Announcing the Inklings Etsy store!

As many of you know, I'm a designer by day and a paper nut by night. I love creating sweet, spunky little paper products that make life a little more delightful. I've been working on a few ideas for some time now, and in a nutshell they're paper products for life's little (and big) celebrations.

It's time to share the paper love, and to celebrate the listing of my first products on Etsy we're offering FREE shipping with the coupon code "FREESHIP0412" now through the end of April!

Tiffany Blue Scratch-Offs (above)

These sweet little scratch-off cards make a perfect game at any bridal shower or bachelorette party! They measure 2" x 3.5", and are available in sets of 24 with each set containing 3 winning cards (convo me if you'd like a different number of winning cards). Printed on our luxuriously thick 16pt paper and packaged in a sweet frosted pillow envelope. 

Find them here in our Etsy store.

Pink & Grey Baby Shower Scratch-Offs (below)

These scratch-offs have a sweet pink and grey zebra pattern on the back, and are printed on luxuriously thick 16pt paper with a smooth satin finish. Every scratch-off purchase comes with a matching printable Baby Bingo sheet.

Find them here in our Etsy store!

Vintags paper wine glass markers

Vintags glass markers slip easily on your stemware for a fun way to identify your glasses. Packaged with a gift card for your wine bottle, it's a great gift on the go! Also available in a 50-count tin size. 

Find them here in our Etsy store!

Thanks for sharing the paper love!

oh baby!

A dear friend of mine is having a baby girl this spring! My fellow shower planners and I had fun perusing Pinterest for ideas on the theme. Click here to see our board of inspiration for what we hope will be a fun and super-stylish shower.

Shown below are the invitations (we sent out 120!), smoke-colored envelopes from envelopes.com, and the scratch-and-win tickets for a unique shower game!

So what's with the scratch and win tickets? I've had this idea brewing ever since I worked on these fun scratch-off shower invitations. A shower with 120 guests seemed to be the perfect opportunity to try it out. We'll be playing "Baby Bingo" during the gift-opening. The idea is that every time someone calls "Bingo", they will receive a scratch-off ticket with a chance to win one of a handful of really large prizes. It's a fun way to give everyone a little "something" (because really, who DOESN'T love to scratch?) while building suspense to the end of the game. We'll still be giving favors to all of the guests, but trying to do prizes for a group of that size was a little daunting.

Aren't these the cutest? They're printed on super-thick paper, and are custom-designed to match the invitations. The scratch-off area works just like a regular scratch-and-win ticket, and can be revealed with a coin. Below, every package of twenty would come with two winning tickets (in their own separate envelope so the party planner can mix them in or use them as they see fit), and of course a lucky penny! All would be packaged in a sweet pillow box.

I'm thinking of creating some different designs for other purposes and trying them out in my (currently empty) Etsy store... kids' birthdays, bridal showers, bachelorettes, or other milestones where people might like something a little quirky to hand out.

What other occasions do you think these would be well-suited for?

Nutshell case study #1: Rebranding The Mrs

Just this past weekend, I had the pleasure of re-designing the popular blog, "The Mrs" where Suzy Homemaker meets Anne Taintor. Enjoy cheeky and well-written articles on housewifery, frugality, and much more. It's responsible for my daily smile.

Here is the "making of" for your enjoyment! Click on the image to see it larger.

And for those of you who love a good "before and after," here is how the blog looked previously:

Tangerine Tango: 2012 color of the year!

One of our favorite colors has just been announced as Pantone's 2012 color of the year! Tangerine Tango is energizing, yet sophisticated... the perfect marriage of orange and red.

“Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” says Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. Pantone is the world-renowned authority on color and color standards, from fashion and home to print and web. To see Pantone's official announcement, click here.

If you're looking for color pairings for Tangerine Tango, we love a pale blue-green (as shown below).

Above photo from Lonnymag.

Cream is also a great neutral to pair with it:

Above photo montage by the Washingtonian.


Enjoy your tangerine!

happy 2012!

Wishing you the best of years ahead! Happy 2012.

merry christmas!

Merry Christmas from our home to yours!
Luke 2:10-11

joy to the world (2011 christmas cards)

Can you hear that? It's yours truly heaving a big old sigh of relief.

The gifts have been bought, our six night stretch of social events is behind us, we've finally made peace with the fact that amidst our kitchen reno there will be no Christmas tree (but there IS a nativity set, which is way more important), and most importantly the cards have gone out.

Ah yes, the Christmas cards. All 125 cards for my design business clients and vendors, 75 photo cards for family and close friends, and of course the inevitable 100 cards that my in-laws ask me to do for them. And then there's the batch that were not yet addressed which my husband thoughtfully mailed for me. The first day that they started coming back to me, my little heart skipped a beat when I thought that someone else also thought to send out teal envelopes at Christmas. Not so. And so began another afternoon of card assembling.

Last year's cards were all about rich materials and metallics. This year, I wanted to make them a little more fun and light-hearted. Attached to the cards are some gift tags which you can slip over the neck of a bottle (or hang on a gift). But the real gift is a donation I make on my clients' behalf to a worthy cause. Because seriously who needs another canister of mixed nuts?
 

I look forward to designing these cards all year. In fact, I just may have plans for next year's cards already. And secret decoder glasses *may* be part of the package. But truth be told, I want my dining room table back. It's been covered with paper goods, cutting tools, envelopes, ball-chains, and drywall dust (thanks to a well-timed kitchen reno) for the past month.

So in celebration of having the cards in the mail (and hopefully in many of your mailboxes by now), I write this post.

What about you? If you could have a hanging wine card say anything you wanted, what would it say? Come on... dish! The top submissions will be created and sent to those who submitted them in a care package by yours truly. Once I've recovered from Christmas, that is.

Cheers!