We’re back today with details and images of Chelsea’s birth announcement. As we mentioned in our last post, the inspiration for this piece came from our Marinwood save the date. With it’s gorgeous first panel, second panel fit for a photo and the last panel for details, it is the perfect format for a baby announcement.

Not wanting a typical pink baby announcement (or nursery, or 1st Birthday party!), Kendra chose our buttercup ink along with a custom coral color (which is coming soon to our official color palette, called papaya) to transform the save the date in to a sweet baby announcement. Printed on our natural white letterpress stock and paired with a black and white photograph of Chelsea, this customization was complete!

We’re sharing another personal adventure with you today. This one comes from Kendra (our Sales and Marketing Director) and also ties right back in to life here at Dauphine Press so we hope you enjoy these visuals as much as we do!

Just over a  year ago my husband and I welcomed a little girl into this world and our family. Chelsea Grace is now a year old and we recently celebrated with a little lunch at home with family. Pulling the details together was tons of fun — especially with the help of the Dauphine Press design team.

First, I must explain that everything in Chelsea’s world that involves color has been all about one specific palette since before she was born. I was actually inspired by an early proof our our Marinwood trifold save the date. The final design is shown in our Custom Wedding Portfolio II album in our Sunshine and Charcoal letterpress inks, but one of the earlier versions was in a lighter, softer palette. I was about 7 months pregnant at the time and knew we were expecting a girl. I didn’t share this with anyone until after Chelsea was born, but I had my eyes on that version of Marinwood for the perfect baby announcement from the second I saw it.

That same inspiration found its way into her nursery as well. Falling in love with two double faced ribbon swatches here at the office in Bisque and French Vanilla and pairing that with a brighter buttercup yellow and deeper coral, the color palete of Chelsea’s first year was set in stone.

Of course we needed to finish out the year by also using that same color palette for her first birthday party.

My first attempt at a (rustic looking!) layer cake, surrounded by a few homemade organic cupcakes that I topped with flags leftover from the baby shower the girls at the office here threw me last year. Of course they were on board with the color palette from the start! The sugar cookies were made by Chelsea’s super creative Auntie (my sister).

Using fabric remnants from Chelsea’s nursery I created a flag bunting and the Dauphine Press design team created the greeting for me to finish it off.

A close-up of the bunting showing my favorite fabric and one of the letters using our Perla font and secured with a tiny clothes pin.

Just a few more details of Chelsea’s little outfit with a maize bow added, her perfectly precious shoes and a homemade party hat.

Here’s that sweet dress (and our sweet girl) in action on her special day.

Thanks so much for letting me share. It’s such a wonderful gift to be surrounded by the beauty that is Dauphine Press every single day and I feel so lucky that it spills over in to the rest of my life. Or maybe it’s the otherway around, but either way, I feel especially lucky!

Next up, we will share with you Chelsea’s birth announcement and you can see how simple it was to turn one of our wedding designs into the perfect announcement with just a few customizations.

We’re here today with another installment of Fine Details from The Fine Print. These are some of our favorite posts to share with you because they are full of all of the exciting things (big and small) that we have the pleasure of experiencing every day at Dauphine Press.

I think we’ll keep up the trend of starting off with gorgeous visuals. We have a bundle of images to share that are straight from our print studio in New York and our design studio in California. Of course we love every final pieces once they have been printed and embellished, but as true paper and print lovers we absolute adore the process. Take a look:

/1/ Isn’t this stack of cards with gold painted edges gorgeous?! Just imagine the endless possibilities for designs printed on those luminous cards! /2/ We couldn’t include gold without including silver. This piece has a little twist though – these cards fall into the Dauphine Press Couture category with the 4-ply cards, custom foil corner detail and silver painted beveled edges! Stunning! /3/ We love this action shot of a Marinwood save the date on press. /4/ Another action shot, but foil this time showing the roll of foil after stamping an intricate frame on to that same Marinwood save the date.

/5/ The process of hand-lining envelopes! /6/ That same envelope up close – isn’t the striped red and white liner adorable? Perfect timing for Valentine’s Day! /7/ One of the benefits of working with an amazing group of designers is the immaculate desks they keep. Here’s a little vignette from Matt’s desk. /8/ A familiar site – Pantone chips on busy desks as our design team plans out the latest update to our line (How’s that for a teaser? There’s more to come on that subject!).

To wrap up this Friday version of Fine Details from The Fine Print we thought we would share a few links:

~ Just in time for Valentine’s Day: We adore the new LOVE stamp that includes lettering from one of our favorite illustrators, Jessica Hische.

~ We spotted our Auburn place card on one of our favorite daily reads recently, The Ritzy Bee Blog. Maria and Kelly have a way of finding the sweetest details and pairing them perfectly with other gorgeous elements and we were delighted to have one of our designs included in this recent blog post.

~ One of our cherished retailers, Parchment Nantucket, created a very special piece earlier this year that we were honored to design and letterpress print. Heidi shows the final framed piece on their blog.

~ Have you seen our list of Blogging Retailers and Friends? It’s right over here –> You’ll find links like The Ritzy Bee Blog and Parchment Nantucket’s Blog as well as many other great friends of Dauphine Press. Enjoy!

When Pantone announced Tangerine Tango as the 2012 color of the year we couldn’t wait to customize a new design around it. We love the versatility of this cheerful and bright color. Our newly released Tangelo ink is the perfect way to incorporate this color trend into your stationery – for anything from a spring wedding or baby shower to your own personal note card set or calling cards.

Inspired by a recent design from Judy Paulen Designs at Bloomingdale’s, we created this Marinwood variation. We changed the floral motif to our widely popular peony artwork and updated the ink to our on-trend Tangelo. Changing these custom elements from the original Marinwood suite, gives a whole new life to this best-selling design. For embellishment, a custom Satin Copper foil die was added to really make it shine!

Enjoy a peek at our Tangelo inspiration below!

Links
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We chose a tonal palette for this Tangerine Tango look, but another thing we love about this color is how it can be beautifully paired with so many other colors. Wouldn’t it look amazing paired with our Parchment, Sunshine or Petal inks? Or Satin Silver foil? What would you love to see this 2012 color of the year paired with?

Follow our Tangerine Tango board (and more!) on Pinterest.

We have many exciting projects, large and small, happening here at Dauphine Press and today we wanted to share some of them with you. Enjoy!

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First, a little eye candy. We are loving these custom neon green edged business cards that came off press recently:

Aren’t they to die for?! Painted edges add that perfect touch!

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Our favorite paper blog, Oh So Beautiful Paper, included our Belvedere design in a recent post on gold foil! Visit the site to see Nole’s post “Inspired By: Gold Foil“.

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One of our amazing retailers, Sweet Paper in La Jolla, California, recently contributed to The Bride Suite blog with one of their Concierge posts. The Bride Suite’s Concierge posts include advice, tips and trends from wedding professionals. The ladies at Sweet Paper included a collection of their favorite invitations, stationery, gifts and paper accessories in their post — and our Kensington suite made the cut!

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The team at Colin Cowie Weddings included our Marinwood letterpress trifold design in their article on their favorite save the date cards. If you haven’t seen it yet, their new website is a great resource for brides! Not to mention tons of fun to lose yourself in with all of the gorgeous images and details!

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In real wedding news, we love how much we can learn about a bride, her groom and their event through their wedding invitations. It’s the ultimate reward for us to see photos from the wedding day after working with a bride on her stationery suite. Here’s a collection of gorgeous weddings photos for a bride we worked with through another amazing retailer, Taylor Street Paper in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

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We hope you’ve enjoyed Fine Details from The Fine Print! This is a new format for us, but we couldn’t pass up sharing some of the amazing things happening here at Dauphine Press. Let us know if you want to see more fine details!