Wed by Hand 2011

We’re looking forward to attending Wed By Hand in Ottawa this weekend. Come say hi if you’re in the area!

Gated invitation – Melina & Emanuele

Well, it was a chilled out Thanksgiving weekend at our house (hallelujah). No turkey and no relatives. However there was beef wellington and there was Secretariat, only one of the greatest horse movies ever made about the greatest horse that ever lived (in Chantal’s opinion). ‘Twas good.

Here is our Gated invitation reprinted for Melina & Emanuele’s winter wedding, finished just in time for the long weekend. We reprinted it in one-colour with a reply card and two envelopes, on our favourite pearl white Crane Lettra.

Custom invitation – Emily and Greg

Here is another custom invitation suite we did for Emily and Greg. The criteria for this one was to have a classic motif in two colours, so we went for a lighter, cleaned up Victorian motif.  The map features custom illustrations of both the church where Emily and Greg will be marrying and their reception venue.

Printed in two colours on pearl white 100% cotton Crane Lettra.

At left is the initial sketch, which started off square and evolved into an oval on the final proof, right.

Final printed announcement

Close up of announcement

Complete 5-piece invitation suite

Reply card

The map

Illustration of Emily and Greg's church

Thanks to Emily and Greg for taking our ideas and letting us run with it! Congratulations!

Custom invitation – Katie and Peter

This is a custom invitation we did for Katie and Peter. This is a good example of our à la carte pricing, which allows couples to pick and choose pieces to suit their budget. Katie and Peter really loved letterpress, but couldn’t afford to get their whole set through us, therefore they opted to have only the announcement and the outer envelope done by us.

We were very glad to hear that they wanted an illustration-heavy invitation, since that’s our specialty! They wanted a large tree with lots of foliage to fill most of the page.

This two-colour invitation is printed in 2 shades of grey on pearl white 100% cotton Crane Lettra and features deckled edges!

First we sent Katie and Peter a rough pencil sketch, then we finalize the illustration in ink and finally add the text digitally and create a final digital proof.

Final printed announcement, with deckled edge

Announcement with printed outer envelope

Future congratulations to Katie and Peter!

Papillon Press in Weddingbells!

We are so excited to be featured in the fall/winter 2010 issue of Weddingbells magazine! This Parisian chic spread turned out beautifully.

Papillon Press in Weddingbells - click on image for larger view

Printed invitation – Ashley & Michael

This is an invitation we printed for Ashley and Michael with our letterpress printing service. Ashley submitted her 1-colour design to us and we printed it for her!

Printed in black on 100% cotton Crane Lettra.

If you have your own design you would like printed, contact us for the printing guidelines.

Printed invitation – Shanley & Andrew

This is an invitation we printed for Shanley and Andrew with our letterpress printing service. Shanley submitted her 1-colour design to us and we printed it for her!

Printed on off-white Somerset Velvet and off-white Etrusca envelopes.

If you have your own design you would like printed, contact us for the printing guidelines.

Seed paper hang tags

These are little hang tags we printed for Chelsy Anne, a great jewellery maker we met at Ottawa’s Wed by Hand event. This is marks the first time we have ever printed on seed paper, which is manufactured in Winnipeg by Botanical Paperworks. We were concerned at first that the paper would be too fine to withstand the pressure of the press, but it held up just fine and did not crush the seeds.

Now whoever buys Chelsy’s jewellery can plant the hang tag and watch wildflowers grow from it! What a great idea.

Printed on double thick, white seed paper. 3.5×5.

We were able to fit six hang tags on a business card size and left the card untrimmed so Chelsy could plant the surplus herself.

At the Spring Wedding Show

We had a great time at the Spring Wedding Show, held at the swank Drake Hotel, this past Saturday. Thanks to all the couples who stopped by and talked invitation with us.

Our table with the nice comfy booth.

Chantal discussing with a few brides.

Joel standing beneath the Drake's unusual lighting, which we decided looked like yellowed fingernails.

Shout outs to

–Snap and Tumble and her tiny Adana tabletop presses

–Claire Reyes and her lovely calligraphy

–Pomp and Plumage with their beautiful feather hair accessories (rhinestone free!)

-fellow illustrator Cecelia Hayes and her cute hair accessories and illustrated stationery

–Heather Frize of Ecstatic and her cute jewellery and accesories (endorsed by Olivia Newton-John!)

First workshop…not to be the last!

Papillon Press hosted its first ever letterpress workshop this past Saturday and it went great! The ladies were introduced to typesetting and to Claudette, our CP & Co. New Style letterpress. They all did very well and ran their jobs through the press like printers-in-the-making.

They were also more ambitious in their typesetting than we expected them to be. Anyone who has ever set lead type by hand knows how time-consuming it can be, but these girls were not daunted and even mixed wood type with metal type.

Trying to decide which type to use out of our over 100 typecases.

Katie and Kristina ended up using the same typefaces, wood type and "typewriter" type

Chantalle (not the blogger!) with Claudette (the press).

Katie running her job on the press

Kristina "Mita" running Claudette.

Chantalle printed her Christmas greetings early using "Fancy type"

Kristina mixed wood type with "typewriter" type and used two ornamental brackets.

Katie printed a gift for her boyfriend in the same distressed wood type as Kristina, using an ornament AND a decorative rule. Printed in lovely silver ink.

Thank you to Katie, Kristina and Chantalle for a great workshop and for being easy to teach!

If you are interested in participating in a forthcoming introductory letterpress workshop, email us at contact@papillonletterpress.com