emruth in color

I've been working on a pretty awesome invite that I decided I needed to play with in color.

It'll get to emruth.com at some point, but I'm still working on rvsp and receptions cards and I may never get there if I just keep designing more color palettes...

Photos + M&C Wedding Suite

A few exciting things happening over at emruth.com (at least I think they're exciting!)


1.

The lovely Bridget Earnshaw helped me with a few photos for showing off my programs, menus, table numbers and place cards. They turned out awesome!

emruth.com

2. 

I have a new invite set! I've been playing around with the little ring and bowtie thing for forever, sometimes the simplest solutions are the hardest to get to. I'm liking where it went, and I think it'd look awesome printed on a bright paper like coral or something... lots of things to play with!

Invitation

Invite + RSVP

Program

Table Numbers

Place Cards

Menu

Thank You Card

New Invite: Flourishes

The latest invite at emruth.com!

The I&L invite takes its inspiration from a book of borders, frames and decorative motifs from 1862. I love taking elements from designs of hundreds of years ago and updating them to a more clean and modern look. The perfection and delicacy of design from the 19th century is amazing (see the last photo) - especially when you think about the technology that was available to those designers. So gorgeous! 

For the photoshoot, I added a paper band of wedding wrapping paper from the 1950's, a lovely piece of lace, and 'pool' blue paper from Paper Source. The envelope is Paper Source's 'cement' and the invite is printed on French Paper's Construction Grout Gray.

www.etsy.com/listing/121000972

One of the reference pages.

A new etsy!

Well, the same etsy, just prettier and with new things.

I'm so excited to finally have my wedding invitations up and running. It's just the beginning and I have a lot of work to do yet, but it's really fun and I'm happy to be sharing that process with you.

Oh, and I have a new blog banner too.

AND! I have a clean studio. After filling at least 4 garbage bags full of all sorts of stuff I never needed.

Living and working in the same space can be a challenge, but it works!

emruth.com

A new year, a new project!

Hello all!

I’ve got a super exciting new project coming soon! Several months ago I started working on a line of wedding invitation templates and they’re just about ready to launch on my etsy.

I love letterpress printing, foil embossing, die cuts and fancy folding probably more than than next guy, but not everyone can afford to do that. And certainly no one NEEDS to do that. In a country where the average wedding cost is $25,000, we need some options that are elegant, beautifully designed, and completely affordable.

My goal is to provide a low cost option that is beautifully designed and really easy to customize to any wedding. They are all grayscale designs - which adapt to just about any color palette, and make the printing costs essentially nothing. I’ve worked hard to make the text and graphics integrated and strong enough to stand on their own without any fussing, but color and texture can be added with paper, lace, ribbons, bows or any number of things this wonderfully DIY crazy world can come up with!

Over the last couple of years, I have had the privilege of designing wedding invitations for some family and friends and friends of friends and friends of friends of friends. I totally fell in love with the process and the product. Basically, I love making pretty things, and what could be a better excuse to make pretty things than a wedding?

Being able to hold an actual crafted object or printed piece of paper is a wonderful feeling of accomplishment - you worked hard, and look! here’s a finished thing to prove it.  Wedding invitations have that feeling for me. They are small projects, but they result in a perfect stack of beautiful printed cards that actually mean a lot to someone. They announce a new beginning in the lives of two people and mark a celebration to be shared with family and friends. I think there is something wonderful and lasting about that!

So here are a few of my designs with some of my crafting ideas - look for them soon on my about to be updated etsy store!   emruth.com

all the best in this exciting new year!

e

'Tis the season! (for snowflakes)

My one claim to fame in this world is that I can cut paper snowflakes better than anyone I know. Please don't prove me wrong, I'd be devastated. Just kidding! Although I do owe some of this talent to my father, who perfected his skills while working nights in peds icu and then passed on the tradition on to his children. So, thanks dad!

Last year I made a little book of snowflake patterns, which you can find on my etsy. This year I also added printable PDF versions of them if you want to try your hand at these guys for cheap.

I know it's just about snowflake season because my snowflakes have made it into 2 pretty snowflake treasuries on etsy in the last 2 days. Aren't they lovely?

number one

number two

Have I ever mentioned that I love making things?

And it's not just love, it's also a compulsion. If you've ever attempted to have a conversation with me for longer than like 5 minutes, you know that my hands don't stop moving. Lately I've been channeling that energy into making some really fun pieced fabric and leather necklaces. They involve a lot of tiny pieces and a lot of hand stitching I get to use a variety of tools. And they're pretty. 

The part that takes the longest is picking out and matching fabric. I have a bag full of vintage fabric scraps that I've been able to use, as well as the never ending drawer full of pretty cotton I bought when I worked at Fields Fabrics in high school. They probably look like I threw some random fabric together, but they take me a good 20 minutes, and then I change my mind and start over. I probably should just pick random fabric, the end result would be essentially the same!

Etsy Earrings

I just spent another weekend slaving away at my torch, and finally finished the order for good old North Dakota.  And then I finished about 20 more and started posting a few to etsy.

I think they're looking pretty good!

So many earrings! and so much color!

Snowflake Book

[snowflake pattern pdf's available HERE]


We've hardly seen any snow yet this winter, and it's almost January! I think that's depressing. I mean, really, I can see a kid outside my window playing basketball in shorts and a t-shirt. That shouldn't be possible this time of year!

So here's my answer to that, lets fill this city with paper snowflakes! My snowflake pattern book is FINALLY printed, cover screen printed, assembled and for sale on my etsy. Not in time for christmas, but at least it's still winter.  I've been putting pages in order and stitching them together, and i'm excited about the growing stack of finished and lovely objects.

They took 3rd place in graphic design for my final year of Opus (Trinity's juried student show), and I know everyone loved them because they started disappearing from their pedestal. Come on, world, thats not what we do with art!  For those of you who restrained your selves, now is your chance.

Theres more info about it's origins on my website.

a few snowflakes in my merry christmas window!
(notice the lack of snow outdoors)

Coming Soon!

Sneak preview of some new headbands that i'll be posting to my etsy store soon!

I love these! I get to mix and match all my lovely fabrics. And they barely make a dent in my unnecessarily large collection of cotton... which is probably a bad thing.

geometry! vintage fabric! tiny pieces!

Yay for crafting in tiny apartments...! The floor is such a handy surface.

Custom printed bags

I just finished up the second batch of custom printed bags for a New Zealand Etsian! She requested bags bags like the ones in my shop with her shop's initials.

Printing in a tiny apartment presents a few challenges, thankfully, we have a big coffee table.  Although sitting on the floor is only comfortable for so long.  Here are the bags post-printing and pre-sewing, accompanied by a little WBEZ.

I would like to make a shameless plug for the Pilsen post office: I've only shipped envelopes like the one below from the Pilsen post office twice, but the lady working greeted me cheerfully and and said "it's the stitch lady! I was just telling someone about you the other day, we haven't seen you in a while!"  I shipped envelopes like this from the Uptown post office a few times a week, and no one ever seemed to recognize me.  I love Pilsen!