Spring Poster Free Printable

Happy Spring everyone! Today I would like to share with you this free spring printable poster I made specially for the South Bond Bride Blog. To see the full post click here.

I thought it would be nice to show a little bit of how the process of designing a poster works. Many people think that designers just sit in front of the computer, choose different fonts and voila, job done. But the process is a bit longer, more intricate and fun than that.

I love doing as much as I can on paper before I get to the final stage where I bring the artwork into the computer for the last retouches. Here is a simple step by step process that I normally like following:

1. Finding the right phrase
For this project I wanted to use an inspiring phrase with the spring theme. I looked in Pinterest and Google but didn’t find anything that really motivated me so I started writing down words and putting together my own Spring Phrase. “Hello beautiful spring. Let’s have lots of blooming fun” was what I decided to go ahead with.

2. Trying layouts and finding the right one
In my sketchpad I tried different options for the layout, playing around with the words and making sure that the main ones, “hello”, “spring” and “fun”, were accentuated.

3. Sketching each word
Once I decided on a layout I started sketching the different words, each of them in a different custom typeface. Normally I go through many sketches for each word until I’m 100% happy.

4. Inking
Finally, once I had the final design of each word, I took the pencil sketches and inked them. For this I use a lightbox. It’s not really necessary to have the final art inked but in my opinion it makes a big difference for the next step.

5. Scanning
It’s very important to have the final artwork in dark pen, otherwise the scanner doesn’t pick up the light pencil strokes. The clearer the ink work is, the less computer editing work will be needed afterwards.

6. Final retouches in the computer
Once I have the artwork scanned, I use Illustrator and Photoshop to do the final details. In this case to give the watercolour feel to the letters and add the embellishment flowers that finish off this poster.

You can download this gorgeous spring poster printable here.

Our wedding | Souvenirs and Special Gifts

As you all may know, I like making jewellery. Unfortunately as I’ve been quite busy these last few months with design work, I haven’t been able to work on my sterling silver creations. But for the wedding I made some special gifts...

For all the girls that attended the wedding I hand made some colorful bracelets as souvenirs. In Argentina we have a tradition where the wedding cake has many ribbons sticking from the middle of it. At one point of the night all the girls get together and each pulls from one ribbon at the same time. At the end of each ribbon (inside the cake) there's a little charm for them to keep. One of the ribbons thought, has a ring at the end of it. In our case I made a sterling silver band and the tradition says, that whoever gets the ring, will be the next one to get married. My friend Zarah got the ring, we’ll see how long does her boyfriend take to propose… The rest of the girls who got a charm, could attach it to the souvenir bracelet they got.

For my bridesmaids I also made some special gifts. They all got a box with earrings, bracelets and pendant with their initial… I made everything in sterling silver and brass and then gold-platted it: I wish I could have been able to afford to do them all in gold but it would have been extremely expensive...

And finally for my groom, I made cufflinks and a boat shaped pin, both in sterling silver with our initials. He didn’t know about these things I’ve made for him so arranged with his brother (best man) to give it to him when they where getting ready. It seems that the surprise and letter I wrote to him, brought some tears to my man’s eyes.

I hope you also like these special gifts and souvenirs I made for our wedding...

Our Wedding Décor

 

This was the most fun part of all the wedding preparations as we did all the décor ourselves. I started about 10 month before the wedding making story boards, checking for references, mainly on Pinterest, and doing plans layout of ceremony, cocktail and main reception area. And little by little filling up boxes with all the “stuff” I’ve done. Seriusly, If I had left this to the end, we wouldn’t have made it on time.

The concept for our wedding was simple: we wanted to celebrate, we wanted a party! So we focused everything around the dancing… Our wedding was all about having fun and being happy combining both South African and Argentinean’s traditions.

Regarding colors, we love color in general, so the wedding was a carnival of color. The main colors where coral and turquoise but we included some pastel ones for the beach part and then for the reception we brought in brighter colors.

I think that sometimes people under estimate DIY but for me it was one of the best parts of our wedding. When I was standing on the dance floor and saw all the things we’ve done ourselves I thought, “This is just the start of what we can achieve together”.

Here are some pics by Maree Louw from Natural Light photography, of the general décor of our wedding day: I hope you like…

Our Wedding | DIY

I think we took wedding DIY to the next level, hehe… We didn’t only sew all the buntings, flags, pompons, ribbons and pinwheels for the decorations, but we also made all the table cloths, the tables, the bar, the gazebos, the door where I walk through at the beach, the boards where the food came out, the stamped serviettes, all the wiring of the lights, the black boards, cake toppers, souvenirs, photobooth props and backboard... I made and sew together with my mom in law, each of the cushions for the benches where the guests sat at the ceremony, painted al the vases and hand picked all the items for the table décor and of course designed and made all the stationery for the day amongst other things. But don’t get scared, this is kind of what I do for a living, heheh…

Even thought we both worked really hard, we can’t thank enough our amazing friends and families for helping us… we wouldn’t have been able to pull off this wedding without them. We literally had a team of mates helping us setting up for 3 days prior the wedding – we all worked hard but alsol had a great time…

Some pictures of the finished décor coming later today...

Isabella's Invite

A few weeks ago I posted Isabella's Bat Mitzvah save the date... this is her invitation!
It was a really simple and clean card but the way it was printed, very technical.

The card was made of a  thick off-white board duplexed with a soft lilac back and screenprinted in dark purple. The hand painted edges (a technique very popular in America but still new to South Africa) gave it the perfect finish together with the custom made envelope.

I hope you like it and stay tuned to see the stationery and stunning pictures of her party :)

Dean's Surprise 30's Birthday

Our friend Dean, (my fiance's best friend) turned 30 this year and his girlfriend Hanna organized a terrific surprise party  for him. And that is not all she organized... Instead of each family member and friend buying a small gift for the birthday boy, she asked everyone to contribute some cash towards a special present for Dean: a trip to Senegal!!!

Dean loves traveling for fun and for work, he literally travels all the time, at least 2 times a month to a different country and continent... but the one place he has never been to and really dreams of going is Senegal.  So now that he turned 30 he will finally get to go there.

Hanna, asked me if I could help her designing a little card for Dean to everyone sign on it... Of course I said yes and took the idea of the card a little bit further... Here Dean 30's Birthday Suitcase card!

Continuing with the travel theme and using an old suitcase that belonged to Dean's grand-father, I made this unusual card including:

- Suitcase with stickers of some of the countries Dean visited

- "Dean's World Map". An infographic style life summary and a world map signed by all his friends and family.

- A travel diary

- Some of his everyday clothes

- Pictures and notes from friends in Polaroid style

- Hand written letter by her parents and another one from his girlfriend

- Flight ticket - voucher valid for a trip to by all his friends and family

- A sticker with the flag so once he visits the country he can stick it onto the suitcase

 Oh, did I forget to tell you that he didn't know about what was the gift about until he saw the flight ticker voucher "valid for a trip to from your friends and family"?. Dean doesn't like showing much emotion but he couldn't stop crying of happiness when he opened the suitcase...

A week later after his birthday, he proposed to Hanna. They are planning in getting married in 2015 but she has already started planning and booked the venue....