Jae Young wanted to use her favorite flower on her invites so we designed a simple and elegant sleeve to introduce the invite to all her guests. We pressed the flower blind on the sleeves with their first initials at the bottom. From there the invite has the flowers in more detail with her favorite shade of purple.

We’ll let the photos explain the rest. Take a look and tell us what you think!

Designer: Andrew Lee
Stock: 110# pearl white cotton paper (reply card) & 220# pearl white cotton paper (invite)
Ink Colors: silver, purple (custom mixed – by hand)
Other: half moon sleeve, Invite envelope, reply envelope

We wanted to share a few snapshots of a variety of edge colored cards from business cards to stationery and wedding invitations. We think its a great way to add a touch of color to your letterpress project. Almost any color can be painted on the edge of your cards from light pastels to bright neons and even dark colors like purple and black. Metallic colors can also be painted on the edges like the silver and gold metallic cards shown below. We can even match the edge color to the colors printed on your cards or stationery.

I’ve been sick recently and haven’t been able to share these beautiful letterpress invitations with you. Being sick, I’ve had more time to keep dreaming of the wonderful details on these invitations that I helped photograph several weeks ago.

Aren’t the details so cute? Sophie Nicolay, who designs for Martha Stewart, created this invite for Daniel and Jessica. I love the little icons which make up the heart – they represent meaningful things to the couple.

The wonderful thing about working with a designer and a custom letterpress company like Dolce Press is not just the quality but all the meaningful little details. I think invitations, particularly from important events in ones life are things people save for a long time, I know I do. Long after I have lost or used the favors, cannot recognize half the friends in the photos, I have a carefully saved stash of graduation, bar/bat mitzvah, and wedding invitations mixed in with special birthday and holiday cards. And the best ones evoke the people themselves at that stage in their lives.

Look at the little chicken and vegetable, so cute and thoughtful!

I love the embossing that happens, it makes a great design pop! Cute, modern and thoughtful, combines with classic and enduring quality. This is why letterpress is the best; what letterpress does for ink and paper to make them so much more together.

For multi-event/ multi-part invitations, a booklet invitation like this one bound with eyelets are the perfect fit. They keep all the parts of the invite together in a nice little packet. The RSVP is perforated and tears off to be mailed in a standard A2 envelope. Don’t you love it? We do.

Check out a previous Dolce Press design to see another invitation in this fabulous format – Celebrate Invitation Booklets.

Just the facts
Designer: Sophie Nicolay
Stock: 110# pearl white cotton paper (Crane’s Lettra)
Size: A9 – paired with a pink A9 envelope
Ink Colors: pink, chocolate brown (custom mixed – by hand)
Finishing: 3 pages, creased to allow for folding, 2 brown (matching ink) eyelets used to bind the booklet

Seeing as we have not posted in a while, I knew the next post had to blow everyone away!

Kelly and Steve are getting married in Canada this fall in this breathtakingly beautiful hotel and wanted to have their invitations reflect the whole experience.  Using colors reminiscent of  fall; chocolate brown, ivory and copper, we created a beautiful invitation suite using the printing method of  foil stamping.

Foils come in a variety of finishes including shiny, matte, and holographic.  It is also a great way to show light colors on dark stock such as the white text on the cotton chocolate paper shown below. Unlike our letterpress printed pieces we do not give it much impression.  A light impression is best when it comes to foil.

I think the coolest part of this invite suite is how the design on the envelope carries over on the flap giving your guests a wonderful first impression.

In our opinion letterpress pieces look best when the text is kept to a minimum and the beauty of the texture and impression is front and center. But sometimes wedding invitations may need to include several inserts such as a reception card, directions & map, registry, accommodations etc…  At Dolce Press we have come up with a solution and are now offering letterpress printed invitation booklets.

These booklets are the perfect solution for destination weddings as well as save the dates. You can include information on places to stay and other travel details so your guests can be prepared well in advance. When planning a destination wedding, the more time you give your guests the better, especially if they are going to be traveling out of the country.

We printed this new booklet design for Leah and Zeb in three colors (chartreuse, charcoal, and blind). The pages are cascaded so that the tab for each page is easily read when the invite is closed. Each page is creased which allows the individual cotton pages to easily bend. Creasing is especially important when folding cotton paper, without the crease the paper would crack and bend in the wrong place.

The finishing touch to these invitation booklets is the perforated reply card which was done in a postcard style.  All your guest have to do is tear off and mail.  Simple and easy! (Don’t forget about the cute rivets in the matching chartruese color holding the neat little booklet together)

We recently printed these letterpress invitations for Michelle & Dustin who are getting married in Maine this June. One look at the invite Dustin designed and you can tell that the bride & groom have style. From the bold design to the blue and yellow colors we were amazed with how great the whole set came out. The abstract starfish really pops (especially the little circles) and the lines that swirl out make for an interesting effect when debossed into the paper.

We really like the layout of their names and the use of the blue heart on both the invite and envelope. The RSVP postcard means that everyone from the recipient to the postal carrier and mail sorters will get to enjoy the great design. I just hope that they all make it back to Dustin & Michelle! The use of RSVP postcards has been very popular recently.

We’re so lucky to work with such talented designers! Whether you’ve got your own design or are interested in one of ours, we LOVE printing letterpress invitations because we love how special they are to you.

Update: For some really stunning pictures and more information on the Sand Dollar wedding set, visit our portfolio.

This unique wedding invitation set designed by Jina (our awesome freelance graphic designer) is really amazing – perfect for your wedding by the sea. She was able to capture the essence of the ocean through the sand dollar, sea horse, antique maps, and more! The invitation set includes quite a number of pieces from the invite with a real sand dollar to an RSVP card, registry card, printed vellum layer, travel information and wedding events cards, and an invitation box with ribbon and custom sticker. It was hard to get all of the pieces to fit into one shot!

The RSVP card is double sided with an antique map on one side and the reply information on the other. A custom reply postcard is something we’ve been doing for a while but has been a popular choice among brides this wedding season. For more information on this design or any others in our portfolio, give us a call. We’d be happy to talk to you about the custom design process.

Update: Want more information about this design, check out the Tangiers Save the Date in our wedding portfolio.

We love putting together new designs; the only problem is we never seem to have enough time to print them. So when we finally get a free moment we’re really excited to share our results with everyone.  We were able to snap a few photos of these new creations and we’ve decided to name them the Tangiers Save The Date. The blue dotted background looks really cool pressed into the paper … this is why we love letterpress so much!

The combination of the dots and Moroccan-inspired chartreuse frame gives the card a modern edge. Hopefully we’re not the only ones who think that these Save the Date cards are just so darn cute!

Our Valentine’s Day 2009 letterpress giveaway had some great engagement stories and when it came down to selecting a winner we had a hard time choosing. We picked high school sweethearts, Karlee & Benjamin, who had a great engagement story. We printed their Save the Date cards this weekend and they turned out great … at least we think they did!

The cards are printed on our 100% cotton paper (110#) using our vegetable oil based inks. We custom mixed the chartreuse and chocolate brown ink and after a little work we had these great Save the Date cards.  The scalloped circles look great pressed into the paper and we paired the Save the Date with a matching square chartreuse envelope to add a pop of color. We’re very happy to have this design and several other new invitation sets added to our wedding portfolio.

Good news for all of the brides to be out there! We’ve updated our wedding portfolio with three brand new letterpress designs. Okay, well two of the designs are new and one we recently featured on the blog (Insert your text here …) as a design  in progress. We’re always looking for inspiration and the motivation behind each of these designs led to some unique invitations.

The first invite (above), Beach Grass, was inspired by our childhood memories of the beaches on the south shore of Long Island. The invite is embellished with a lagoon colored shimmery stardream enclosure and a custom seal to secure the enclosure. We’ve been working hard to get the best embellishments for our brides and more information on these finishing touches will be coming to the custom page soon.

The Venice invitation features a bold pattern which we reversed so that the floral design remains bumped up in white while the background is printed in blue. To complete the look of the invitation we printed the name of the bride and groom on a custom blue belly band.

The last invite we’ve added to the products page is our Modern Circles design. The custom envelope liner featured above inspired us to create this wedding set. The invite and reply card are letterpress printed in three colors (black, gray, and chartreuse) to match the liner. We really love the simplicity and elegance of this design and that liner is gorgeous!

We’re looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks!