blog which also features florals by one of Tiny Pine’s FAVORITES – Gilly’s in Silverlake. I LOVE the way the set up the escort cards… and also a little shot of a table that has Maple wood table numbers…