Embroidered Wedding Portraits

Happy Monday everyone! It's hard to believe September is over, and with exciting changes coming soon to Hello!Lucky, we're taking deep breaths as we welcome October in anticipation for the holiday season. Although our minds are wrapped around holiday festivities and winter cheer, wedding bells are still ringing and we had to share the perfect wedding gift for any time of year. These hand-embroidered canvas portraits by Michelle Rigg are completely customizable and turn any standard wedding portrait into a work of art.

We love all the meticulous details that go into each design. From the seams in the wedding dress, to the perfect outlines of the figures, it's easy to tell this artist takes extra special care.

Any why not make it personal? Love can be found in all forms, and for a couple with a shared interest, adding a little humor never hurts.

Check out more from Michelle Rigg here!

New Uses for Paint Swatches

If you haven't seen them scattered around design blogs yet, check out these paint swatch boxes from How About Orange! What a perfect wedding favor box!

You can customize them to match your wedding colors! Oh, the possibilities...

Take a peek at their other tutorial projects here.

Sewn paint swatches as napkin/silverware holders from Sew Many Ways. These would make for an adorable table setting.

If you're really up for a challenge, try this Paint Swatch Wall Decoration from Design*Sponge! It's sure to impress!

Happy crafting!

Craft inspiration from Felt & Wire

Calling all crafters! Felt and Wire is an excellent source for sprucing up your paper products and gifts. We piled a few of our favorites, but there are endless choices! Check out their shop here.

(above: Paperphine twine)

Paperfinger stamp

Top Hat tape

Studio Snapshot: Charming wedding decor

Whether charming, rustic, romantic, or sweet, the brilliance involved with this wedding for our overseas friends, Lisa and Rory is really something! We're currently putting together their day-of wedding materials - it's really coming together!

These vintage style pub signs are getting cut out and used as table numbers!

Say cheese! These tiny cheese signs will be dashing on display.

Each guest will have a program paddle fan to keep them cool! These are really turning out to be one of our signature products!

Studio Snapshot: Assembling Day-of Wedding Materials

It's summertime! For us, that means we're busy producing materials to be used at summer weddings, including programs, place cards, and table top decorations. We love to see how an invitation design can be translated to day-of wedding decor, especially when customized to match the wedding colors. Our Architecture invitation looks striking as a table number (above) and a welcome drink sign (below).

These tented signs work great as double-sided menus - one side for hors-d'oeuvres and and the other for cocktails!

We like to use a bone folder to fold each place card, guaranteeing an even score. Its all in the details, after all!

Jude's French flash cards

At craft night, Eunice has been working on French flash cards for her son, Jude. They are pen & ink illustrations with a watercolor finish - absolutely fantastic for any aspiring bilingual babies!

Eunice is trying to raise Jude bilingual in French and English, so she's always trying to find fun ways to teach him new vocabulary (ok, so he doesn't speak yet, but!) as well as adding to her own French vocab.  She has a love for making flash cards - the words really stick and it's a fun and quick excuse to doodle.  It's also a great excuse to play around with painting/watercolor techniques - the perfect platform to practice on (being the raging multi-tasker that she is!)

Her inspiration for each card is to find things Jude has seen, or words that are just plain amusing (like the fact that raccoon directly translates to "a washing young rat" more or less!) - both the raccoon and the otter are animals they saw at the zoo recently.  The kites are from a recent outing to Crissy Field and the race car is a noise he's learned to make lately.  Next up are a horse, gorilla, tiger, cow and duck - more noises he's been making lately (for the gorilla he pounds his chest!). Once he sees a cow and starts mooing, he will moo for the next 20 minutes!

Pottery Barn Decorating Workshop

Last weekend, we got to teach a special event decorating workshop at Pottery Barn at Stanford Mall and at Chestnut Street in San Francisco!  We shared DIY craft ideas from Handmade Weddings, along with party & wedding decorating tips. I, for one, had been clueless about Pottery Barn's awesome entertaining selection before the workshop -- turns out the have fabulous glass drink dispensers, cake stands, linen-wrapped candles, and mercury glass votives -- all great accent pieces that make a table scape feel polished and stylish!

We showed the class how to decorate a table in two different styles: Romantic (left) and Happy Graphic (right), using similar projects in different palettes to show just how easy it is to create a unique look. The flowers were picked out by our friend, florist Nancy Liu Chin (we did a DIY arrangement -- Nancy, hope we did your flowers justice!).

We started with recycled glass jars, which we wrapped in linen and stretch denim and stenciled with table numbers - the same project gets a totally different look just by choice of materials.

We finished each wrap with a simple row of stitched "X"s. They slip on and off easily, and you can reuse the containers -- no special sewing skills needed!  We wrapped books in papers matching each palette to use as risers, adding height to the table (helped achieve a pleasing pyramid composition. And who doesn't have some books lying around? So easy!).

The Happy Graphic side featured a palette of reds, yellows, and blues plus kraft and denim accent textures. We incorporated patterns with fabric-wrapped favors and DIY bread basket liner.

We added graphic pop with an easy fabric-covered button napkin ring and striped dollar store party favors (who knows what these things are called?! please tell us!).

Drink flags are one of our favorite party details.  All you need are bamboo skewers (available at most super markets) and ribbon or paper. We did a simple satin ribbon flag for the Romantic side...

...and a paper pennant for the Happy Graphic side.

Thanks to Pottery Barn for hosting us, and to all the wonderful folks who attended the workshops - it was great meeting you!

Pot + Pantry: 7X7 Best of the City!

We're mighty proud of Donna for winning 7 x 7's award for her adorable housewares shop, Pot + Pantry in Noe Valley/Mission in SF! It was less than a year ago that she left us to start it all up, so we toast her honor.

And we had to share these hilarious cookies with you, perhaps as inspiration for Father's Day gifts, or just as a clever treat for the carnivores in your life:

Of course, the presentation is key.  It was all part of a "Meat Market" show she did a week or so ago.

Check out the Pot + Pantry Blog for more fun.

It all made us think of our BBQ Parade Father's Day Card.

Happy hunting!

Reminder— A Midsummer's Eve Affair, Tomorrow, June 4th!

Come craft with us tomorrow, at a Paper Source near you! See you there!

Summer Streamers and DIY Party Decor

The DIY experts over at Made recently posted this tutorial on creating colorful streamers that we absolutely love!

Wouldn't this make great decor for a summer wedding?

Perhaps a great compliment to our Mi Amour design with Mexican paper flags?

Sewing paper ... how perfect!

National Stationery Show!

Whew! We just wrapped up another National Stationery Show - complete with old friends, new designs and lots and lots of inspiring new work. Our own booth featured a lovely felt sign made by our staff (above) and a couple projects from Handmade Weddings, like these yarn wrapped bottles...

...and fun paper link chains!

We were super excited about our new products, like this "Treat Yourself" card from Julia Rothman....

...and our reversible journals!

Some amazing people stopped by our booth to visit, but our favorite visitor was Eunice's son Jude - he really put the rest of us to shame with his amazing sales skills!

A Midsummer Eve's Affair— Save the Date!

Here's a little teaser for an exciting upcoming crafting event:

Click on this link to the Paper Source website for more details, and to register for a workshop near you!

Truly Delicious Polar Bear!

Cake and Cupboard made this absolutely edible fondant cake topper of our Delicious Polar Bear letterpress greeting card.

And here's the inspiration:

How cute is that?! We bet she could make some pretty great cakes to match our other greeting card designs... such potential!

Studio Snapshot: The Collection + A Roadtrip

We're thrilled to be teaming up with The Collection Event Studio a gorgeous design studio, retail shop and meeting space in downtown Sonoma.  Always up for a mini road trip, we jumped into the car, iced coffee in-hand and took off for wine country!

The girls at The Collection have curated a wonderful assortment of products and vendors and showcase them so beautifully in their space.  Its like a one-stop shop for planning the most perfect rustic chic wedding!

We couldn't leave Sonoma without a quick peek into the Church Mouse Thrift Shop where we gazed with envy upon shelf after shelf of vintage china and stemware.  Lillian found a perfect silver cocktail shaker!

How great is the pattern on these cups and saucers?  Inspiration is everywhere!

James & Alex's Cardboard Box Birthday!

Sabrina's twin sons James and Alex's cardboard-box themed 1st birthday party was this past Saturday - it was a huge success!

It all started one night with some hilarious antics involving a Huggies box...

...which made Sabrina think that cardboard boxes would be the perfect theme for their party! It also worked perfectly with a happy graphic style inspired by Paul & Ann Rand's Sparkle & Spin, a favorite since childhood!

The invitations were printed on kraft board with box-inspired envelopes. The party was billed as B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Box)!

We transformed cardboard boxes into all kinds of vehicles for the party -- a car...

...a prop jet...

...and a castle guarded by Ugly Dolls, ducks, and piggies...

...and a fierce / playful dragon!

Monsieur Hugo, a party-goer, aboard a cardboard bus...

Fun custom balloons were a graphic accent...

...along with mini-box favors (instructions can be found in our book, Handmade Weddings)...

...and paper hats!

Cardboard flowers in yarn-wrapped bottles (instructions are also in Handmade Weddings), sodas and stripe-y straws...

Eunice & Sabrina with cousins Jude and Alex eyeing each other...

Happy 1st birthday, James & Alex!

Special thanks to our friend Jillian Northrup of Because We Can for the amazing photos - check out her photo stream here. And props to Noe Valley Bakery for making the delicious cake based on our design! And finally, high-fives to Craft Night for your cardboard creativity (you know who you are!)!

Styled!

We are ooing and ahhing over this eye-feast, a new mag—Styled— on A Subtle Reverie. Gorgeous! Here's a pinkie-taste of the deliciousness:

Find fab inspiration on all styles of entertaining, from Easter egg embellishment to lemonade stands. Decadent photography and Delectable DIYs. Love it! Again, the link.

Enjoy!

Bow-tie paper clip DIY

Spotted this cute DIY over at How About Orange...such a cute and easy idea to brighten up your paper clip collection. We think this would be a super cute idea for place cards too! Just use a different color or pattern for each escort card and then use the same fabric to decorate each table - your guests can even wear the paper clips on their lapels! See the full instructions here.

Jude's Big Top Birthday: Birthday Cake Banner!

A slightly tardy post on how make the little flags that topped Mr. Jude's Big Top Birthday Cake (thank you for your patience, dear readers, things have been a little busy here at H!L HQ!)   We thought these little banners were the perfect topper for a circusy cake!  That perfect stripey candle and equally genius napkins found at Shop Sweet Lulu...

Download the tutorial here (with printable flags!)

Sweet vintage button designs!

Swooning over these particularly gorgeous edible sugar buttons from andiespecialtysweets.

They come in chocolate for those who like a little kick, and a little more of a rustic feel.

They make us recall of one our sweetest custom save the date designs— a  darling variation on Big Day!  Drop us a line if you're interested in this design for your wedding:

Let it Never be Said...

That we are not deeply dedicated to our clients!  This is the result of a bag of confetti and brief moment of distraction while assembling wedding invitations - clearly he is a future artist, expressing his creativity in all it's glory!