Military Giveaway Wedding Pieces

So back in January I posted here about a couple who won the 2012 Military Wedding Giveaway and how I was able to help them with their wedding stationary design.  I've finally finished their invitations and reply cards and wanted to share the whole set. (You can click on the image to view it larger)  I absolutely love their color scheme and the style they are going with for their wedding.  I can't wait to see photos and all of their other wedding details!

Themed Wedding Showers

I love themed wedding showers.  Not only because I get to have extra fun creating the invitations, but I usually get to create signs, water bottle labels or cupcake toppers to match!  And the showers are always so cute because the venues are decorated accordingly.

Here are 3 "themed" shower invitations I got to create recently.  The first is for a garden themed 1st birthday party.  My Etsy customer wanted the invitation to feature flowers, gnomes and insects.  I love the way this turned out because it's still feminine and girly without being fanciful or prissy.  Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not very prissy, so this is the type of invitation and party I'd probably like a baby girl of mine to have.  I am hoping to get some pictures from the client of the water bottle labels and cupcake toppers I created.  When I do, I'll share those.

The second invitation is for my friend Tiffany's "Couple's" wedding shower that was fishing themed.  This was so much fun to make.  I wanted to the header of this to resemble the old labels you'd find on fishing bait tins.  I lucked up finding these vintage, art nouveau style typefaces as well as the pen and ink fish sketches.  Considering how much we love to fish, Drew and I should've done this for one of our wedding showers.  Oh well, maybe we can do this for a baby shower... you know, so we're prepared to take our baby fishing one day...?  Ok, maybe that won't work.

This last invitation is one I did for my sister-in-law Lanie who is hosting a "Country Picnic" couple's shower.  The groom's last night is Knight, so she came up with the idea to do a "Knight"time shower.  I thought this idea was great!  (And Lanie, if you are reading this, I've included some pictures for you for decoration inspiration.)  You can do so much with this theme, and it's right up my alley.  Country quilts to sit on, mason jars hanging from trees filled with candles, lemonade, fireflys, BYOB, wooden picnic tables... I can just envision it.  I'm sure she'll do a great job!

2012 Military Giveaway Wedding

This year I was honored to be a part of the 2012 Military Giveaway put on by Memorable Moments Photography.  One Military couple was picked on Facebook to receive numerous free wedding services from many vendors, and my part was to design all of their wedding stationary at no charge.  I was so excited to do this b/c so many of my family members were or are in the military and the least I could do is give back my time and services (which are minute in comparison) to make their wedding so very special.


The winner was Paige Cullum and her fiance Clint Waller.  The minute she told me she was having a peacock themed/rustic wedding, I was so excited!  My wedding was peacock themed/color coordinated as well.  They are just such beautiful animals!  They are regal, proud, gorgeous... you name it.  And then I realized what a task it would be to make something so splendid have rustic undertones! It definitely tested my abilities, but I think I made some beautiful designs, and the couple picked one right away.  (I won't say which one in fear that I might ruin the surprise for them.)  By incorporating some vintage drawings and flourishes, rustic frames and typography,and lavish background patterns, this is what I came up with. 


Congratulations again to the beautiful couple!

It's been a while since I've posted.  Between the rush of the holiday season and being swamped with my Etsy and freelance orders (which is a good thing) I just haven't had time to post!  But in an effort to keep up this blog and not forget about it like I did with my last one, I dropped what I was doing so I could share one of my latest creations.

This is an invitation that I designed for a client out of New York.  It's one of the cutest invitations I think I've ever done, and mainly because of the creative theme the mother came up with.  They are having a "little man" themed birthday party for their son with barbershop colors and fake mustaches.  How cute?!  Not to mention his adorable picture on the invitation.  The mom was really specific about what she wanted and even had examples.  She loved circus fonts but wanted it to resemble a barbershop pole too.  I also added some wispy flourishes at the bottom that resembled mustaches.  After a little typographic fun and finding my inner kid, this is what I came up with! ! 

47 days and counting!

Can you believe it?!  It's almost that time of year!  Only 47 days until Christmas!  This is by far my FAVORITE time of year.  So many holidays, such beautiful weather, plus you get to spend lots of time with family and friends!

Speaking of family and friends, one of the best things about Christmas is getting all of the cute Christmas cards in the mail and seeing how everyone's family has grown in a year.   I love displaying all of my cards in my house too!  This year, with me opening my little Etsy store (which has been doing pretty good...slooooooowly but surely growing), I decided it would be perfect to design some Customizable Christmas Cards to sell.  I already have a few up in my store and I am working on more, but here is a little preview.  All you have to do is send me your family name(s) and a photo to drop in and BAM!  It's yours to print or email or do whatever you want with!  Check it out here, and spread the word b/c everyone enjoys getting cards in the mail.  Especially at Christmas time!

Some Big News & a Nautical Themed Rehearsal Dinner Invitation

A couple of weeks ago, I promised that I would post the invitation my brother and his fiancé chose for their rehearsal dinner, so here it is!  


I just love the whole "Savannah" feel about it.  I think you can look at it and just know that the event is taking place in the Lowcountry.  It definitely looks gender neutral in my opinion, which is the look I wanted to go for since everything else for the wedding has been very feminine and all about the Bride (which it's supposed to be - DUH!).  I'm so happy they loved it and I can't wait to celebrate with them at their wedding in only a week and 2 days!

Now, for my big news... (well, it's big to me!)

As of today, I am an official Etsy Store owner!  After saying I was gonna do it for 3 years, I finally did!  My store name is The Graceful Glyph.  I have about 40 plus DIY Customizable Invitations on there now.  I am only selling digital files that can be taken to a local printer, uploaded online to print, uploaded to your website or emailed to friends.  Eventually, after I grow some (praying I do), I'd like to handle the printing and shipping of the invitations as well.  But I figured I needed to get my feet a little wet before taking the whole plunge.  And to be honest, with a full-time job, I don't have the time right now to handle all the printing and shipping of these invitations.  Maybe one day I'll get big enough where I can be a stay at home mom AND make a good living off of my Etsy store alone.  But it will be a while until that happens.  

So until then, I'll be blogging, freelancing and "Etsying" on the side. Click here to visit my store for yourself!  I hope you love everything as much as I do.  I love so many of the pieces and will continuously be adding new templates to the store, so keep checking back!

Jarrod & Lanie's Wedding

So my brother and his fiancé

are getting married in less than a month.

I can hardly believe how much the time has flown by... which reminds me that I will be celebrating my one year anniversary in less than 3 months!  Where has the year gone?!  My mother was right... the older you get, the faster the time flies by.  Anyhow, on to my brother's wedding...

I figured since everyone has received their invitation by now, the design is no longer a secret, so today I am sharing the design that I created for Jarrod & Lanie.  It's probably one of my favorite wedding pieces I've done so far.  I love it more than what I created for my own wedding!  Lanie was so open to look at anything I designed.  She was a blank canvas and really didn't have any preference.  The only definite was that their wedding was to be formal and elegant with black and ivory as their color scheme.  I knew that I wanted to add a pop of color to the invitation, and "blush" is what we went with.  It's one of my favorite hues right now.  

The font I used for their names is called Burgues Script.  It's a beautiful and elegant font.  I am so happy that I have it now... I will be using it quite a bit.  It comes with all of these beautiful swashes (called glyphs) which is what I used to created the swash design around their name.  I thought it looked so vintage, and let's be honest... vintage NEVER goes out of style.  It'll be one of those themes that people will be using until the end of the world!  I mean, that's what vintage is!

My favorite part about this design is the rsvp postcard.  Why oh why didn't I think of this when designing my own stuff!  Not only did Lanie save money on postage, but she didn't have to worry about buying RSVP envelopes either.  I think from now on, I will be suggesting rsvp  postcards to everyone.

Here is the design:

I also stumbled upon these beautiful pictures (from this photographer) of a vintage wedding which matches perfect with Lanie and Jarrod's invitation design.  A theme like this really can be used year round... you just have to change out your colors and flowers.  I hope this inspires some of you to plan a vintage themed wedding, bridal shower, dinner party... or to arrange some little vintage centerpieces or decorations around your house!  Oh, and send me pictures if you do so I can share them on my blog and live through them... my husband will kill me if I bring home anything else for the home that he can break!

And lastly, I have a special project that I'm working on.  I hope to have it finished within the next few weeks.  I mentioned it about a year ago and then got engaged and never followed through with it, so hopefully this time around I'll have a finished project to share with you all.  Keep checking back here for an update!