Giveaway Last Day

Today is your last chance to participate in the April Foster Events Giveaway. Tell a friend and your sister...It doesn't have to be used for a wedding! Good Luck!

April Foster Blog Giveaway Vendor

I am excited to announce that I am sponsering a giveaway on April Foster Events blog! Check out the details on her blog and enter to win $50 off envelope addressing. Combine that with my current offer and you have an awesome deal on your event calligraphy!

April Foster Events has been hosting 7 days of giveaways in honor of her new blog and website. So check out the other offers also. There are some really great prizes and you can enter in all of tbe giveaways! Good luck and hope to hear that one of my readers has won!

Surprise, Surprise!

I am so excited to finally post the amazing photos from the Surprise 50th Birthday Party that Designs by Robyn Love has been working on for months! Jodi Bos of In Any Event created a lavish spread of entertainment and decor for what she described to me as the party of the year. Below are some photos of my work at was captured by Jen Kroll at the event. For the complete story and more eye candy click here.

All In A Day

Today is a very interesting day. I am in the process of getting my business name out to the world and networking to find just the right people that can make it all a little simpler. At the same time I am living. Living a life that does not revolve around a website or portfolio but rather around making baby Tristan smile, making deadlines, and getting dinner on the table. It all ends up looking like a balancing act and you all, my family, and God are my audience.

When it is all said and done, I like my life. I have an extremely, wonderful husband mostly to thank for that. Besides the fact that I know I can't do it all, it is fun to play mother, wife, and calligrapher. I just hope that every life that I affect thinks that I am doing an okay job of it all.

What exactly did I accomplish today? Well, I have been contacting a great woman named Kathleen from Plush Paper, a jazzy invitation company located in Metro-Detroit. She is going to help me create a business logo. So now I am on the hunt for some ideas of what I want. I also am working with In Any Event on an awesome event this week. I have been busy creating some beautiful calligraphy in the new font! Here is an escort card sample.

The colors for this event are spectacular. The light pink is shown here. Can't wait to show you some more photos! Check out the other great events I have been a part of in my portfolio!

Amy & Carlo

This week I was able to be of assistance to a couple who had some invitation problems and needed their envelopes addressed quicker than they could themselves. I (Designs by Robyn Love) came in to help them by using this beautiful font to create a memorable invitation envelope. The photo is a dark gold envelope with ivory ink. They turned out beautiful, but didn't photograph well in full color. The outer envelopes are ivory with dark gold ink. Look forward to some exciting photos of them.

One issue that did come up was color. The bride said gold paper and in my mind I thought yellow gold. But she meant dark gold and I realized I we needed to adjust ink colors when they finally came. Moral of the story: As a bride, you can never be too descriptive about what you want. And if you want to get exactly what you want, say exactly what you want down to every last detail (and don't hesitate to double check, us vendors appreciate the help in getting it right the first time around!). Good Luck Amy & Carlo!

Right Around the Corner

Wedding season is right around the corner and many brides-to-be are looking for some advice about making sure their invitations are going to get out in the mail in time. As a past bride and a current calligrapher, I have a few pieces of advice to keep you right on track.

1. If you haven't started compiling your guests' most current addresses all in one spot start now while you still have a little time on your hands.
2. Best place to get those all together at: your PC! Allowing for easy emailing to a calligrapher or printing up yourself to make forgetting someone a lot less likely. (Calligrapher secret #1, I cross out each person on my printed list as I go to make sure I didn't miss anyone.)
3. Order stationary early and politely check up now and then that everything is on schedule!
4. Give yourself more than enough time for addressing those envelopes. It is taxing for any seasoned calligrapher, let alone a novice bride. Then last thing you would want is to pull on all-nighter on account of your invitations! Save your energy for the Honeymoon.

I'm very excited for this year's season of bliss. I love to see all the ingenious ideas that come from the hearts of bride's across the nation and also those ridiculously talented event coordinators who pride themselves in making every event the dream that is Wedding. Congratulations and good luck to you all.

The Beginning

How did I start in Calligraphy? I thought that would be the best topic to begin my blog with. My husband and I were married in July of 2007. As a fun project I thought that I would learn a pretty font to address my envelopes and escort cards with. Having always practiced new fonts, this was very easy. I practiced over and over the font "Radagund" and was soon able to produce a very like copy. I received lots of compliments from our family and friends, but thought nothing more of it besides an interesting ability and personal hobby. However, my older sister didn't think it the case. Being personally associated with the event planner of In Any Event, she felt it her personal responsibility to describe my abilities, however inaccurate they actually were, with deep affection and spirit. This began my relationship with Jodi Bos of In Any Event, who I am forever indebted to. For the last nine months I have been busily learning new fonts, driving to the post office three days in a row, addressing over 300 envelopes in record time, pulling almost all-nighters, and loving (almost) every minute of it. Am I a pro? I can't say that I am close yet. But I am developing a distinct personal style with every stoke of my pen. I believe that my work will speak for itself.