Wedding favors that may outlive you!

I have a secret.
I'm kind of in love with trees.  There.  I said it.  Well, that was maybe a little too dramatic... I don't mean Mary Katherine Gallagher in-love... more like an intense affinity toward big old trees.

Maybe "love" is a strong word, but if you appreciate tree's... take this survey.

So every year when the Arbor Day Foundation "survey" comes in the mail (make no bones... I know it's just a way to get you to be interactive and then give $10), I very happily fill out the silly survey and give my annual meager donation.  Yes, I climbed tree's when I was a kid.  Yes, I played in a tree house *did you pay a marketing research team to formulate these questions?*.
At the end of the survey you get to swoon over the "free" stuff you get.  This is the part I revel in.  10 free tree's!  2 flowering shrubs?!  Seriously?  Awesome.  Sign me up.

This year- just this morning actually, I filled out the survey online (sorry USPS). When I was tooling around their website, I found THIS!  Tree's as wedding favors!  I did this at our wedding many moons ago.  The tree's survived with moderate success rates, but that was because I tried to go all rogue with it and ordered them too early.  If you order through the Arbor Day Foundation, they come in a neato tube and a personalized message!

Eco-brides... take heed!  Embrace your inner green-goddess (or green-geek, in my case).  Give the gift of trees, support the Arbor Day Foundation, and breath a little easier (hehe, get it...).

And of course as much as I love trees for real, I also love doing tree-inspired invitations!  This one was for a fall wedding in Pennsylvania. Laura and I clicked immediately discussing ideas of how to really showcase leaves, and the tree, and the natural setting of her wedding.  This is how they turned out:

For additional tips on how to green your wedding, see the Chicago Green Wedding Alliance website: www.greenweddingalliance.org

AND... we hope to see you at our "green" wedding show, Committed, that the CGWA is hosting on February 26th at the new Greenhouse Loft.  Meet the members of the Chicago Green Wedding Alliance, sample sustainable catered foods, learn about local beer and spirits, enjoy the sunny new Greenhouse Loft for an afternoon!
See here for details and tickets: www.committedlovechicago.com

The Knot Chicago Magazine

It's always fun when a wedding that we've been a part of gets published!  The day-of stationery stuff is of course less glamorous than the actual invitations, so we owe Edyta Szyszlo Photography a huge thank you for snapping some pics of the invitations for Gene and Kristen's wedding.  Their beautiful fall 2010 wedding was featured in this season's issue of The Knot Chicago, including Edyta's lovely photographs.  Here are the original photographs from their big day.
Happy Anniversary Kristen and Gene, and thank you as well to The Knot for keeping their glam wedding in the spotlight!

Three Words...

"Rustic. Button. Twine."

When adding a vintage edge to your invitation, I can't think of a better material to use. And when you're getting married at Salvage One, one of the premiere "vintage" venues (as well as Architectural Artifacts), why not have an invitation that reflects that?
...coming very soon to a Spilled Ink Press invitation near you. Details to follow!

Yes, it's a polar bear

We create lovely custom wedding invitations (at least we think so) and then hand them off to the happy couple to send on their way- into the trusted hands of the United States Postal Service. Our designs always start with the RSVP as a postcard. It's becoming pretty popular- you save postage ($.28 vs. $.44, which isn't much, but hey- it all adds up), and more importantly, you save a few trees.

But lately, I've heard more than a few brides grumble to me that they were a bit dissapointed when they got to the post office and realized all they had to choose from for the postcard stamp was this:

I did a little research and it appears that the USPS issues new postcard stamps every year or so. So the polar bear is here to stay for a while. I'm not one to pay attention to the stamp when I receive mail, but I know how the finer details can make a bride crazy (and after going through the fun process of customizing your invitation, I suppose Mr. Fuzzy here could be a little distracting). Sooooo, doing a little more research I found www.photostamps.com:

The cost per sheet of 20 stamps is $18.99 for the $.44 stamps and $15.99 for the $.28 postcard stamps. So your savings from postcard to regular stamp just went out the window, but the option of uploading ANY picture you want is pretty tempting! Here we have Captain Kirk and Uhura in a loving embrace. Yes, this is an image from our friend's Thad and Didi's invitations (blog post on THAT one to follow, can't resist bragging about a Captain Kirk invitation). But you get the idea. You can imagine how lovely your engagement picture would look, or maybe the graphic from your invitation even, oh the coordination will blow your guests minds! The website is pretty easy to navigate too.

So I say, what the heck, go for it. Support our nearly bankrupt postal system and create custom stamps if you don't have any love for the polar bear (it is kind of random, I have to admit).

Just a word of advise though- ORDER THEM EARLY. The website says it takes 3 to 5 business days to get them... but, um, well, it IS the USPS, so I would order earlier. When we meet with couples to review the final hard copy proof, I always tell them to take the sample as-is in it's completed state and have it weighed AT THE POST OFFICE to verify postage. Usually it's the typical stamp for the main envelope, but occasionally it will weigh more (as in instances of heavier booklet style invitations) and need the $.61 stamp
(at least they got you covered with this one!). But you'll know what kind of stamp you need for your RSVP no matter what, so have fun and get those early.

If you want the most options for your stamps, aside from the custom photo ones, go here and have fun perusing the selection: stamps
Here are my favorites, in case you were wondering (geez, my tastes are all over the place):

Debbie and Ale

Debbie and Ale are planning a wedding that not only represents the union of their lives- but also of two geographies, Chicago, Illinois and Seville, Spain. What better way to represent that than our accordion invitation with the skyline of Chicago spilling into the skyline of Seville?! We literally split the panels equally between English and Spanish text- the English hovering over the Chicago skyline and the Spanish hovering over the Seville skyline.

Debbie sent me the inspiration board shots so I could appreciate the boldness of the blue they wanted to capture. Aaaah, bright blue- what a vibrant way to say "Welcome to Chicago! Welcome to our wedding!"
Thank you for another fun invitation Debbie and Ale!

Everyday is Earth Day

Tulips on the walk back from the Perfect Cup in our hood

At 2009's Earth Day we initiated our "Green Story" on our website. That was just the beginning. This past year has been all about growing our company, learning all we can about keeping ourselves as responsible as possible (with ups and downs... we try, we try), and basically keeping it honest and real.

One year later, we'd like to up the ante a bit. We are working on a more serious "proclamation" of sorts. "Working on" being the key words.... but to give you an idea of what's in the works, here goes...

1. If it's not 100% recycled, at least 30% post consumer, and Processed Chlorine Free -OR- FSC Certified and Totally Chlorine Free... well, it doesn't exist. period. There are more qualifications on the list, but those are the golden rules.

Green Paper Company: check them out.

2. After a certain date... to be determined... we'll be switching to an off-site printer, an uber-green off-site printer. We have some logistics to work out first though, but we've seen their work, love how they do business, and love how green they will keep us. Our VOC contribution to the world will go down substantially. As we were told- using recycled papers is great, but that's half the battle. Agreed. Commencing the second half of the battle! More details to follow.

3. Hey SIP fans- meet Nina at Tweedle Press. Meet her and love her because you're going to be seeing more of her lovely letterpress stylings.

4. Get the Chicago Green Wedding Alliance show on the road. Remember, power in numbers. We're getting there- post to follow with details.

5. Finally get our updated wedding invitation book together, with new samples, new format, new green papers... and then out to the world. No's 1 through 3 need to get worked out first though.

6. Launch our Fair Earth paper invitation line, a fair trade paper made by women in Uganda will be made into our pocket invitations (perhaps our most popular line). So all you green brides out there... consider your invitations being green AND fair trade. Oh, it's not too good to be true, it's happening kids.
7. Sleep more. Ok, it's not necessarily "eco", but the ecosystem of my body would appreciate this one.

It's been posted. * It shall be done.
(or if I may... "Make it so, Number One"... ack! SUCH a dork.)

Chicagoist loves Spilled Ink Press.....

.....and Spilled Ink Press loves Chicagoist! It's a nice surprise to see your own work featured on a blog you read daily anyway. The first time we were lucky enough to make Chicagoist.com was a couple of years ago when they wrote about our Chicago Flag Christmas Cards, but we made it again a couple of weeks ago on their "Made in Chicago" segment.

We were also happy to see they mentioned the composting worms we got from our friends at Urban Worm Girl. We try hard to be as green as possible, and composting the waste we produce in our home studio is easy with our new Red Worm employees.

So thanks again to everyone at Chicagoist!

Hello Spring Wedding Season!

We snuck away from Spilled Ink Headquarters for a few days back home in Ohio to wish our friends Matt and Sheri our very best as they "begin" their lives together. Owning and managing an awesome bar together, Zoe's, in Toledo is a pretty big commitment already... but officially tying the knot is pretty awesome too!
We were so happy to not only be there for the big day on the lake, but to also have done their invitations. It was windy, but thankfully the rain clouds parted and the sun came peaking through. Here are some pictures of the invitation and how it all came together for them.
Sheri and Matt, wishing you guys a lifetime of marital bliss...

The joy of customization

I'm off to the Perfect Cup (otherwise known as the Spilled Ink Press conference room) to a proof review meeting to show Comron and Kristin their invitation in real-life form!
It's always fun to see a couple open the envelope for the first time.

So I thought I'd snap some pics of their options, in all of it's paisley loveliness.... Which version would YOU choose?
Booklet invitation with the following envelope selections: Brick Red ~ Champagne ~ Birch
Inside accent options: chocolate brown OR....
Brick Red (hmm... do you match the envelope?)...


Well, Sheridan, what do YOU think?... Sheridan?.......
Oh never mind. We'll leave it up to the happy couple.