Themespiration: Fern Elements

Ferns, ferns, ferns everywhere!  This plant has been popping up everywhere on Pinterest in floral arrangements, table decor, invitations, you name it.  With its elegant shape, this plant has style and grace. It can definitely make a bold statement at your wedding. Whether your style is rustic, bohemian or traditional, ferns are an adaptable choice. Add it to one element, like your bouquet, or more. However you use it, it is sure to please the eye.

~ Stay Sweet

1. Bouquet Elements

2. Plate Elements

3. Invitation Elements

4. Cake Elements

Credits:

1.  // 2. // 3. // 4.

Top Trends of 2012

With the start of a new year, comes the start of new trends! So what will be popping up all over the wedding world this year? Take a look:

Trend #1: Rustic Glam Barn Weddings - imagine the perfect combination of exposed wood, lace, whimsical flowers with the perfect ambient lighting to set the stage for your big day. Brides are now jumping at the chance to glam up a little farmland to say their I Do's. And the ladies here at DIYva Designs are huge fans of this trend too!

via Tried and True Weddings

Trend #2: Long Sleeved Wedding Dresses - Kate Middleton really is to thank for this trend. After her royal wedding to Prince William, brides everywhere wanted to bring back this trend. Her dress was designed by Sarah Burton, Creative Director for Alexander McQueen - giving a nod to Grace Kelly's 1956 wedding dress.

via Wedding Inspirasi

Trend #3: Water Color Invitations - It seems couples tying the knot are trying more and more to incorporate little creative details into their overall wedding designs. And one way to add a little artistic touch? Include some custom watercolors to your stationery line! Our very own Sugar loves to take the traditional wedding invitation and adding a little pop of personality to it.

via Sealed.

To see more examples of trend setting invitations, check out our Etsy shop here!

Eco-Chic Romance Invitations:)

I had a fun time designing these romantic eco-chic invitations for one of our clients. I love how the card stock is grainy with nature and you can see seed particles, and the way the ribbon colors make the design pop. Yum!

Sewn Book Invitations

These were truly a labor of love. We were lucky enough to have a client with a deep creative bone in her body and she let me take her colors and damask fetish to the next level with this book invitation. I was suuuuper stoked at the results: (I am seriously looking forward to seeing the rest of the design plan for this lady come together; it will be a VERY beautiful library themed affair, and Liza over at DBI Events is on our florals so ----grrrRR!)

The book had a dedication page, two 'chapters' of their love story, Directions, Information for Hotels, Fun things to do in DC, and a really cool Library Card RSVP Card. I was in love. 

Pretty In Pink

A couple of months ago we did a wedding invitation for a very special bride which got some rave reviews. For some reason, posting the invite must have slipped our minds, but here it is finally...

The invite included a fully customizable, hand drawn rose, matching the wedding flowers, as well as 3 separate inserts and a chic pocketfold closed with ivory, satin ribbon.

We pasted, tied and sent 300 of these invites, but all the blood, sweat and tears (seriously) were worth it! The invite also included an Armenian insert, so keep in mind that nothing is out of our realm!!

Wedding Channel Stationary Deal!!

Today's the day ladies and gents! We have a fantastic stationary deal featured on The Wedding Channel website!! For $100 you get $200 worth of our top of the line, fully customizable stationary! Order your invitations, programs, thank you cards or really anything you need!

Thanks to the Wedding Channel for providing us with this fantastic opportunity!!

Revision of a Rough Draft!

Remember the old playbill invite we featured last week? Well, here's a re-worked, revamped version. What do you all think?! I loved the other one, but I LOVE LOVE this one!

Modern Typography Wedding Invitation

So it's like 12:45 AM and I'm tearing up with sleepiness yet somehow unable to get away from this computer----we are preparing for our launch party and I have alot of design work to do!! What do you think of this modern typographical wedding invitation I created? Once it's all printed and assembled I will re-post it........

I hate Mondays. I feel as tight as Al.B.Sure's face in this video, knowing the weekend is over:(----(by the way this is totally unrelated to my wedding invitation above but I was laughing quite hard a minute ago about this dude's tight face the whole video. (You know the midnight old-school videos are on lol!)

A Vintage Bachelor Party Invitation!

I created this vintage French Quarter New Orleans Bachelor Party Invitation for a guy in Louisiana who is about to get hitched. His friends who are hosting it simply LOVED the idea, and they are now building the party around this idea! ( I can't be there to plan it, but it sure would be nice!!)----- I think creating funky one of a kind invitations is one of the funnest things that I do. Yum!!

Kayla's Invitations

So here are the final invitations for a client of ours, Nilda, for her daughter Kayla's First Communion:
See the original illustrations that I had Nilda choose from for this occasion at This Post

Custom Invitations for Kayla Michele:)

Hey loves! I have been really busy the last few days getting my vehicles running properly, and working on some client samples for a few upcoming events. So I found out that the Miguel Perdomo/Isa Fuller event will be re-scheduled ---as I was about to get dressed lol---so I will keep everyone posted about that.

What have YOU been up to? Want to check out my latest art creation? (I have two awesome portraits to show you soon too!)---Told you I've been busy.

These are some samples I created for Nilda, who's amazing daughter Kayla is having her first Holy Communion soon!

 

She chose the third option. I'll post these again once they are all painted and mounted and ready to go~!

Save the Date!!

I am IN LOVE with these new photo save the date cards from Hello! Lucky They are so creative and unconventional! It's also super easy since you upload your own pictures and complete the order online. Here's my fave set... Check out their other designs too, they're all VERY browseworthy.

What a simple and literal idea! Makes you wish you'd of thought of it huh?!

Train Ticket Wedding Invitations!

Gooooood Thursday to ya! Thursday is like the dingle-berry of the week to me; it's not quite Friday so you try very hard to dispose of it but it moves slow and just sort of lingers there. Anyhoo I wanted to give you something to make your day go a little faster!! My wedding invitations!

So I told you I had three weeks to plan, design, and execute--- (and be incredibly hot). We got a chance to work with the uber sexy and intelligent Gino Fillipone of Ultimate USA Weddings. (He is an officiant and planner)--- The dude has an office at the top of the Empire State Building ---( I was sooo about to call it the Eiffel Tower lmao)----Our first option for a location was the Apollo Theater in Harlem, since it was sooooo old school New York / Hollywood / My Weird Obsession With Dorothy Dandridge----so I made some invitations that looked like vintage theater tickets. After looking desperately for someone to letterpress my design for a reasonable price (I was getting quotes at $10.00 + per invite x the 60 invitations I wanted but they needed at least a week.)----It turned out to be good luck because the network then told me that they weren't able to book the Apollo anyway, so my theater tickets would have been a waste of money. I found out they were using the Grand Central Terminal and I was like, DUH! Train tickets! So this is what I created right on my computer and printed at home, on photo paper so they were glossy. LOVED it! Especially when I slid each 'ticket' into an awesome brown string envelope and created a vintage date stamp with stuff I had around the house lol.

Now, you will notice that my R.S.V.P info is a wedding website. Any clients that we speak to in regards to R.S.V.P gets the same suggestion from our team: USE A WEDDING/EVENT WEBSITE. Its free, whereas you dish out a silly amount of money on R.S.V.P stamps that might not even get returned! (As for me; I had three weeks to rock and roll. lol.)

DIYva Stamps!

I am busy as hell right now: planning an event for a client, -----(a Chick Baby Shower which I can't WAIT to show you my plans for)----amongst a million other things but it's a GOOD type of busy. Despite the fact, I ALWAYS have time to cram a craft down your throat! I found out how to make my own stamp last week and I'm waaaaaay too excited. I owe life-long obeisance to the gods of art for this find of mine. Ok so I like to make cards and invitations and yadayada. (I say yadayada often enough to make anyone question my intelligence but I assure you it is because I talk the way I type: WAY too fast) ---anyway I found that stamps are not only very generic and obvious, but expensive for no real reason. After a wedding last year I was making a scrapbook for the bride, and I dished out a heart-attack inducing $50.00 on stamp paraphernalia. Eew. So this year, I'm carving my own. You heard me. CARVING my own. (Me + Sharp Object. Cringe now.)

What you do is you order a Stamp Making Kit here (it is called the Speedy-Carve by Speedball), and you simply use the scalpel thing-ker-bob that comes in the kit to carve whatever your heart desires into the rubber mat. You trace (the package comes with some basic shapes and flowers etc.)----or hand sketch what you like, then carve out (slowly; this thing is sharp and hard to maneuver)---the background so that only the shape you want the stamp to be is elevated. I am sorry I didn't take pictures of my original sketch, and me carving the darn stamp: I get into my zone. Won't happen again!

I created some orchids (see below) which I plan to make trees, other flowers, logos, etc. and stamp my way to a new soul. Can you imagine? I think I'm going to use these on business cards for a totally unique and rustic look, personalized Thank You and Birthday Cards, and it is original artwork! What do you think? As you can see, I think paint-trays are soooo over-rated. just put a good dollop of paint in the table and stick your finger in it like I did. (Use paintbrushes for no other reason than to look good on your blog.)

Oh yeah, uh, COMMENT Damnit. LOL.