Here are the wedding invites I designed for my sister Kennedy and her fiance Benjamin. I’ll try to describe the process as I post the pictures.

Kennedy and Ben are both writers, so the original idea was to make it look like a book. Actually, that was really the only original direction we needed. After that point, the invites took on a life of their own. The first thing I did was to scan the cover of an antique book Kennedy and Ben had found in an old book store. I modified the front and back covers to work on a page that, when folded, would fit inside an A7 wedding envelope.

The cover is a heavy laid and I used just two Pantone colors for the design. The highlight, though, is the viking ship from the original book, which we letterpressed into the cover of the invite.

The inside page was printed in black on a lighter weight, natural cotton paper. I used a second viking ship woodcut taken from the title page of the same antique book. The wording was left deliberately simple. The page itself was sewn in by hand (actually, by sewing machine, but you know what I mean).

So this is where it gets really fun. Continuing with the book theme, we decided that the RSVP and invite should resemble classic library cards. This was my favorite part to design. The RSVP remains true to the library card look and sits in front of the invite/reminder inside a card pocket. Where the book cover and title page mirrored the antique look of the book, the library cards jumped forward in time a few decades.

We used a subtly decorative paper for the pocket, which we cut, folded, and glued onto the inside cover.

I also designed a custom map for the invite card.

And the RSVP card included a place for “Unable to Attend” which fit with the overall design.

To add to the realism, we ordered a small date stamper and dated each card by hand.

We also ordered a custom stamp with Kennedy and Ben’s address, for both the return address and the return envelopes.

Finally, the address on every envelope was hand lettered by Carol (who also did the sewing).

Brown Printing took care of the printing and letterpress (which they do in-house). They were amazing to work with. And here is a link to the Flickr set with these images, if you want a closer look.

To say I was pleased with the final design would be a gross understatement. Frankly, I think this is the best work I’ve ever done. I’m so glad I got to do it for my little sister’s wedding.

All design work was done by Ethan Allen Smith. If you have any questions, you can contact me at brit {at} feb28 {dot} com.

I made a dress for B that matches one I made for Neela. Here they are modeling them.

My mom drove us to visit my grandparents in southern Utah. There was a very freak and heavy hailstorm. After it was finally over, we drove down the street to go eat. it looked as if it had snowed – people were outside taking pictures of the crazyness and kids were making snowmen with the mounds of hail. So weird.

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My g-ma, mom, me, and Neela. This trip was the first time Neela got to meet my grandma and grandpa. Guess which one of us lives at the beach?

Feeding apricots to the pony and donkey.

And a cow trying to sniff Neela.

I am in two 4-week classes, then have my SLIP interview. (Sign Language Interpreting Program) When thats done, I have a 5 week math class, then off for summer break. Busy busy busy. This last weekend, Ethan and I hung out with the kids the whole time. I Have really missed them the last two weeks. Due to my school schedule, Im gone from 9am till 830 pm Monday through Thursday. bluh…. I have been soaking up all the time I get with the kids and Ethan the last few days, and soon, back to the grind. I hope math class goes by fast. But not to fast, I still gotta pass the class.

Elliott drew a picture of me for Father’s Day. My favorite part: the arms of my glasses going behind my ears. Brilliant!

Elliott has a love/hate relationship with his bangs. Actually, it’s more of a hate/hate relationship. He finally decided to take matters into his own hands. At some point during the day today, he cut over half his bangs.

We were wondering which one would be the first to do this. We’re just glad it wasn’t Neela with electric clippers.

Guys…. We have missed you. We have missed having a connection with our family and friends outside of social network sites which sell their soul and try to sell yours too. We started this site to share new information of what is going on with our little family and we have totally misplaced the importance of keeping this flog (Im coining that one – Family+Blog. WOOT WOOT) updated. Sorry about that. In addition to my apologies, and my promise to be better at this, I dont even have a picture to add to this post! **sigh** I know – your pretty disapointed with me, huh. I guess I’ll be thinking about that this week as I am on in-between-terms break and snapping any pictures or video I can to share ASAP.

Did you hear that? Ill say it again…. “in between terms” yeah thats right, i just finished my first year of college. (although my spelling and grammer would say otherwise) AND im goin back for more. Summer schedule all lined up. I need one more ASL (American Sign Language) class before I can interview for one of 25 available spots to get into the interpreting program at my college. There are 2 more rounds of people needing interviews includeing myself, and already 107 people have interviewed. YIKES! Please send your good thoughts my way. I need all the educated cheerleaders I can get. Ya know – the ones who wear jeans and have glasses, and instead of showing off their newly brace-free teeth and shaking pom poms, they are preaching about how important getting an education is, and we can only go as far as we let ourselves, and “ONE STEP AT A TIME!”. (Lemme know if i need to feed you anymore lines- but please do get creative.) And to top it off??? Out of those 25 excepted students, only about 3-5 actually graduate at the end of their 2 years. Others take longer, or drop out. I am soooooooo excited about the idea of being in this program. I LOVE ASL!! I want to be the best signer I can and getting into this program is a big step in that direction. Ethan cheers me on constantly, “Stop saying ‘IF I get in’ start saying ‘when I make the top 5…’ dont lower your goals because you lack confidence” Hes right. Again.

I have a hard time asking for help with a lot of stuff. Especially support. But I come to ya’all now and say – “Will you be my cheerleader?”

(click for larger version)