I know paper week was last week but for some reason I keep finding the most wonderful paper ideas like these darling place cards.

By Catherine Lash

When I first saw these place cards from TimelessPaper, I felt like the table they were perched on was going to take flight.

These butterflies look as though they have just touched down on each place setting’s glass and are about to defy gravity and carry each glass off  in a mass of fluttering wings  – much like that beautiful last scene in Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride.

Order your butterflies, or sparrows, or flora or shrimp place cards early enough and you can get your guest’s names written on them – talk about one stop shopping {and the easiest DIY ever!}.

When I discovered TimelessPaper for myself, I went on to read some of the comments Emily (the owner) had received about her work: what a wonderful feature! You should take advantage of the information Etsy provides on each business whenever you are considering buying – we, for example, have only written about companies with 100% satisfaction rates (at least when we’re writing about them).

Here is what few people had to say about TimelessPaper’s products:

The cutest little place cards. They will be front row center at the head table at my wedding. Thank you!!!

Absolutely beautiful product.. Emily does amazing work – packaged very nicely! Thank you )

As soon as my paper butterfly arrived, I placed it on the lip of a crystal glass…love it!

We recently heard from a bride whose wedding will take place next summer, she was kind enough to include the engagement announcement that ran in her school alumni magazine along with her email.

The announcement got us thinking … what are the general guidelines for publicly acknowledging your engagement and where should you make those acknowledgements?

Announcing an engagement is all about timing: leave it too long and you’re old news, but beware of going public before ensuring that no family friend or relative is going to hear it third-hand from a neighbour and be hurt they weren’t included in your good news earlier.

General consensus says engagement announcements are published 3-8 months before the wedding, but a particularly long engagement, or a very short one, may dictate something outside of that timeline.

A wedding announcement, on the other hand, can run anytime from the day after the wedding to a few months later.

Putting an engagement announcement together often requires looking up individual publications’ guidelines. A photo can usually be included and and they are typically informal; while it may nicely coincide with an engagement photo shoot, there’s no need for a professional photograph. Basically, the rule of thumb for the picture is that your heads should approximately line up.

You can announce your engagement in your hometown newspaper where you still have connections, your current newspaper and in the publications of your affiliations where you think it’s appropriate and where social announcements are accepted. The Toronto Star, for example, treats engagement, and any other social notices, as a classified ad. You pay for exactly what you want and they run it, other publications will run social announcements for free, but will not guarantee their inclusion. For larger, national newspapers, the selection criteria can be fairly competitive.

A standard announcement begins with the bride’s parent’s names, their city or town, and the names of the bride- and groom-to-be as well as the approximate date of the wedding, and then the groom’s parent’s names. This is followed by a short paragraph about the couple, their occupations, their city or town and how they met, or where they went to school. With single-parent families and re-married parents, the format changes slightly but not by much, but there aren’t any hard and fast rules about it except what each publication requires you include.

Congratulations Amberlea and Jonathan!

If you’ve watched prime time television in the last few years, it’s more than likely you’ve already seen dresses like these, you maybe just didn’t think about what you were really seeing. I know I just presumed that when the actress tore a piece of fabric off her “cashmere” dress that it was a trick – that no dress could actually be made from bathroom tissue. Think again.

Eight prominent Canadian designers each contributed a dress made almost exclusively from good old toilet paper to the Fifth Annual White Cashmere Collection 2008: A Touch of Pink fashion show in Toronto last September. As we near the annual event, Farley Chatto, a Toronto designer has already submitted his final dress for 2009.

While they aren’t wedding-inspired, it’s hard not to see the potential of some of these incredible creations for marching, rather than strutting, down another aisle… what’s your favourite?

Continue Reading This Post

While looking for crane stationery to showcase during Paper Week, I stumbled upon some remarkable information about one of the most reputable stationery companies in North America, if not the world, Crane & Co.

By Stephanie Gareri

Since its inception in 1801, Crane & Co has been green. The company’s commitment to the environment is clearly stated in its philosophy, “We don’t cut down trees to make Crane papers.” This revolutionary, family-owned business, now in its seventh generation is 100% tree free, it’s energy efficient, it reduces waste, it spares the environment and it is renewable and recyclable.  For over 200 years, it has been an industry leader by making a conscious efforts to minimize their environmental footprint.

To read more about Crane & Co’s fascinating processes and paper production, click here.

Crane & Co. features unique wedding invitations by Kate Spade and recently partnered with Martha Stewart to create an elegant line of invitation suites – click on the look book to view. For the purposes of the Crane Chandelier Project, I like their appropriately named, Birds of a Feather collection.

Images courtesy of Crane & Co.

Paper is a practical medium, it’s existence changed the way the world communicated, how memories and history were recorded and passed on, and although we’ve moved onto the digital age, paper doesn’t seem to be going anywhere fast!

But maybe what’s most appealing about paper is that we can’t live without it and so we’ve incorporated it into our creative expression. Take origami for example, various folds {like our favourite crane!} have taken on meanings of their own. Now, the image of the origami crane has been adapted into other forms of art, blending together the old and new artists’ visions with our understanding of the crane as a symbol of peace.

Lia Griffith (Papier Couture) designs dresses out of paper:

“All of the dresses I create begin with recycled white tabloid size paper. I then design the pattern, often using typography, choose the color that seems to best fit the concept of the dress and print the “fabric” on a laser printer.

The paper crane dress is part of a seven piece collection that touches on goddess archetypes and the gifts of the feminine.

I was inspired by the idea of folding cranes in a space of conscious prayer. When making this dress I asked my friends together in community to fold the one thousand cranes, offering with each one a prayer for peace.”

Lia’s next collection, The Duchess, has been inspired by flowers and their essences and will be shown for the first time next week. Inspired by flowers and their essences, the final dress, a wedding dress(!) has been drawn from the Jasmine flower and its delicate scent.

One of our all-time favourite DIYs tastes as sweet as it looks and leaves guests with a tiny memento of your day – in honour of Paper Week: The Wedding Co.’s Sweet Paper Purses.

These miniature purses are the perfect tote for a little something sweet, leave them at every lady’s seat as a token of your affection.

For someone with a little time on her hands or with a pack of dedicated ‘maids, this DIY project is straightforward and tons of fun as you watch a set of customized mini purses take shape. We guarantee they’ll be snapped up at the end of the night as tokens of the day. As always, let your imagination guide you and make any adjustments to our design to customize them for yourself. Fabulous for weddings, showers and rehearsal dinners!

Download our quick and easy directions and materials list.

Just in time for paper week, we heard about Paperless Post. The latest in electronic invitations is definitely a step towards the posh when it comes to look and delivery.

By Stephanie Wright

When the envelope arrives in your inbox, complete with the official Paperless stamp and your name, it’s as close to the real thing as you’re going to get. The sense of anticipation when you ‘open’ it just about equals the rush of opening a calligraphed envelope you’ve discovered in your mailbox. It has the promise of something significant.

I’ve had so much fun the past two weeks co-planning a Girls’ Night Out for my friend, Gillian, whose wedding is this summer. Because my co-planner is in Cambodia, we’ve left the details to plan when we can meet for a glass of wine and talk face to face. To give everyone fair warning, we put together a Save the Date on Paperless Post – the overall theme of the night and our destination will be revealed when we send out our invitation in a week or so. I’m hoping that our Save the Date will inspire a little excitement and anticipation for the event as well as ensuring as many guests as possible.

Designing our Save the Date and invitation was so much fun, the best part being that you really can’t go wrong despite the huge selection of great paper, motifs and fonts.

Continue Reading This Post

Seeing as this week is officially an ode to paper, it’s only fitting to talk about invitations – the first impression your guests have of your wedding is the invitation they receive. And while that’s generally on paper, we’ve learned it doesn’t necessarily have to be when you have Paperless Post. {More on that later}

We came across this idea in Peggy Post’s Emily Post’s Wedding Etiquette, it’s fabulous and while still appropriate social-rules wise, it’s also a completely personal way to compose an invitation. Instead of the traditional short phrases, cover the who, what, where and when in a less formalized structure.

Consider Ms Post’s example {we’ve taken her original invitation and given it a Toronto twist!}

This invite is courtesy of Paperless Post.

Use paper to play up themes at your wedding — teeny tiny invitations or super-sized confetti.

By Stephanie Wright

ThePaperAddict’s mini cards {$5 for 6} are fantastic for thank-yous and make sweet save the dates; equally gorgeous and just adorable are the Addict’s teeny tiny cards {$2 for 6} – you can’t mail them & they don’t come with envelopes, but they make perfect name cards, or personal notes to a wedding party or VIP guests.

I love the idea of using the teeny tiny cards for a teeny tiny wedding – there’s so much fun to be had using that as a theme! I equally adore the oversized confetti for both the traditional purpose (if you are allowed) and for decor.

These pictures are from ThePaperAddict, Holly Lessey’s, current stock, but she’s happy to customize as long as she can find paper from a company that has an open angel policy meaning that artisans can craft and re-sell their paper goods.

As with all of our Etsy finds, Holly ships to Canada and has a fantastic success rate with her buyers!