Changes: "Adult" Furniture

When the Lumberjack and I got married, we moved into our first apartment, which we still live in. When we moved, we blended together a mash of mixed hand-me-downs....a white Ikea computer desk, 30-year-old hardwood coffee table, a decades-old Crate & Barrel taupe love seat, an Ikea futon, a white printer table, a cute white-spray-painted-black sofa table, a gingham red ottoman, etc. All of the pieces were functional and perfect for us at the time--FREE!

Well, after almost a year and a half, the Lumberjack and I decided it might finally be time to get some real grown up furniture. We loved the things we had been given, but the truth is that none of it was "our" style.

The timing happened to be perfect, as my younger sister was moving into her new place and happened to be needing everything we were getting rid of. Don't you just love hand-me-downs?

After a few nights of furniture shopping, the Lumberjack and I finally found the perfect furniture, and in our price range. We ended up purchasing a black leather sofa, matching wood- and-glass coffee and end tables, a black corner desk, and a headboard-foot board bed set for our room.

Of course, projects like that never end there--only start. We figured, if all of the furniture is going to be moved out, we should get the carpets cleaned. But, before we get the carpets cleaned, we should fix up the paint in the living room. And, if we're going to paint the living room and get a new bed in the bedroom, we might as well paint the bedroom too.

And of course, if we're getting a new bed in black wood, now our black comforter is going to look overwhelming, so we'll order a white down comforter. And the brown Tommy-Bahama-esque lamps no longer match, so we'll need new lamps too.

See what happens?

I ended up with a crisp white duvet to cover my overstuffed down comforter, along with new bedroom and living room lamps.

It was all worth it when my furniture was delivered. Now, seeing the house all set up, designed how we like, painted how we like and with furniture that we like, all of the hard work and late nights were totally worth it.

(I wish I had before pictures, but at least here you can see the amazing bed headboard and foot board we got.)

Love it!

Now offering: Custom Invitations/Announcements

A few years ago, I worked in the most adorable bridal/invitation/paper shop in San Diego. I learned a lot of wedding etiquette and invitation design, along with announcements, menus, place cards and other paper products. Coupled with my design training and experience, I've started designing wedding invitations on my own. It started out being just for friends, and has evolved into more.

Officially, as of September 1, I will be accepting clients for custom event/wedding invitations and announcements. Everything I design, print and assemble is to order. You pick the colors, the styles, and I provide design samples. For more information, for a personal consultation or to schedule a meeting, please leave a comment or contact me at courtney.d.design@gmail.com. Below are some of my favorite samples.

Here is the first wedding invitation I did on my own, outside of the shop:

It was for my dear friends Matt and Jackie, who were married in March 2008. It included a shimmery orange paper as the back layer, with a shimmery yellow and then ivory layers on top. We printed in black and orange.

Some of my favorite invitations include the one I designed for my own wedding. They were 7"x7" pocket-fold invitations. The color I used was a shimmery red paper with linen-textured black and white as the matting and printing pieces. Here is the outside:

And the inside, with a floral vector image, printed in black and red. Included in the pocket are two inserts -- a location card and a response postcard:

One of my other favorite pieces for my own wedding was the "after wedding announcement" because we had a really small wedding and didn't invite everyone we probably should have. (The address is blurred out at the bottom, but it's printed clearly on the actual invite.)

And finally, my good friends Josh and Lisa got married over July 4th weekend this year. We used their engagement photos on one side since they didn't mail out save-the-dates, and matted the photo on a teal blue linen-textured paper.

On the back of their invitation, we printed the details, including their names in a teal blue to match the paper and their wedding Web site to gather more information and RSVP.

All designs are custom. Please note that I do not do letterpress or thermography at this time.