Holiday Cards

This year's holiday Cards.

Because we have had some changes at PQ, I wanted to do kind of a timeline of events of the past year, leading up to where we are now. It was definitely inspired by those cheesy typed up letters that you inevitably get every year from your Aunt in South Dakota, bragging about how successful your cousins are and all of the exciting places they have traveled in the past year. So, we did that, but put some humor in it and made it look much cooler than a typed up letter on ugly holiday paper. :)

And then of course, the family card. I will have you know, I orchestrated this shoot over Thanksgiving weekend at the lake. I told everyone that they had to wear red or green and look as J.Crew as possible. I think the rest of my family thought I was crazy and self absorbed, but they do not understand my process!

Really Santa, Really?

Ok, I couldn't resist. Here's some Holiday spirit for you. Did you know that Santa only works a 9 to 5er? Actually, he stops taking appointments after 5. SORRY. How ridiculous. So what do us working parents do? Well, you sneak out of your job early, drive like a mad man home to pick up your kid so you can meet Santa on time. Fight with your kid, trying despretely to stuff tiny arms (or in our case, chubby arms and double chins) into a red turtle neck, zig-zag in and out of rush hour traffic to the MALL, only to be thwarted by the mini-van going 20 in the left lane. You drop mom off at the door, cuz it's 4:59 and she needs to get her place in line, while dad and kid drive around looking for a parking space. They find one, on the third floor of the parking structure, 2 miles away from the nearest door. Mom makes it to Santa, but by now it is 5:01, and guess what?! Santa won't take any more appointments! AGGGGHHHHH. I guess we will leave our jobs extra early today and give it another shot.

This is my son having a tantrum before going to see Santa.

I will not show you the picture of Mommy having a tantrum when she found Santa wasn't taking any more appointments.

Take a deep breath and Have a Happy Holiday everyone!

Red Snow Birds Invitation

Nicole's wedding is my first for 2010 and she was wonderful to work with! I am hoping all of my 2010 brides are like her! Her reception is taking place in January at the River Birch Lodge in Hartland, Michigan. It is a beautiful rustic cabin. Think huge, boulder fireplaces, antler chandeliers and twinkling lights. Such a perfect location for a warm and cozy winter wedding. The bride wanted to make sure that feeling was conveyed through out the invitation suite. We chose a warm ivory stock and a cranberry red, which complimented the soft look of the falling snow.

This design will also be available through our inkwell collection.

Hand Painted Birth Announcement

When Rebecca contacted me earlier this season for baby announcements, I was thrilled! Not only does she have great style, but she is also the author behind, Clover and Bee, an awesome blog dedicated to all things midwest weddings. Being a Michigander, how could I not love this blog! :) 

The best thing about working on these invites, was that Rebecca totally trusted me to try something I have never done...hand-painted announcements! I think the result was just what she was looking for, a decorative, folk-artsy, feel.

I have been really inspired lately by the work of Anna over at Rifle Design. I have been waiting for an excuse to bust the paints out.  Rebecca's project seemed to be the perfect one. We got the ok from Rebecca, and away we went! I haven't painted anything since college, but it felt great!

I must say, that I cannot take full credit for this one! My husband, Matt, who is creative in his own right, actually sketched out the entire design and I just did the painting. :) He also drew images of ourselves in our son's Yellow Submarine birth announcement! If he keeps this up, we might have to put him on the pay roll!

Rebecca also suggested adding her and her husband's initials carved into the tree. Love it! It adds that personal touch.

5 Years!...WOW!

Today is our 5th wedding anniversary! I can't believe it has been that long! They are not joking when they say, time flies. Especially this year, with a new baby. I can't believe he will be 1 in a short few months! Crazy...

I thought you might get a kick out of looking back on my wedding day and the adventures in our life the past 5 years.

Yup, I'm a blinker...That was taken the week I found out I was pregnant. The bottom left was me at 7 months prego on the way to see AC/DC! And the middle two are taken by Jessica Johnston.  Happy Anniversary babe!

Jeannine and Fal's Hindu/Christian Wedding Accessories

Jeannine and Fal's wedding just wrapped up the last of our 2009 invitations. It was a pretty end to the season, dontcha think? 

A seating chart with the same intricate pattern from her invitation.

A 3-page program printed on shimmery paper.

Coordinating place cards and thank you notes.

Halloween Card

This year I did our first family Halloween card. We purchased Campbell a lion costume and since then, he has been working at his fierce growl! 

For those of you that are familiar with my work, you have probably noticed that I have a love of type! I like to take various type styles and arrange them so that they all work together in a unique way. 

You open the envelope to see what scary surprise is inside!

Shaunta's Custom Wedding Accessories

Shaunta's wedding invitations was one of my favorites to work on yet. She had three different patterns throughout the invitation suite and we incorporated each one into her accessories.

We created a custom seating chart.

Table numbers with crystals accents throughout the pattern.

Menus and separate  children's menu's for each guest. She is having Spider Orchids attached to each menu as well. I can't wait to see those pics!

Guest Books and Signature Cocktail Menu with crystal embellishments.

Last but not least, a custom die cut fan with crystals on the front blade and beautiful satin tassels. 

Alpha Phi - Red Damask Invitations

This is the third year in a row that we have had the opportunity to work with the Beta Beta Chapter of Alpha Phi sorority. Every year they host a Red Dress Ball to raise money for the Alpha Phi Foundation. In keeping with the theme of the Red Dress Ball, we make each invitation to include an aspect of a dress. This year we chose to do a vibrant red damask pattern and made a "belt" with their greek letters to hold the response card and invitation together.

Candyland Boxed Invitations

We were contacted to create Caroline's 5th birthday party invitations by Gabby of Flowers by Gabrielle in Grosse Pointe. She is doing all of the candy displays and a candy bar for the party. We then knew we had to incorporate candy into the invitation.

We decided to do a boxed invitation so that we could easily mail the candy and it wouldn't get damaged. We incorporated the candy cane border on the mailing label and chose a fun type face for the address. 

We thought it would be fun to recreate the gameboard with start being Caroline's address and ending at her Candy Castle. We purchased the game so that we would be accurate. Let me say, the Candyland of today, is not like the Candyland that I played when I was a little girl! Much more graphics and I think that there are some new characters. Princess Frostine being one of them. That is Caroline's favorite character and her mom made a special request that we include her in the invitation.

The best part of these invitations is the rainbow lollipop. When Caroline's friends open their invitation, there will be a little surprise for them inside!

Lobster Dinner & Signature Michigan Drink

So Saturday night we had some good friends of ours over for dinner. I love the excuse to entertain because I get to bust out the fancy glassware, serving dishes and linens that don't normally get used on a regular basis. It's my chance to act like Martha for a day.

I always try to do some sort of flower arrangement. I added fruits with warm, fall colors, purples and golds and put it all in a silver serving dish.

I chose to do whole lobsters for dinner. I have never done this before! I have done tails, but never the whole thing. I was a little nervous about the whole presentation of it all and how I was going to get the meat out of the tail, but it was actually quite easy...just messy. I served it with crusty bread and a nice mixed green salad with pine nuts and honey gold apple slices. We finished up the evening with home made chocolate mousse, topped with a strawberry.

I made a signature drink that I have never had before either. Now that I think about it, it was actually a lot of firsts for me, which they never say to do if you are having people for dinner! As I was making it, I was thinking what a perfect signature drink this would be for a Michigan themed wedding. It has cherries and Vernors in it! For those of you who don't know, Traverse City, MI is considered the Cherry Capitol and Vernors was originally created and bottled in Detroit. I must say, it is delicious and refreshing. You mix the ingredients in a serving dish and freeze it so that it creates a slush and then top with Vernors and a cherry. Give me a shout if you want the recipe!

Ork Posters

I LOVE typography. I LOVE the challenge of typography when you are trying to make it fit creatively within a space. You have to really think about the font itself, placement of letters, the size, width and spacing of each letter. It takes real thought and time people! So, when I saw these posters from Ork Posters, via Clover and Bee, I had to have one. Especially the Great Lakes version me being a Michigander and all!  Then I thought, "Damn! Why didn't I think of that?!" 

Definitely check out the Ork Poster's website, they have tons of links to other great sites of talented designers and state and city themed designs. Perfect place to find unique ideas for welcome baskets or wedding party gifts.

Jeannine and Fal's Hindu/Christian Wedding Invitation

Jeannine contacted us about a little over a month ago. She is having both a Hindu and Christian wedding ceremony and had seen a previous Hindu/Christian wedding invitation we had done for a past bride that she loved. Jeannine had put off ordering invitations, because she was debating on wether to order them direct from India, after all they are much cheaper there, but she was nervous about working with a company overseas, especially when she was in such a time crunch. She decided to work with us and I am so glad she did! In the bride's words, she said "I really like the bling" and bling we did!


She chose a burgundy shimmer pocket fold with ivory shimmer insert cards. For embellishments she picked gold and ruby rhinestones that accent throughout the design. We also did custom stamps for the envelope and response postcard. The fun part of this very formal invitation was the timeline. Because the entire day is filled with events, it was very important that her guests know what was happening

Gary & Jodie's Seating Chart

Stephani's Damask Invitation

We have been working with Stephani and Dan for awhile now. We did her Damask Save the Dates earlier this summer. Which, by the way, we offer a discount if you order both! We kept her entire design consistent for both the STD's and invitation suite.

For the invitation she wanted a more formal look, but she said to have fun with the rest of the cards, and that is what we did! The invitation is held together by a black band and the envelope has the enlarged damask printed on the flap and front of the envelope.

My favorite part are her response card and timeline. Stephani didn't give us a whole lot of direction on what she wanted them to say, but she wanted them to convey that the evening was going to be a big party. So, we winged it, but I think it came out really cute.

The timeline is a new layout for me. Not the typical way we do it, but it was fun to switch it up. I love the "Exchange of the Bling" and the graphic of the two of them kissing good-night.

Laura's Accessories

We did Laura's custom swirly monogram invitations a couple of months ago. Initially she thought that she was going to do all of her accessories herself, but as her wedding day was drawing near she decided she just didn't have the time. So she contacted us to do them for her about a week prior to the big day!



We did programs, place cards and tented table numbers that were double sided with a special thank you to their guests. Instead of table favors, they made donations to two causes that were near and dear to their hearts, The Cancer Research Institute and The Special Operations Warrior Foundation. The SOWF is dedicated to providing a college educations to surviving children of fallen special ops forces who lose their lives in battle or training. I thought this was especially touching since the groom's brother is a Ranger and could not attend the wedding.