show and tell #25

Eri and Philip chose custom colours for their Splendid Rockies Ready2Wear wedding invitations and, instead of including a photo, they decided on using the left panel for their Japanese guests. Genius! Eri and Philip chose this particular design because they are hosting their wedding at Glacier National Park in Montana. So lucky! Rod and I drove through Glacier National Park two summers ago and it was beyond beautiful.

show and tell #23

Lindsay and Harry decided on our Bunny Love design for their summer 2009 wedding. I believe it was a toss up between Bunny Love and Arts and Crafts. They wanted something unique, playful yet romantic to set the tone for a west coast style Cecil Green celebration. What's unique about Bunny Love is the freedom to choose your own bunny love photo combo. There are 8 in total and, I assume, fairly difficult to choose just 2.

show and tell #22

Jessica and Steve mailed out the adorable Tree, Bush or Rocketship wedding invitation to their guests. Wedding colours were exchanged for the default colours and they took advantage of the real estate by inviting guests to a separate wedding event and had everyone rsvp by email. This is becoming more and more popular as it saves time and money, it's a lot more efficient and involves less paper. I can appreciate it's simplicity.

show and tell #19

Rahanna and Bobby ordered this classic Ready2Wear invitation for their summer 2009 wedding on Vancouver Island. This invitation, To India With Love, stands the test of time...so far. Happy planning, Rahanna and Bobby!

Show and Tell #11

Here are a few of the latest Ready2Wear designs to be sent out into the world...




from top to bottom: Morning In May thank you card, Go Together Like Beaches and Palm Trees wedding invitation and a Splendid Rockies save-the-date card.

CH-CH-Changes

As the seasons change, so do the Days of our Lives at General Hospital...and by "change" I mean BIG changes. I, Brina L Schenk, am at this moment spending my last residential work day in Vancouver, BC. Starting Monday I will be working from my home in Fernie, BC. What impact does this have on you? Well, other than the fact that I won't be physically attending meetings (we're hoping for video conferencing though! FUN,) not much. I'll still be working full time on Blue Skies and Daisies and continuously creating cool and creative wedding stationery for those who want it. Blue Skies and Daisies will be the Blue Skies and Daisies we've always been; loving our jobs and moving full steam ahead.

What this means for Albertine and I is: less coffee dates, less hugging and more phone calls. Awe, that's sad. I'll be visiting Vancouver often to help out with production and give Albertine the support a co-owner needs, plus, I might need to get out of Fernie every so often to postpone my insanity.

What does this mean for Brina? This means I'll be living with my manfriend, Mr. Rodney Brink, who has been enduring a long distance relationship with me from it's inception (almost 2 years), I'll be living in a small mountain town (population 5000,) and getting used to snow again. It's gonna be great!

show and tell #7

Today we're featuring more of our Ready2Wear wedding invitations. I've always known they would be a hit, but couples all around the world seem to be on the same wavelength.

1. Ann Marie and Eddie - With a few changes to colours and their own photo, Ann Marie and Eddie made this fantastic Humour Me invitation their own. OH! They're getting married tomorrow!! What timing!


2. Kasia and Dustin - When you know what you want, and It's Not A Thistle is exactly that, it's as easy as putting in your picture and your wedding announcement...and off you go!


3. Uzma and Thomas - We reworked Our 15 Minutes for Uzma and Thomas and came out with such a bold and clean wedding invitation for their guests.

Looking Back

Invitations from the past

I was going through my old photos today and found a few good BSD stationery memories. I also dug up quite a few classic tean and bean shots, but I'll save those for a special rainy day. A VERY special rainy day.

I started taking pictures of our wedding stationery back in 2006 when I bought my first digital camera. I still have it and it's doing pretty good. I wouldn't say there have been no glitches along the way...but my Canon Elph has treated me well.

The next step is possibly a Canon SLR.

Gayle and Jim

This was one of the quickest custom invitation jobs we ever did. It was for a small wedding, but we designed it and sent to the printers a day later.


Shabina and Ronnh

These two lovely buddies got married last year, but we just love what Shabina did with our designs. The invitation, decorated with jewels, came with desserts and a bag of nuts! Best invitations ever!


Alice and Brian

We've posted this invitation before, but not like this! It's just such a fantastic wedding invitation and maybe I'll continue to bring it up every 2 months. You can't stop me. It's an adventure novel/wedding invitation which was borrowed from a library. You can't take a literary theme much further than that.

That font is SO you

Working as a team

Typography isn't necessarily one of my strong points, although, I think I'm doing pretty good, I do understand its very important role in the world of design...especially after a quick talking to from Jeremy Crowle a few months ago. The success of graphic design, and this includes wedding stationery too, is based on all the components working together as one. Fonts, colours, breathing space, style, emotion, flow; they, as a team, whip your senses into orgasmic bliss.

Letters + more letters = words

Selecting fonts for your custom wedding invitation can be a bit tricky as the typography should work with the rest of the design elements. If you're really a wild one, you might believe in a little thing called experimentalism, where there are no rules...aka it's innovative.

Some rules I learned in school are:

1. use fewer fonts
2. don't all caps your script typeface
3. pair up a sans serif with a serif font
4. avoid using similar fonts together

Fonts play a role in relaying to your guests what kind of wedding they're being invited to. This isn't always important to every couple getting married but for those of you who do have an interest in taking your wedding invitations to another level, hopefully this helps you out.

To the right are some examples of lovable font couples and NO Albertine and I are not getting married.

New pre-wedding party invites

Derrick and I's time constructing The Little Things recently inspired me to do a little project of my own. It started with a little felt bride and groom and then I took them on a bit of a journey through worlds of textures and colour.

You can view all of our pre-wedding party postcard invitations on our website or sit back and enjoy a little jpg below.

Warning: Don't get hurt by it's cuteness. Oh! Which reminds me, I was at an art supply store yesterday and picked up this book binding hole punch package and on the warning label the 1st on the list was "don't punch this in your mouth" or something like that. It was like so weird cuz HOW DID THEY KNOW I WANTED TO PUNCH PAPER IN MY MOUTH?!

show and tell #1

Today I've decided to show some of our work of 2007. All invitations are of weddings that have come and gone, cuz I think that's only fair to the couple. Totally fair. This is a lot like show and tell. I used to hate show and tell because of my fear of talking in front of people, but I'm 30 now and I'm hiding behind a blog. So much easier. These aren't necessarily our favorites. I think it's hard to pick favorites since we designed them all and I love all of our designs. These were just easy to get to and NOT on our website already.

1. kelli and mark: pocket invitation with tabs. very bold. very them.
2. michele and rocco: 2-fold invitation with fun pin stripes.
3. sara and alex: customized ready to wear design. amazing photography and fantastic colour scheme.
4. shannon and mark: a very creative 1-fold invitation with an illustration by shannon harvey. The rsvp was to be coloured in by the guest before it was sent back. i love creative invitations.