tea for two?

Look at these lovely single cupcake stands I saw on Bakerella's blog. (have you been over there?  swoon!)   Puts me in the mood to throw a wonderful tea party!  For one of my wedding showers we had afternoon-tea at the Fairmont Hotel Oak Room (now the InterContinental).  There were a variety of teas and multiple petit-fours and my mom and her friends all got to wear big fancy hats.  (Not a good look for me.)  

Anyway, for my next tea party I would order these fantastic tissue flowers from PartyPom's etsy shop and some of these fancy little cupcakes from Cake Girl (here in KC!)  My sister Abigail booked them for her upcoming wedding and the samples were delicious!  She also has a peanut butter buttercream frosted cupcake that we're dying to try!  

Featured at Emmaline Bride today!

Thanks to Emmaline Bride for featuring our "Eat, Drink and be Married" letterpress coasters on their Nine New Handmade Finds today. Check out their website for great handmade products to personalize your wedding from companies across the country! Check out the beautiful facinator hairpiece from Belles & Crystals! Makes me want to get married all over again!

Such a lucky pup!

I stumbled across this blog yesterday and am excited to not only add something new to my reader, but to have this picture of the darling pup (from another blog!) to brighten my day. I love playing detective and checking out all the links between all the fabulous blogs out there and discovering some new places to keep me busy!

September Celebration

We're doing a giveaway for some stationery for Laurel's blog anniversary--check it out! How cute are those cupcake flags! Go check it out a A Good Build for a chance to win some stationery and $25 gift certificates to restaurant.com!

uploads galore!

I'm still working through the updates to our website but in the meantime I'm uploading our pending product shots to flickr and some to our facebook page too for everyone to see. If you don't see your project listed I'm still working through all the proofs and will be adding more shortly!

Real Weddings: Megan and Brian

For Megan and Brian's wedding last June, we incorporated a deep purple and chocolate brown into the design of their stationery suite. That color scheme continued for their 06.07.08 (hard to forget that anniversary!) elegant outdoor wedding. Hosted at a private residence outside of Lawrence, Kansas, Megan and Brian's big day was a great celebration of the start of their lives together.

Now, I'm getting to work on some shower invitations to celebrate the new baby Irvine arriving in the next few months! Congrats Megan and Brian!

Fab new finds at the Bridal Fair!

We had a great time at last weekend's bridal fair and were able to chat with a ton of new people. Congrats to the winners of $100 off one of our letterpress packages. We met some new vendors as well--1154 Lill Studio down on the Country Club Plaza is a great spot to make a bag for your next special occasion or to host a shower for your bridesmaids! The bags come in all different colors and prints (check out their gorgeous display from the show!)

Envelopes by Ann is a local calligraphy studio and I loved her samples of the white ink on color envelopes. To top off your envelopes, I like these monogram stamps from Perfect Postage to coordinate with your invitation design.

so. completely. fantastic.

I stumbled across these pictures (you can click on the picture to enlarge the photo) today on C is for Charmed (a totally awesome blog) and followed the links back to the original photos on Jonas Peterson's website. I love everything about everything here--the totally cool couple, her amazing short dress, his wedding vans and the gorgeous photos documenting Paul and Cassie's wedding day. If I could do it over I'd contemplate blowing my entire wedding budget to fly Jonas in to take pictures and make us look fabulous. Well, almost the whole budget--I've got to get that short dress too! (A girl can dream, right?)

In addition to everything that's perfect about Paul and Cassie's wedding, I love this little thumbprint wedding tree guestbook alternative. It's fun and funky art and something so lovely to have framed and displayed in your home. Enjoy and check out more of both C is for Charmed and Jonas Peterson's sites.

KC Bridal Fair this Saturday!

Come visit us at another Bridal Fair this Saturday, August 22nd, from 10 AM - 5 pm at the Westin Crown Center. Free parking under the Crown Center Shops and tons of vendors to help you plan your big day!

Admission is $12 or you can pre-register at www.kcbridalfair.com

There's lots of give-aways and we'll be doing a drawing for $150 off one of our custom letterpress suites (minimum purchase required). Hope to see you there!

The newest addition to Paper Mill Designs

Thought it was about time to introduce the newest member of the Paper Mill Designs staff--Miss Avery Isabelle! (You can click on the picture to enlarge and see her "Blue Steel" look.)

She was born April 1st and is already a hard worker (child labor? shmild labor.) She especially enjoys helping her mom do design work and looking at the pretty Mac Book Pro. (Who wouldn't?)

We had great fun putting together her cherry blossom announcements and had crinkle confetti all over the house. Tying bows on all of the candy cigars kept me busy for a few hours as well! We love the chocolate brown boxes and the soft pink ink and even made custom mailing labels in a sage green. We also made letterpress baby thank you cards to match her letterpress birth announcement-we've heard they're all the rage--even if Mom does the writing.

Contact us today if you want to get started on announcements for your new little one. We are having so much fun with our previous brides coming back to work with us for their children!

Bridal show-stand out vendors

{photo credits, clockwise left to right: Brancatos's, an eclectic stem, deco catering, Brancatos}
Though we didn't participate as a vendor this time, we did attend the recent KC Bridal Showcase and had a great time sampling and checking out everyone's displays. Some of our old favorite vendors were there: Sharon at KISS Events had a fun little "Kissing Booth" photo station set up, and it was great to see my favorite dj's Danny and Lindsay Haas out there with their company Premiere Midwest DJ. The pictures above are from some of our favorite new vendors at the event--look at that gorgeous, modern arrangement from An Eclectic Stem. They have a retail location in Westpost and seem like they would be a TON of fun to work with for your event. Those bright red and orange blooms look kind of like spools of yarn. So cool! Another company I loved was Deco Catering. Their samples included bacon-wrapped dates and these ADORABLE mini ice-cream-style cones with seasoned goat chesse. I think using the little mini-cones as passed appetizers during cocktail hour would be perfect! I'm also seeing more of the chartreuse and grape color combination, as illustrated by this table design by Brancatos. I love the modern look of two bright colors together--and you can use bright colors very tastefully, as illustrated above.

Use a custom embosser to dress up your event!

We've all seen the trend to create a logo or monogram for your wedding or event and use it in a variety of places. It's a great way to tie everything together and create a cohesive look. One easy way to do this is to order a custom embosser from Wilshire Graphic Press . You can either choose one of their layouts or send in your own artwork like we did for our client Nicole on her invitations. I also love using the embossers for your return address for your invitations and thank you notes--it's something you can use again for holiday cards and all of your other correspondence.

Come find us on facebook too--we're going to have some specials coming up only available to fans. Hope to see you there!

upcoming changes to our website!

We're working on making some changes to our website to better display our options and custom projects from previous clients. A big first step in moving forward was hiring a photographer to do some product photography for us! Sarah Maxey Photography did a wonderful job of capturing the texture of our papers and the impression of our letterpress projects and we're so excited to be able to feature her work! You can check out her blog for some more of our shots and adorable family and baby shoots she's done. For those of you in the Kansas City area, she's running a great special if you book by July 31st--$75 for a session fee and you get an image release and CD with all of your pictures for printing. Contact her today--baby pics, engagement sessions, family pics, whatever. And......be on the lookout for more updates at Paper Mill Designs!

Lipstick and Flower Stems inspiration board on Inventing Weddings

{inspiration board courtesy of inventing weddings}

Many thanks to Inventing Weddings for featuring our sage green Olivia letterpress invitations in one of their latest inspiration boards. How cute is that little clutch as well? All of the items featured can be found on etsy and Inventing Weddings has the direct links for all of the items. They are posting a ton of inspiration boards so it's a great place to get ideas. Check them out!

personalized stationery gifts

We love working with previous clients on additional projects. I met Megen at the Bridal Show in 2008 and we whipped up some fun, wintery-themed invitations for her January 2009 wedding. When she got in touch with me about putting together a gift for her friend Robyn, a PhD candidate, we came up with a package of items Robyn will hopefully be able to use as she moves forward in her career!

We did custom letterpress notecards with a bird theme, and then two custom-printed, handmade spiral bound books--a notebook and an address book. We really enjoyed working on this project and hope Robyn enjoys using her new stationery items as well!

Contact us today if you're interested in other custom stationery options. We welcome your ideas and look forward to working with you!