jen & ink

baby announcement [matthew]

2011-05-11T17:18:00.000-07:00

This announcement was such an especially exciting one for me to design for many reasons. Matthew's mom is a friend of mine and you've probably seen her other invites throughout this blog. I get so excited when she has a new design idea because has such a great sense of style when it comes to what she wants in an invite or announcement that it makes my job so easy. I especially love the simplicity of this one and the softness that it brings.

And with every custom order, there are the designs that didn't make the cut--but that I love just the same. Its great for you because they are then offered to anyone! I really love the boldness of the first one and the subtle texture of the last one (it would look great in girl colors too-- like soft pinks and blushes).

photography credit: amanda causey photography

whimsical wedding invite

2011-05-04T17:08:00.000-07:00

This was my first "theme" wedding invitation, and I must say I really loved it! It helped narrow down some of my many ideas for the invite and it made me think of things that I wouldn't normally incorporate, like butterflies. But here I think the butterflies are my favorite part of it!

The bride has such a great handle on what she wanted and has the theme of "Midsummer Nights Dream." Once I saw she used terms like "sweet/romantic, whimsical/fantasy, and elegant," I knew it would be a fun one. Here is the inspiration she sent me to give an idea of where she was coming from. I loved, loved everything about what she sent. Natural elements are easily my favorite style, whether it's home decor or paper design--something about it just has an great appeal.

And here were two that didn't make the cut, but I still love them so much that I wanted to include them and share with y'all.

custom design summer break

2011-04-20T17:17:00.000-07:00

[source]

This has been a long time coming, but during the summer, I'll be in the process of simplifying (work, home, life, activities, etc.) and part of that includes making some changes to jen & ink (MUCH needed changes that is). Hopefully after the summer, things will be more streamlined and I'll have more options to fit everyone's needs, but I'll need some designated time to get things going.

So with that in mind, I will only be accepting 6 custom orders this summer (May-August). BUT you will still be able to order any of my premade designs found here or my flickr. In fact, I'll be posting some other designs during the next couple weeks as well, so hopefully I'll have a wide range to meet your paper needs this summer without needing to resort to custom work.

So, if you know you'll be needing a custom order this summer or have any questions, just email me at my normal address or jenandink@gmail.com with the date you need to mail them out by, and I'll let you know if I have an opening. So please email me as soon as possible to reserve your date and spread the word!

I'll be taking orders until they fill up, so that could be this week or a week in July--so please don't hesitate to contact me! :)

winter update

2011-03-03T07:00:00.000-08:00

My poor little design blog...so neglected. :) Here are a few designs I've done over the last few months. Enjoy!

recent projects

2010-08-17T18:58:00.000-07:00

many of you have been asking what i've been up to, so here are a few of my summer projects. these were the first ones i had access to, and i have lots more to share later. i love all the fun projects that come my way! :) thank you all!

wedding rehearsal invite (front)

back

baby announcement inspiration (i love getting this kind of stuff!!)

final product

birthday invitation

blog banner

etsy shop banner (this girl is going places!!) :)

buttons

inspiration

final product front

final product back

i'm back!

2010-05-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

my break is officially over! while i still had design work to do during the course of the break, the load of new projects was lifted and gave me some much needed downtime. since i didn't let myself do anything new, i have lots to upload and share with y'all! i have some fun invites, baby announcements, logos, and even a wedding invitation in the mix!

here's the first invite i wanted to share that i did back in March, because what's a post with no pic?

my friend megan came to me while she was planning an engagement party and wanted an invite that reflected "a fun, modern, barbeque." at the party, she planned to have paper lanterns hanging and lights strung around her deck and wanted to incorporate that into the invite. i knew what i wanted to do right away! there were a few directions i went that i'll probably turn into templates and upload to my flickr, but this is the one she picked! i LOVE, LOVE these colors together, and she did a fantastic job of bringing the invite to life at the party. thanks again megan! :)

spring break

2010-03-17T10:27:00.000-07:00

Because it's spring and the weather is coming around, I've decided (well I'd say more so I was encouraged by those who love me) to take a much-needed, short break from design work to recharge my battery. My load is pretty heavy right now, but if we've already discussed your design, don't worry; everything is still on track. I'm just not going to be taking on any new projects from now until May.

As much as it pains me to say no to a project, I've decided that this break will give me the rest I need to get excited about what's to come. I'm also going to be setting up an office in the next couple months, so I will be able to work even better when I come back.

Thank you so much to everyone who keeps up with my work through this blog. Y'all are some my biggest supporters (and customers for that matter). I appreciate you more than you know. See you in May! :)

top hots and feathers and bobs...oh my!

2010-03-02T12:11:00.000-08:00

What would a party be without a little Charleston dance off or men with their moustaches? Excited is an understatement when my friend Mattie came to me last month wanting to throw a 1920s celebration for her 20th birthday. She is such a cool girl and I'm loving all the stuff that we're learning we have in common! Her blog is equally as awesome as she is, but back to the invite.

She wanted something fun, flirty and flapper-filled (or least that's the term I made up to describe it). She preferred muted tones (something that became quite popular in the 20s) along with these flapper girls she found. The girl definitely did her research! I instantly fell in love with the flappers and would suggest everyone go check out the etsy shop where you can buy prints of them. This one is my fav--so cute! But other than that, I was told to just "run with it." The best three words a client could tell me...other than "I love it!" of course. :)

Another cute aspect of the party was the sign in. Instead of a normal sign in, Mattie opted for a more creative way to remember her guests by. So I created this postcard for guests to use to serve as a sign in and a place to give the birthday girl their best wishes:

I was so, so bummed when I got sick and couldn't make it to the party myself. I guess I'll just have to look forward to seeing all the pics! Happy Birthday Mattie! I hope last night was fun and worth all the hard work you put into it! :)

new design

2010-02-13T14:12:00.000-08:00

This is one of my new favorite color combos. Pink is such a great color that is usually overlooked, but when paired with soft, muted tones, it can be really beautiful, at least to me. :) Enjoy!

spring flowers

2010-02-04T19:38:00.000-08:00

Oh how happy this invitation makes me! Mainly because it's an indication that spring is on it's way!! I was so happy when Sarah came to me to do the invite for the shower she was hosting. Her and the other hostesses wanted to incorporate a spring theme and the bride's colors at the same time. She also wanted to include a matching direction card, so that's what you'll see under the invite. From someone who doesn't have a GPS of any sort, these definitely come in handy. :) It's such a bright and happy color combo, so I hope it brings some brightness to your day!

Thanks Sarah for the opportunity! I hope the bride gets lots of love and presents showered on her! :)

lily monroe

2010-02-01T18:53:00.001-08:00

How sweet is that face? Meet Lily. Her mom and friend of mine, Michelle, came to me asking if I'd do Lily's announcement. I was more than willing since it was my very first girl announcement. There's just something about pink that makes me super excited...I guess it's the girly girl in me, but I had such a great time designing it. Her inspiration was Lily's bedding from Pottery Barn , so you can see that I had a great color palette and style to work with. I also wanted to mention that the pics Michelle wanted to use in the announcement were from the hospital when Lily was born; Michelle said that the photographer even got a lily out of a flower arrangement and used it in one of the photos. I just loved that! So with all that said, here's sweet Lily:

flickr page

2010-01-05T17:05:00.000-08:00

Over the break, I took some much needed time to recoup and reorganize. I finally moved all my latest designs to one place! Sometimes when I get e-mails from people wanting an invite or announcement, I have a few files that I have to gather and send. But now, I created a flickr page with all my latest work, so people can just visit one place and see all my options.

Here are some samples from my page:

Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE doing custom work. However more recently, I'm finding people who just want something personalized, so I wanted to make it easier for those people who need it sooner or want to spend less.

I have them organized into sets that I will continue to update as I get a chance to finish uploading former pieces including more invites, stationery, and recipe cards as well as new ideas and designs. Hopefully this will make it easier to find what you're looking for when you need an invite!

For more information on prices and printing, you can contact me at jenandink@gmail.com.

baby barrett

2009-12-31T09:24:00.000-08:00

Meet Barrett. Isn't he adorable?? Rebecca contacted me a few months ago and wanted something that looked classic with 3 or 4 pics and something that incorporated his monogram. I loved the idea of the monogram and was happy to help! Rebecca was so sweet and great to work with--we're already planning his 1st bday invites! :) Here's the final product. I love how they came out!

graduation announcement

2009-12-06T21:53:00.000-08:00

Congrats again to Misty who is a soon-to-be graduate of seminary! Misty came to me wanting an invite that reflected her personality and the school where she spent most of her time over the last few years. I was more than happy to help give her something to send out that is more personal and an expression of who she is rather than the standard announcement. The only thing I had to worry about was making it purple and gold and incorporating a fleur-de-lis...the rest just fell into place! Thanks again Misty!!

santangelo photography

2009-12-01T17:15:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share my latest logo I did for a friend of mine who is a very talented photographer, Christi Santangelo. I should know bc she took our engagements a couple years ago that i still LOVE. So of course I was more than happy when she asked me to help her with a logo for her photography business. She was great to work with bc she is a girl who knows what she wants and gave me some great feedback. So enough explaining, here's the final product:

i can't wait to see how she incorporates it. Thanks again Christi for the great opportunity!

program, direction card, and song card

2009-11-23T21:09:00.000-08:00

here is the rest of kendra's design suite as promised. i loved how they came out and how everything flowed so nicely. everything is pretty standard: program and direction card. i did, however, come across this song request card concept and asked kendra if she'd be interested. they worked great (jamie was first in line, pen in hand :) ) and i think the dj was a little taken aback saying that in his 20 years of deejaying, this was a first, haha. it almost seems to me that most djs would benefit from cards (sure beats screaming at them). thanks again to kendra for letting me have such creative freedom with all things paper at her wedding!

cajun casual

2009-11-11T21:56:00.000-08:00

the big day is getting so close! above is the rehearsal dinner invitation that i did for the groom's mom. it's a casual setting in a cajun restaurant, but she still wanted to incorporate the wedding's colors. i dubbed it "cajun casual." aieee!!

peacock swirls

2009-10-17T23:01:00.001-07:00

i cannot believe how fast time is flying by until kendra's wedding! i was so excited when i received her invite in the mail this week. it was the first time i saw it printed and was sooo happy with how they came out. kendra did an awesome job handling the printing. i really don't know why more brides don't do this. the amount of money you save printing your own invites at a local print shop is unreal. but anyway! back to the invite. after months of searching for invites and unable to find what she was looking for, kendra came to me and asked if i could carry out her peacock theme with her colors (navy and lime green) in an elegant way. my goal was to create an invite that didn't scream peacock but was more understated and just pretty. so many proofs and a couple of phone calls later, her and justin decided on this design. i really do love how they came out, and i can't wait until the big day! i'm currently working on her programs, but you'll have to wait to see those after the wedding. :)

more baby announcements

2009-10-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

i mentioned a while back that i would post cole's baby announcement and realized that i never did. so here it is! cole is now my model in all my announcement templates. don't worry, i asked mama tori first! :) isn't he too cute?!? also, here are a few of my more recent announcements i've been working on and are now available for customization. enjoy!

art walk

2009-10-03T19:52:00.000-07:00

my wonderful and oh so talented friend sarah miller is participating in her first ever art walk. her and her mom are both talented artists and will be selling canvas prints, screen paintings, and hand painted ceramic items (dog bowls and plates) and coffee mugs this month. she asked me to do an invite with bright colors and that was just fun. so i created a logo type image with a shoe bc when i think of all the art walks i've been to, i think about how fun it was walking from artist to artist, seeing all the creativity, and all the footprints left behind. i had a few other versions, and we came to this one by combining a few of the proofs into one. it was so fun, and i can't wait to see what all she has! thanks again sarah for letting me do such a fun and colorful invite! :)

tailgate shower

2009-08-30T07:29:00.001-07:00

my college roommate and close friend kendra is getting hitched this november! she was a huge reason i came to LSU and managed to put up with me and my messiness for 4 years! 4! while living with her, i never experience a bigger tiger fan. she taught me all the cheers and dances and would even explain to me what just happened on the field when i looked confused (which was 97% of the time).

she's marrying a former high school boyfriend (crazy how things work out) and couldn't be more excited. to kick off her wedding festivities, a few of her bridesmaids and friends are throwing her and justin a giftcard shower next month. since justin went to ULL and kendra went to LSU and the LSU/ULL game was in september, we knew had to had to find a way to tie it all together somehow, hence the tailgate shower. i thought it'd be cool to create a ticket and make the wording reflect that, so that's what i was going for. it was such a fun project to work on, i've gotten a ton of positive feedback (thanks guys!!), and the bride loved them, so i couldn't be happier.

photo of kendra and justin courtesy of Krista Ickles

new baby announcements

2009-07-19T22:07:00.000-07:00

i just got done finishing up some baby announcements for precious baby cole. i gave tori three to choose from, and while i'm sure she is hard at work addressing, stamping, and mailing out the one she did pick, i figured i'd share the ones she didn't because they will be going in my etsy shop in the next couple of days along with some others. i'll post the one she did pick in the upcoming weeks. isn't he perfect?!?

oink, moo, cock-a-doodle-doo

2009-07-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

this next invite was for the one of the cutest little boys i know, so i knew the invitations had to be just as adorable. he turned two and his mom, ashley, wanted to throw a backyard barnyard bash since he loves animals. she really outdid herself from baking an amazing barn cake with matching animal cupcakes to organizing such a fun-filled party; i think we were all impressed with her awesome par-tay throwing skills. but above all, she was such a dream to work with for trace's invite. here is the final product:

in addition to the invite, i created labels/tags for ashley put up in front of the food and drinks like this:

for an assortment of veggies and dip:

a yummy chocolate dip that everyone dipped animal crackers in:

pretzel sticks:

crunch and munch (i think):

for the drinks:

another cute idea she had was to make arrows to all the fun activities the party had to offer:

it was such a great day, and trace racked up with all his gifts! joel and i actually might have made a little scene in target bc we couldn't decided between mr. potato head and a magna doodle...mr. potato head won because joel convinced me of all the learning possibilities mr. potato head had to offer and how trace will learn facial expressions and what not...i can't compete with him when he starts throwing out psychology terms. :)

thanks ashley for allowing me to be a part of trace's birthday! :)

boston or bust

2009-06-18T19:40:00.000-07:00

i had a great opportunity to design my first ever "real-life" t-shirt. when my friend megan asked me if i would be interested, i quickly said yes, but then realized, "oh wait, how do i do this again?" i designed t-shirts before in college for a school organization, but i had never seen it through to printing. after some research and talking to people who had, i knew it wouldn't be much different than what i was used to doing with print (with some exceptions of course).

megan wanted the t-shirts made for a field trip to boston (umm, where was she when i was in school??). she gave me their info and a list of places they would be touring and said to just do whatever. my head was spinning with ideas, so i googled the boston skyline, found a pic i liked and basically re-created it. then i thought it would be fun to list all the places out that they were going but make the fonts reflect the words. i had other ideas too, but she ended up being torn between the skyline and word designs, so we ended up just combining them. boston skyline on front with the wording on the back. i LOVE how it came out because i hadn't even thought of combining them (ashley shoutout!), and i must say it's a great feeling to see them in person. usually print products get thrown away or i never see them more than once, but every now and then i see them wearing the shirt and just smile. :) i don't have a picture of them actually in the shirts, but here is the digital version:

thanks again megan for allowing me to get out of my normal print design mode! it was so fun :)

thirty, flirty, and fabulous!

2009-06-10T19:43:00.001-07:00

so this was one of the most fun projects i've had the pleasure of creating to date. i've done invites, stationary, and thank you cards before, but never all together! enter jessica (or hostess with the mostess as i like to refer to her as). she had her bff's surprise 30th birthday planned to every last detail and wanted an custom designed suite for lorien including invites, thank you cards, stationary, wine tags, and favor labels. i LOVED the idea and even more that she gave me creative freedom after explaining that she wanted it to be lantern themed, clean, and girly with lots of pink (what else?) along with lime green and teal to coorelate with some of lorien's favorite fabic. i came up with a few different ideas, but once i created this one, i knew it was lorien. obviously her version didn't include the time in which guests would arrive. :) it actually included a different date altogether to really throw her off. these are what the guests received:

then i created wrap-around labels to send the invites in because what's a theme without matching address labels? jessica also gave a set to lorien with her address as an added present to her thank you cards and stationary:

and these are the wine tags and favor labels. jessica wanted me to leave room so people could write their name on the wine tags, and i just thought that was genius. seriously. every detail. :) the labels went on white takeout boxes as a thank you to all the guests.

here are the thank yous that jessica thought lorien would need after such a fabulous party along with personalized stationary for whatever the occasion.

thanks again to jessica for the awesome opportunity and being a dream to work with!

in progress

2008-10-25T14:48:00.001-07:00

you may be wondering what the heck "jen & ink" is. well i'm here to tell you that it will be a place for me to just be creative. but, as you can see, its a work in progress.

i love designing invitations for friends or really anything involving paper, making random crafts, and hopefully one day soon learning how to sew. basically anything that allows me to have creative freedom...this blog will be my outlet :)

soooo...stay tuned!