Well Branded Austin!

I wish I could say I just got back from a great weekend in Austin, but that wouldn't be the truth!  It's actually been months since I visited the great state of Texas where yes, everything is just bigger.  It was a quick weekend visit to see the hubby who was working out there for a while and then due to the hurricane in DC, I had to catch an even earlier flight home before the storm.  Below are some of my favorite examples of the clearly defined branding that flocked building all around the city.

AND it wouldn't be a trip to Austin without some serious tacos (including a visit to the trailer park for queso), new (to me) cowboy boots and a visit to the underside of the bridge that fills with bats... only during the day!

Papergraphic

I absolutely love typography and paper crafts, so when I came across Yulia Brodskaya's work, I immediately fell in love! Yulia uses thin strips of paper to create detailed illustrations using decorative swirls! The technique is known as "papergraphic" and can take a couple of days – or weeks to finish! Check out her website for more beautiful samples of her work!

Hatch Show Print Letterpress!

If you’ve ever seen a country music poster, there’s a good chance it was created by Hatch Show Print – one of America’s oldest working letterpress print shops! And since we love letterpress (and country music!), we were beyond excited to see this feature in Country Living Magazine this month! Make sure to check out all of the amazing posters!

Paperista

Antoinette at Paperista is fabulous! Paperista is a charming store in Minnestoa. The ladies at Paperista work to make sure all your wedding and stationery needs come true! They work with you to provide style and unique design onto paper. I just had to ask more after seeing Antointette's love for Zebra!!

How many years have you been in business? 3 years

Do you have a website, if so, what's the address? www.paperista.com

If you were to sell something other than stationery, what would it be? Christian Louboutin shoes, of course!

Besides the obvious (stationery), what is your favorite thing to give as a hostess gift? Flowers and a bottle of wine with ribbon attached to a simply stated sentiment!

Here at Haute Papier, we love to eat!  When in NYC for the National Stationery Show, where is your favorite place to eat? We LOVE to go to the The Standard Hotel under the High Line in the Meat Packing district. The patio of The Standard Grill is perfection!

Any other tidbits about your store you'd like to share? Paperista is a custom stationery and event design boutique in the quaint shopping area of 50th & France in Edina/Minneapolis, Minnesota.  In addition to famed couture stationery, Paperista also offers artisan greeting cards, entertaining accessories, everyday stationery, luxe on-trend gift items and designers who are available to style event environments (right down to the table-scape detail).

Make Your Own FONTS!!!

Today for Make-It Monday, I wanted to share my experiences in making your own font!  For our new Bold & Beautiful line, we had to create a couple of our own fonts since some of the metal type we purchased does not have a corresponding computer font.  So, to do this, we foil stamped each of our letters and then scanned them into the computer and fiddled with them as best possible in Illustrator to make them look pretty (and by pretty, I mean straight lines and the same height). This was a tedious task and the letters aren't perfect, but it will allow us to proof your orders in our foil stamp fonts to be sure you like the look before we print! Then we places all of the little letters and glyphs in the template from yourfonts.com and then clicked create font and they did the rest!  It was $9.95 for their services (well worth it, if you ask me!)

Here is our first go:

And this is our new monogram font:

and my favorite (and reminiscent of my wedding reception venue):

You can make your own font here! Let us know how it goes!