Rustic Fall Invitations

A few months back, I did this watercolor email save the date for Joel and Jazmine, my most country friends.  This organic handmade style carried through to their invitations, but with colors shifting from spring to fall.  Their wedding came just on the cusp of superstorm Sandy, and was the last beautiful weekend in the area, with leaves bursting with every color.  Their invitation fit right in!

The illustrations here started out in real life as watercolors.

These feathers are whack, so are the flowers.

This original border didn't workout the way I'd hoped, everything is too big and clunky and there were way too many colors. Where did I think you'd put the information?  But I did like the berries and a single feather that I'd painted earlier.

Now this is a top feather.

Everything was then scanned and composed in photoshop to create a border of vibrant fall foliage.  The leaves were created from scanned orange/red/yellow watercolor wash and then "cut out" digitally.

Much simpler

Text was added and they were printed on bright white paper and then mounted on heavy stock brown kraft paper.  RSVPs were online, so the invitation really had to shine on it's own.  Brown raffia along with a pheasant feather from the couples collection of thousands of feathers gathered from hunting trips, added a natural touch. A red envelope held it all together.

The versions of this invitation that didn't make the cut were some of my favorites, and the couple had a tough time picking the one they wanted.  I'll be posting those eventually so look for them in the future!