Handmade Wedding Invites (and freebie font download!)

There is a special day approaching!!! My littlest brother Josh is getting married in September to his gorgeous fiance Charlotte (hooray!) it's a bit scary too because I can remember rocking Josh back to sleep as a baby and changing his little nappies! (haha, sorry Josh!)

Hard to believe this cheeky little boy...

...is about to be married!

Josh & Char asked me if I'd like to do their invites, and of course I said I would! We went through a few different designs and concepts together until there was something that they were both happy with! They are both very individual and unique so the invites reflect this. 

Some of the concepts included embroidered roses and beads

 The final design chosen (below) was totally handmade, and suited them perfectly. Simple, and eclectic! They loved the idea of using hand stamped lettering. It did look great but it took ages! 

A look at the handstamped lettering, ribbon and paper

The type looked so good that they wanted the same technique for the invite reverse. Now, that was ALOT of information to be individually stamped so I digitalized it and turned it into a usable font (available free for download if you like something a little decorative and different!) It's called 'Jolotte'... took ages to think up that one!

The invite reverse! Jolotte Font in action ...

I'm glad I digitalized it as it allowed me to have alot of control of the layout of the reverse. Then it was time for adding the buttons and then drybrushing the final cards to tie all the elements together... and that was it!

Buttons... I was tired at this point!

The final pile! ready for send-off :)

I feel really honoured to be able to do something special for them both. Although it was very time consuming and tiring at some points (especially for my back!) it was worth it. The individual look and feel you get from handmade it special, and really does suit them both. Hehe, I can't wait for the big day :)

Remember, if you'd like to download and use the font it's totally free! 

http://www.dafont.com/jolotte.font

Walking Dead Embroidery - FINISHED!

I am so chuffed ('chuffed' - not said that for years!) that I have finally finished my secret project; a 3 month labour of love as a gift for my fiance (not to mention an homage to the awesomeness that is Robert Kirkmans' Graphic Novel series - 'The Walking Dead') I love the novels and I love the AMC televison series (and those who know me well know generally I kind of love zombies!) It was my fiance, Hans, who introduced  me to The Walking Dead. As soon as the next installment is published it's delivered here, and I wait patiently for Hans to finish with it so I can read it after him (putting whatever book I happen to be reading at the time on hold - priorities, you know?)

Anyhooo, for Hans' birthday this year I thought I'd make him something myself. I've done a couple of embroidery pieces for people before and they've gone down well, so after deciding to make one for Hans I started to look at the art for TWD. The artist(s) for the graphic series are the hugely talented Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn, and earlier in the series Tony Moore - and I decided I'd like to try embroidering a piece of the art. This is the result (including an example of the original artwork which is NOT in ANY way mine! (I wish!) I think you can click on the images to see bigger versions:

. Used different amounts of black strands to achieve shading.

Used my pinky finger to demostrate how tiny the stitches were!

Comparison to the insanely awesome original artwork.

Face(?) close up

So.... finally done. It has taken me 3 months (which isn't bad, my friends' wedding gift was ready 18 months after the special day!) Hans liked it, I am glad! Going to get it framed for him too.

It was pretty fun to work on (if a little frustrating at some parts). I did it at home, at the gym, in coffee shops - which was incredibly funny when a little old dear looks at what you are sewing and gets a shock! 

Whew! x

The Country Child

Wow, it's been a while since I posted! Christmas and the New Year have been really busy. Since October I have been working 7 days & 2 evenings a week (on non-design jobs!) and finally it's getting back to a more manageable pace. I was working on design projects when I could so it's meant alot of very late nights, but I think it's all part of the job! Why else do all designers seem to live on coffee?! I also had limited internet access for a while which in this day and age is disasterous!

So my last post showed early developments of Alison Uttley's 'The Country Child'. Derby Theatre are holding a week long event this summer celebrating her life and books, with a produced version of The Country Child as the main event.

It's been a long time spent working on the poster - Uttley has written some beautiful books (she has been unofficially dubbed as Derbyshire's Beatrix Potter) and undoubtably her writings have touched many people. For these reasons, something delicate and with alot of love put into it is needed to represent her.

So, here are some of the final(ish) images, needs a bit more work on selective contrast etc, and of course poster text to be added, but I am pretty pleased with it. What I love most is that it is totally handmade, the paper sculpture of the girl, my own textures, hand painted type... I found some lovely old wallpaper that I scanned in and messed with for the flowers...

Poster - made to look like a bookpage come to life!

Theatre (Studio) Leaflet version

The web banner version of the poster

Anyway, best get back to work!

x