Woodland Wedding Invitations ~ Matching Items Available

These should be perfect for a rustic outdoors wedding or a Mid-Summer Night’s Dream themed wedding. With Alice in Wonderland taking us all by storm, maybe a Mad Hatters Tea Party themed wedding? I find the forest truly inspiring and would love to organise a woodland themed event!

Please subscribe to this post or my RSS feed if you are interested in hearing about the coordinating matching wedding stationery I will be working on shortly. I plan to make these available to download in my shop. You will be able to print them onto your own choice of material for a fraction of the price of commercial printing. Alternatively, I can arrange the printing for you. If this is something that you are interested in, please do get in touch, thanks.

Downloadable Digital Wedding Stationery

I am aiming to complete the following wedding stationery items for digital download.

• Save The Date Cards
• Wedding Invitations
• RSVP Cards
• Directions Cards
• Information Cards
• Note Cards
• Order of Service Booklets
• Menus
• Thank You Cards
• Favour Tags
• Place Cards
• Table Numbers

Advice from Caterpillar ~ Kei Acedera of Imaginism Studios

The pictures from the show got me losing myself for hours in Alice in Wonderland inspired artwork. I was so thrilled to stumble upon the Imaginism Studios blog. Not only is it an excellent resource full of amazing artwork,  it is also absolutely jam packed with Alice concept art, character design and tribute pieces. The Curiouser and Curiouser show initially introduced me to a whole range of talented artists, some of whose artwork I must showcase here. These paintings and illustrations have certainly whetted my appetite for the much anticipated 3D Imax viewing I shall be treating myself to on Saturday!

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Love sign by The Back Porch Shoppe on Etsy

I would love to learn how to make these signs but I am sure it isn’t easy. I did some reseach and found out the following techniques on how to antique wood from Bozzle:

To Age Painted Wood

• For your coat always use off-white rather than a stark white, as it looks older to start with. The same applies to all other colors; always choose the duller, more sedate tone of the color you want. You will need to work with three colours; an old wood colour; your undercoat color and your top-coat colour.
• Use enamel varnish for your wood color, emulsion for your other colours.
• Give the wood a coat of enamel varnish of your main wood color, well thinned.
• Once dry, apply blobs of beeswax using your fingers or a small brush, dragging generally in the direction of the grain.
• Leave the wax to dry overnight.
• Carefully apply a thick coat of your undercoat color (a paler, duller version of your top-coat colour).
• When the undercoat is thoroughly dry, apply a very thin top-coat (two thirds water).
• When the top-coat is barely, say within an hour, start scraping and rubbing off the lumps of beeswax, ensuring you get every piece off.
• With a very fine sandpaper or sponge sanding pad, soften all the edges and go all over the surface removing some of the top-coat.
• Finally coat the whole surface with beeswax polish or a satin varnish.

Antiquing Wood

• This is basically to give an instant ageing effect; common in theatre and film work.
• Mix up the antiquing solution by thinning beeswax with turpentine until runny.
• Thicken the solution with rottenstone (powdered stone dust) or fullers earth.
• Apply firmly with a brush, making sure you fill every hole, groove, crack or recess on the surface.
• With a soft cotton cloth wipe off all the excess immediately you have finished brushing. Take care that you don’t lift it from cracks or deep grain.
• When the solution has hardened (4 – 6 hours), polish with a soft cloth.

Antique Cracking Effect

• See that the surface  is clean and then brush or spray on a coat of clear spirit varnish.
• Allow this to become thoroughly dry and then coat the whole surface with a solution of concentrated glue and hot water or alternatively, dextrine and warm water.
• Within a few minutes of application, this will have the effect of cracking the varnish film into irregular square or oblong formation.
• If desired, two coats of varnish may be applied instead of one, and the thicker the coating and the softer the varnish, the wider will be the crack formation. Thus, a very thin film of hard varnish will produce very small squares.
• Allow the cracking solution to dry thoroughly and then rub over the work with a lintless rag lightly charged with ready-bound drop black, umber, sienna, or other suitable pigment, well thinned with turpentine. The color will penetrate the cracks and can be rubbed off the remainder of the surface by means of another rag, moistened with turpentine or white spirit.
• After allowing several hours for drying, take a sponge dipped in warm water and go over the work to remove the glue or dextrine coating.

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Gorgeous seagrass wreath available through Beach Grass Cottage

I would love to try and have a go at making something similar and I would certainly use this as a base for my inspiration. Apparently, there is only one of these beautiful wreaths left so if you want to get your hands on it, you had better hurry!

Butterfly by Nicoletta Ceccoli ~ Image from Richard Goodall Gallery

Italian born Nicoletta Ceccoli graduated at the Institute of Art, Urbino in Animation Cinema. Always knowing she wanted to be a childrens book illustrator, Nicoletta has collaborated with various authors on books such as:

• The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum
• Horns & Wrinkles
• Oscar and the Mooncats
• A Dignity of Dragons
• The Tear Thief
• Little Red Riding Hood
• The Barefoot Book of Fairy Tales
• How Robin Saved Spring
• An Island in the Sun
• The Faery’s Gift
• The Princess and the White Bear King
• Firefighters in the Dark
• The Village of Basketeers
• Rapunzel

Much unlike the working process for childrens book illustration, Nicoletta also describes her love for painting without a pre established theme in her personal work. Here she is free from the restrictions of the story and illustrating for children as the target audience. She believes that both free inspiration and applied illustration styles of working can enrich each other. However, for her show at The Richard Goodhall Gallery in Manchester, a common theme had to be found for the title for her up and coming show and so it was decided this would be  By The Time You Are Real from the much loved childrens tale, The Velveteen Rabbit. A common thread to be found in many of Nicoletta’s illustrations.

Nectar by Nicoletta Ceccoli

Nicoletta names her illustrations after they are finished. She looks carefully at the definitions and origins of the words for the title and each character and element often has a meaning. Her love of dolls and surrealism are obvious in her lowbrow work as are some of her influences, including

• Remedios Varo
• Domenico Gnoli
• Paolo Uccello
• Stasys Eidrigevicius
• Mark Ryden
• Edward Gorey
• Winsor McKay
• Ray Caesar

Nicoletta’s art is her love, her hobby and her job. She has stated that she will continue to illustrate childrens books for as long as she is challenged with interesting projects.

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Water Forget Me Nots ~ Handmade by Jude Miller

Jude’s passion first developed after teaching herself the art from a book published by the crepe paper manufacturer Dennison. After much encouragement from family and friends, Jude continued her talent and has since been featured in Martha Stewart’s Wedding Magazine and the Royal Horticultural Society shows in New York and London. She favours materials such as crepe paper, beads, threads, organza, fine silk, Fimo and wire along with various adhesives and varnishes.

I am not sure if attempting to make such exquisite flowers is a very practical idea for a wedding unless maybe for the bouquet or head table. To make these in bulk would be too much and I can only guess how much time and skill goes into just one flower. Jude Miller is obviously a very patient artist who must have such a love for her working process and we can see why. She is a real inspiration artistically and I am hoping to at least try making something similar. In the meantime, enjoy these gorgeous paper flowers with wonder!

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Flower display using vintage bottles ~ found here at Eat Drink Chic

There are lots of old vintage bottles to choose from on ebay starting at 99p. Internet searches also bring up collectors websites, though these are much more expensive. To find these treasures in the local charity shops and cut out the postage would be the ideal scenario but I can imagine these being snapped up rather quickly.

I think these bottles look effortlessly sophisticated and are so shabby chic. The aqua blue and subtle variations in hue are reminicent of the ocean and its many colours and the rare finds that are sometimes found washed up on our English coastline are the biggest prize of all. Tumbled and textured and perfect for a beach and sea themed wedding. What a great way of introducing the sea without going overboard. (Sorry for the very bad pun!)

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Princess Tuvstarr and the Fishpond ~ John Bauer

Being a great lover of folklore and fables, I felt compelled to find out the story behind this little princesses sadness. I managed to source the author Helge Kjellin back to a compilation of stories entitled Great Swedish Fairy Tales translated from Swedish into English as a second hand library book on ebay.

Leap sets off, surefooted, across the marsh

Sagan Om Älgtjuren Skutt och Lilla Prinsessan Tuvstarr as the fairy tale is originally known in Sweden is an enchanting story set deep in the dark woods about Princess Cottongrass, a tiny, vunerable little girl with long blond hair and a pure heart. One night she slips away from Dream Castle and meets Longleg Leap the Elk. He is strong and wise and is persuaded by the Princess against his better judgement to carry her on his strong back out into the big wide world. The elk is reluctant to expose her to the dangers and evils of the places that lie far from the castle but Princess Cottongrass is convinced that as she is warm and good, she can share this with those that she meets along the way.

It is almost midnight and a few small stars are shining

At first the Princess is delighted with the adventures that she encounters but little by little, the wickedness of the world robs her of her innocence. She ends up losing all that she has, including her fine white gown. The elk becomes anxious that he cannot protect her and so he takes her to the safety of a pool that no human has ever seen. Leap warns the little Princess not to go too near to the water and to be careful of the golden heart chain around her neck. However, the waters of the pool entrance Princess Cottongrass and she leans over only to lose her heart into the murky depths. The elk advises the princess not to dwell on this or she may forget everything else but it is too late. The Princess has stopped noticing the elk is there and sits at the side of the pool, gazing into the water in search of her heart.

The witch begins to slither from tree to tree, following the elk as it runs

“Many years have passed. Still Princess Cottongrass sits and looks wonderingly into the water for her heart. She is no longer a little girl. Instead, a slender plant, crowned with white cotton, stands leaning over the edge of the pool. Now and then the elk returns, stops, and looks at it tenderly. Only he knows that this is the princess from Dream Castle. Perhaps she nods and smiles, for he is an old friend, but she does not want to follow him back; she cannot follow any more, as long as she is under the spell. The spell lies in the pool. Far, far under the water lies a lost heart.”

These save the date cards were one of a few concepts and I came up with at the beginning and I had lots of fun researching woodland wedding stationery. I thought about designing matching wedding invitations and complimentary stationery such as place cards and table settings before I changed my own wedding theme to the sea.

I am thinking that they would have been nice printed on a vintage card stock or handmade paper containing flecks of plants or flower petals, possibly keeping the design as a monotone colour or maybe adding some extra shades of a woodland palette.

Beware the Judderman my dear, when the moon is fat.
Sharp of tongue and spindle limbed he is, and cunning.
With sweetened talk of schnapps and Metz and the deliciousness of Judders – but schnapps though sweet has teeth my love, and sharpened ones at that.
Beware the Judderman my dear, when the moon is fat.