New Blog for Invitation Creations



Hi!!

In the world we live in, we have iPads, iPhones and androids, etc.  In most scenarios I love technology, and I'm that girl who loves techy things.  And yes, I have both and I love them dearly.  Another thing I love is my website, mostly because I built it myself.  I built it in Flash and thought it was really "cool" to have the animated features of the site.  Learning how to create it and putting it together just felt empowering! And I didn't have to pay anyone else to do it!!

Steve Jobs, well he was not a big fan of Flash and didn't support it on his products like the iPhone or the Ipad.  I guess he didn't think the animation was that cool. And it doesn't seem like that has changed with time so I now have to.  Though there are apps out there so you can see Flash sites, it's just doesn't satisfy our consumer need of "I have to have it right now" spirit. Plus, I'm listening to my clients tell me, I can't pull up your site on my iPad.

So, I have started creating an iPad/iPhone Friendly site.  And so the late nights have begun...
It's hard to let go of something I worked so hard on so I figured out a way to have both by creating more work for myself :) YAY! Am I crazy or what? When you go to my website from an iPad, it takes you to the friendly iPad version site and when you visit it from a desktop, you still go to my Flash version. I'm just not ready to let go. Maybe the double maintenance will help me get over that soon! REAL soon!

With the notion of starting a new site, I thought, hey I need to update my blog too! Well, unfortunately that came with having to change the web address to www.invitationcreationspm/icblog. so keep up with our blog by bookmarking the new site. Though both sites are still being tweaked, both are live! So thanks Apple for making me create another site and thanks to my clients who gave me that extra push to get with the times!

Rawrr!! Dinosaur Invitations for a 3rd birthday Party!

Rawrr!!

It's a dinosaur party for a boy who's turning three!!
Let's start with these invitations. The dinosaur look couldn't look aggressive, menacing or scary! We wanted the children to want to come and not be scared just by looking at the invitations :)


For the party, we made several goodie items like cupcake toppers, goodie bags, bag labels, water bottle labels, food signs and a welcome sign.


Let's start with the cupcake toppers. We had three different designs but all complimenting the invitation.


We also created food labels and when possible created dinosaur themed names for the food as well.



The goodie bags were filled with dinosaur themed goodies like a large Dinosaur gummie, dinosaur rocks which were chocolate, and some other dinosaur related items.

 These were inside the goodie bags and they are chocolate!!

We also created these great water bottle labels!

 On the front door we created a welcome sign to the party.

And last but not least, the thank you cards!

Thanks for checking out our Dino-mite stationery =)

Let's go Wild! Birthday Jungle - Safari Invitations


Angela lives in California and decided to call me earlier this year because she fell in love with my jungle invitations. In particular, the Let's go bananas invitation.  Her soon-to-be 3 year old son would be having his own safari birthday. Since his birthday event would be at the Sand Diego Zoo, she wanted an invitation that reflected the venue and the type of birthday party it would be!

And talk about an awesome birthday party, the children and the parents would be enjoying a scavenger hunt throughout the park and the guests without children would be getting a behind-the-scenes tour of The San Diego Zoo! Who wouldn't want to go to that kind of birthday party? 


To top it off, we added custom stamps and matching calligraphy for the envelopes. 


Thanks Angela, for letting me create these wonderful invitations for your son!

Trust from a Nigerian


So Lola was a referral from another client, Lori.  Typically when someone is referred by a previous client, the new potential client has a level of trust already built in because they know someone who has hired them.  

What I didn't know is that Lola and Jerry had a terrible experience with hiring a potential wedding planner prior to meeting me.  So needless to say, they didn't hire that wedding planner and were very skeptical during half of our meeting together. Yes only halfway. Jerry who was most skeptical, started to relax. Hey, I even saw a smile on his face!  After seeing my work, meeting me in person, seeing my  studio, seeing my business license and reviewing my contract, he felt more comfortable.  Yes, they were very vocal about their experience and afraid of going through the same run-around that the previous planner had tried to pull on them. Well, anyone who knows me, knows that I am all about my work and my name so therefore I give 100% of my time and passion into what I do and they saw that and chose to have me create their wedding invitations :) YAY!!

 And if you are wondering, yes...they eventually hired a wedding planner who is considered one of the best in town, Gail Johnson of Gail Johnson Weddings.



This was a Nigerian wedding and I truly loved the wedding colors of tangerine orange and green. 


We also created programs for their wedding ceremony.


And the escort cards for their guests.

All the photos in this post are taken by the wonderfully talented Catherine of MyLife Photography. She's an excellent wedding, lifestyle, or editorial photographer.  Feel free to check out her website, mylifephoto.com.

You argh invited! - Pirate Invitations

I have SO many things to share with you that I don't even know where to start! I should share some wedding things, but to be a little more playful, I thought I would start off with a pirate invitation :) This little pirate was turning two and just LOVES 'Jake and the Neverland Pirates' from Disney. So we decided to take inspiration from that. The cake would be 'Buckey' which is the boat Jake uses. By the way, the cake was made by Publix.


The cupcakes would have cupcake toppers with the pirate theme as well.



We created custom water labels and a couple of table signs as well.



The favor for the adults were mini chocolate bars with a custom label on them.


The goody bags for the kids were also custom as well with the pirate loot inside of them.


Inside the kids had chocolate coins and other little goodies.


The invitation was a trifold invitation. The birthday boy loves orange, so I incorporated a little orangey-yello in there as well. I love the woodlike paper, don't you?


Lantern Wedding Invitations


I LOVED working with Ashlie! She was such an sweet, easy-going and wonderful client and I'm so lucky she chose me as her preferred stationer. We started off with her save the dates.

At this stage, she chose a gatefold save-the-date where we could have a photo of the couple.  The part that had not been decided was what graphic were we going to use throughout her wedding stationery. She had a passion for bonsai trees and was using them for her centerpieces so I kept that in mind as an option.  Another option was the venue itself which was Castle Ladyhawke.  At the entrance of the castle, there were 2 lanterns which ivy crawling on the walls.

So initially we created samples with these two options. Ultimately, She chose the lantern style:) Ashlie had a preference for a classic look with modern tendencies. Her colors were yellow and gray. So we decided to use a predominant yellow color for her save the dates and reverse it for the invitations. She loved the pocket fold look and wanted this for her invitation.

 We created 4x9 sized programs that are straight and to the point but coordinate with the rest of her wedding stationery.
For being such a wonderful client, I gave a few of these thank you cards to Ashlie:)

I do wish Ashlie and Voya only the best and look forward to the next time our paths cross again.

Vibrant Boarding Pass Invitation


Keisha and Kenji contacted me about creating a boarding pass luggage tag combo for their wedding invitations. Something I had not done together. They were both vibrant  real and genuine people who weer easy to relate to and enjoyed their company each time I met with them.

 I simply love doing new designs and knew designing their wedding invitations would be fun! As they discussed their vision of their wedding, they wanted to reflect a bold, fun celebration.  They loved neutral tones with punches of color. We also were maintaining a budget without compromising design.  I think we pulled it off!

 

The invitation was on the boarding pass, additional information card was the luggage tag. Both were wrapped with a belly band with a custom monogram in the center.  Thanks Keisha and Kenji for allowing me to be a part of your special day!

Bereavement Cards



Another new product. Bereavement cards. Not the happiest of topics, but loss has come to forefront of my mind as I mourn the sudden loss of my uncle this week.

A past bride of mine lost her mother at the end of last year and wanted to send out bereavement cards to all the friends and family that helped her with love, support, gifts, food, flowers, etc. in such a difficult time of her life. Luckily she thought of her preferred stationer, moi. Though I had never done these before, she trusted me in this unknown area and I really wanted to be a part of something so personal and dear to my client.

In difficult times is when true friendships flourish. When your mourning a loss, its hard to eat, to sleep, to breathe and possibly go on. Those who help carry us through this difficult time are ones we cherish and know those relationships will last a lifetime.

Starfish Passport Invitation and Boarding Pass response



So I am super late posting these invitations, but better late than never :)
Ebenee and Arthur were such a pleasure to work with. They were having a destination wedding at the Majestic in Punta Cana. They didn't come in with the idea of doing a passport / boarding pass invitation, but once they saw some previous ones I had created, they really became enamored with it. With a count of almost 300 invitations, budget was something we had to keep in mind.

We decided to create a passport invitation and use the boarding pass as the response card. As an added touch we created custom mailing labels for this gorgeous invitation suite.

Ebenee told me that many of her guests wanted to keep the invitation set in its entirety so they elected to call with their response instead of mailing it back. I know this had to be frustrating to Ebenee, but inside I took that as a compliment :)

We also created several goodies for her day-of stationery and I can't wait to share those with you next! Enjoy!

Birthday Bubbles


So every year I have always had total control of my daughter's birthday parties. Well, this year, I had my first power struggle with a soon-to-be 5 year old. She had her own ideas of what she wanted for her birthday party. For the past four years I have done it my way and now my daughter is voicing her opinion, no, her demands -shed tear, my daughter is growing up :(

She wanted a clown which is what I did for my son's M&M birthday party. Well, I wanted to do something different, something she had not had or seen before. Her second suggestion was to have a DJ, again something we had already done for her dancing princess party when she turned 4. I wanted to do a bubbles party. She loves bubbles and so does my then 16 month old. I thought she would love the idea. Nope, she said, "maybe when I turn 6 you can do that mommy." Well, I wasn't going to back down. I really wanted to surprise her at the party with the entertainer but she left me with no choice. I had to show her the video on the entertainer's website for her to be excited about having a bubbles party. GA Bubbleman was the man to who came and did an excellent job entertaining and showing the kids how to blow all kinds and sizes of bubbles.

Once I got her excited about the theme, now I would have to negotiate her color scheme.I really wanted to do a pink and green color scheme, but she had other ideas.  She wanted , blue, purple, hot pink and lavender.  It reminded me a lot of Ariel's colors from Disney.  So, I thought if I just showed her without asking her, she would go for it. How does the phrase go? Its better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission?  Well, It's kind of like that.

So I showed her the invitation ans she loved it. Yay!! So we were good with the colors.
I incorporated the bubbles concept on the invitation as well as throughout all the pieces of stationery used.   I created water bottle labels, cupcake toppers, candy labels, for the favors for the adults, and the goody bags themselves. Lots of work,but a whole bunch of fun!!!






  

50 Year Anniversary



This is what it is all about! Usually, I meet with clients who are at the beginning of their journey, all in love and excited about their first day as man and wife. In this case, I am creating invitations to celebrate 50 years of marriage and where the love has conquered all. It's such a rare and special occasion that I feel honored to be a part of this.

Their children thought their parents deserved something special so they hosted this event. Marriages like this are a true inspiration for me as I hope to see my 50th wedding anniversary as well.

HO! HO! HO! Christmas and Holiday Cards of this Season!

Here are some of the Christmas -Holiday- New Years Cards I designed this year! These were a lot of fun and something different than what I usually do.
===MY PERSONAL CHRISTMAS CARD===
This one is my personal Christmas Card. I wasn't sure if people were going to know that this is how it was supposed to look since it arrives flat but hopefully they got it!!

===MY BUSINESS HOLIDAY CARD===
Here is my business holiday cards sent out to all my clients of this year. Last year my perosnal and business cards were the same except for the signature but this year I challenged myself to create different ones...not sure I will do this again :)

=== 7x7 HOLIDAY CARD===
This one was really unique in that it was 7"x7" folded card with 4 layers of cardstock! We also did the custom stamps and custom address label. Pretty sweet if I do say so myself. My client Sherri brought this quote to me and I loved it! She personalized every part of this card and I loved it!
Here you can see her envelope with the custom label and stamp.

=== NEW YEAR'S CARD===
This is is a New Years Card and my first swivel card. On one side is this message and on the other was a family photo. We also created custom stamps and a custom address label. These were for a loyal client who came last year for her New Years Card as well and we weren't sure if we were going to be able to top her card from last year, but I do think we did. I love these!
By the way, she is an artist with a lot of talent. Check out her work at www.eileenbergerart.com
She has had her work and continues to have it exhibited across the country and even overseas!!

===5x7 FOLDED CARD WITH A CUSTOM SEAL===
This client wasn't sure if we were going to be able to coordinate everything we needed for these Christmas cards, but we did! She had the family photos taken by Emily Morgalis Photography.
She does wonderful work, check her out here : www.morgalisphotography.com. We also created a custom label for her envelope but or some reason I don't have one for my portfolio to show you :(

=== CHRISTMAS Z-CARD===
We used a photo of their Christmas tree as the cover and had photos of the evergrowing family and of their grandchildren throughout.
Here's a peek of the message that was the center of their holiday card.
===4x9 NEW YEARS CARD===
I love the Alvarez family. They were one of my all time favorite bride and grooms and actually one of my first clients. I love how our business relationship has been maintained throughout the years.
===4x5 Z-CARD===

I love this card! Its' so vibrant and cute! And great for showing off photos!

Happy Holidays to old and new friends of Invitation Creations, LLC and I hope to serve you in the future!

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