haute off the press: personal stationery

Do you make New Year's Resolutions? I don't ... but if I did one of mine would be to be better about staying in touch and keeping up with thank you notes. I know, I know, I'm SURROUNDED by cute stationery but still I can't get it together to send out a thank you note in a timely fashion. The card design of ours that I use most is the "Stinky" one since I'm always so late! Here's a dirty little secret: I recently designed an evite for my son's birthday party because I didn't have time to mail out an invitation. For shame!

Having personal stationery, like this sample shown above that some clients ordered of our San Francisco Tile design, makes it easier to tackle the "thank you note" section on your to do list.

new on cardstore: boxed stationery

New at Cardstore.com: cute boxed personalized stationery. 12 cards in a cool keepsake box for only $21! I'm tickled that they chose a bunch of our Delphine designs for this series (including the top right one above, which I designed while attempting to channel Jonathan Adler). Happy shopping!

joyeux noel: christmas cards

Sneak Peek: My mom drew these adorable illustrations for next year's holiday card line ... but we couldn't resist placing a last minute order with our digital printer (sorry, guys) so that she could send some Christmas cards (in her case, Joyeux Noel cards) out this year. These are four of the designs she's sending out. Next year I'll design some holiday photo cards using these illustrations. Do you like the pastel colorway? I think it's warm and cozy.

in the press: brides

I'm thrilled that the collection of wedding invitations I designed for Cardstore.com is getting some love! Thanks to BRIDE'S for choosing THREE of the cards for their latest issue.

Psst: if you order your invites before December 31, 2009 from Cardstore.com use this code for 15 percent off: FRIEND15.

real wedding: westport save the date

Here at Delphine we love it when brides (and grooms) make our designs their own. Altagracia and Casey customized our Westport design to create this western-themed save the date for their upcoming nuptials in Jackson, Wyoming. Using our fun customizer (preview in real time! instant gratification! yahoo!), they chose the Rope and Rose fonts and Chocolate and Blue inks. We digitally printed it, for super fast turnaround. LOVE LOVE LOVE it! Can't wait to see what they order for their invites.

new on delphine: personal stationery

New on delphinepress.com: personal stationery! For now, it's just digital printing option on the site (letterpress coming soon). Check it out here.

giving thanks with great deals

Our licensing partners have some great deals right now! Cardstore.com is offering 15 percent off orders placed before 12.31.09 (use the code: FRIEND15 during checkout. expires 12.31.09). Check out our Delphine collection for Cardstore.com here.

And another partner, ForYourParty.com is also offering a great deal: 20 percent off your holiday purchase! At For Your Party you can order wonderful napkins, stir sticks, match boxes, coasters ... all the fun details for your holiday party. Enter code: Turkey09 during checkout. Offer expires 11.27.09. Check out our Delphine collection for ForYourParty.com here.

color and mood

As you have probably noticed, I love playing with color. I recently digitally printed these two samples of our Julian design in two different color combos. It's amazing how simply changing ink colors can completely change the tone of an invitation, isn't it? The top sample is printed in lilac and limonade inks; the bottom in red and cloud inks.

new: delphine holiday at cardstore.com

Just released today: more than 50 new delphine holiday designs on Cardstore.com. Holiday cards, photo cards, Christmas cards, Hannukah cards, Cookie exchange invites, holiday party invitations ... I had SO MUCH FUN designing this year's group of holiday cards. Early in the summer I locked myself inside with the ac turned up, a cup of hot chocolate, a candy cane and a bunch of Christmas movies on dvd to get in the mood!

Cardstore.com also just realeased some new photo border and shower invite designs of ours, so be sure to check out all the links.

new at delphine: digitally printed invitations

I'm so excited to announce that we now offer all of our Delphine wedding invitation designs digitally printed! We chose a thick 100 percent post consumer waste recycled stock as our house stock and we love how it prints! One of the best things about digital (besides the lower prices) is the ability to flood the background of a card with a solid color (like the folded note card in the photo above). You can play with the options on our here.

send a free delphine card at cardstore.com

All week you can personalize one free card from Cardstore.com's Hope Collection (including the hearts card shown above designed by yours truly) and Cardstore will mail it directly to anyone you choose, worldwide, for FREE. Yes, Free. Thank you Cardstore!!! Why not send your grandma or your niece or a long lost friend or your mommy a sweet note or message of encouragement today.

Just enter the code: SENDHOPE during checkout. Expires September 8, 2009

friends and family sale at cardstore.com

I got a secret code from my friends at Cardstore.com so that y'all can get 15 percent off all orders! Just enter the code: FRIEND15 during checkout. Offer applies to all cards; expires 12.31.09. Of course I suggest you apply the discount to the delphine collection at Cardstore.com. We have photo cards, birth announcements, shower invitations, holiday party invitations (including the new cookie exchange design shown above), wedding invitations, thank you cards, shower invitations, and much more!

new delphine digital design: tropical luggage tag

One of the reasons we like digital printing is the ability to flood the background with a fun color, like in this tropical "luggage tag" save the date. Another reason? The price ... this one retails for less than $3 each!

little lamb baby shower: part one

I’ve finally started sorting through all the photos from the Little Lamb baby shower I co-hosted a few weeks ago, and will be posting them soon. Meanwhile, I thought I’d share a bit about how I planned the party.

The first thing I did was to get some help! Parties are a lot of work, so I leaned heavily on friends and my mom to help pull it all together (thanks, everyone!) First things first: we established a date, budget, general theme, and set a cap on the guest list (ours was 18). We chose a date a few months out, to give us plenty of time to plan; we all pitched in some cash at the beginning to one person (me) so that I could be in charge of buying all the décor, invites, flowers, etc. And we chose the “little lamb” theme and spring green colors because we knew that was the theme of the baby’s nursery décor.

My biggest tip for planning a little party is to shop your own home (and your friends' homes) first, before buying a single thing! Luckily Carrie's nursery décor happens to be my own favorite color, green, so I had lots of "decorations" around already.

Use your own talents, and those of your friends, to help save money. Since I'm a stationery designer I, naturally, designed the invites. My mom, who has a gift for floral arranging, offered to handle the flowers, someone else offered to do all the baking, and so on. This saved us a lot of cash!

custom invitations by delphine

While I'm a huge fan of letterpress (duh), we went with low-cost digital printing for the invites. For about the cost of just a letterpress invititation, we were able to digitally print double sided invitations, registry inserts, thank you cards for favors for guests, thank you cards for Carrie, place cards, table cards, place cards, and sticker labels.

A preview of the dessert table.

The yellow flowers arrangements are actually plants (about $5 each at Home Depot). Mom lined the inside of big glass vases with citron colored paper, and placed lemons from the back yard on top of the pots. I grouped three paper balls leftover from my son's birthday party under the chandelier (they store flat, and they were less than $3 each ... they're on their third party already!). I made the "BABY" banner with leftover cards from the invitation press run and a spool of ribbon from the dollar bin at Michael's. Instead of buying a pricey cake, we used box mix, spiced it up a bit with Alex's secret sauce, and made adorable cupcakes.

Next time I'll share more details from the baby shower, including some downloadable pdfs for straw flags and cupcake toppers. Meanwhile, if you have any questions please leave a comment.