You might have heard about the construction on Grand Avenue for the new street car access being installed. In fact, if you've tried to drive by the store lately, there is absolutely no way you could have not noticed.
Here's some pictures of what it looks like on the street:
We are very much open during all the construction going on, hoping to help you with all your paper (& beyond!) needs. And even with the street parking currently occupied, we're very lucky to have off street parking right out front!
If looking for alternative routes to get here, might we suggest coming down SE 7th Avenue, and turning on SE Salmon to reach our parking lot at the corner of SE Salmon & SE Grand:
Inspired by Rachel's post below and the recent Bravo Wedding event, I wanted to take a room or a table setting and turn it into an invitation. Although I found much inspiration browsing through the wedding pages of Martha Stewart Weddings, the Birds & Blossoms table was my favorite! Simple and sweet, it radiated both late spring and early summer weddings. Below is the result!
Using paper from one of the newest lines from Basic Grey: Kioshi I found hues of mauve, lavender, and sweet yellow that is seen in the forefront of the table setting. The petal card is cut out from our in house die cut machine.
I then layered a powder blue, deep metallic slate, and a cream to pull out the color in the wine glasses to compliment the softness of the whole table.
The best part about the petal cards? They fold up so the backside may be used to address each one, making each a little more personal.
Birds & Blossoms ingredients + Cost
Invite: Basic Grey Kioshi: Anason Curious Metallics: Shadow Classic Crest: Windsor Blue Eames Architecture: Natural White
All papers photographed may be found in any Paper Zone store. Want to see this invite in person? Stop by our Portland location for this and many other ideas!
Wanting to translate a fashion icon and look I loved into a wedding invite, I started pulling samples of any of our Paper Zone stock that came close to matching the purple, teal, citrine and fuchsia from my inspiration outfit. I originally thought I would use Violette, our new sparkly purple from Curious Metallics. Once I started playing with the combination, I liked the way the Lime (another new Curious Metallics color) and Poison Ivory (a Curious Iridescents paper) coordinated. I set aside the Violette and decided on Domtar Feltweave in Eggplant. The texture of the paper reminded me of the ruffles on the dress and the darker purple let the Lime metallic really pop.
I never found a good fuchsia paper, instead I used a bright sticker and a sparkly fuchsia gel pen to mark the location of the ceremony on the black and white printed map.
I like the clean lines of this style of diy wedding invitation. My coworker Paola originally introduced me to it in a smaller A6 Size hint: Know your envelope sizes! Design your invite approx. 1/4" smaller than the size of your envelope. Paper Zone's broadest options will be in sizes A2, A6 and A7. Slightly larger A7+ and A9 sizes are also available in a number of options. Knowing the dimensions of your envelope choices before you start designing your perfect invitation will circumvent all sorts of frustration. I like this slightly larger size because it gives more room for the enclosures to fit in the surprise back pocket!
Inspiration to get you started on making your DIY invitations is all around you! Memorabilia from a previous vacation with your sweetie, longtime favorite colors or themes, the location for the wedding, the season of your event, all these can lend their color palettes to your invite. It's important the invitation speaks to your style and the event to come. Guests use the invite to clue them into the formality and feel of the wedding to come.
For myself, walking around my neighborhood I try to memorize the color schemes of the houses along the way, I notice the contrast of bright grasses and soft petals of the blooming trees. Browsing the blogs I regularly read, I catch myself admiring the way the yellows in that banana fricasse would make a great invite, and perusing a discarded magazine I tear out the page with a fantastic red carpet ensemble. The rich purple of the cocktail dress is punched up by little pops of other jewel tones: a citrine clutch, fuchsia pumps and a teal belt. I like the balance of youthful energy with clean lines, a fun and classy outfit.
To translate this into an invite I knew I would have to be flexible in my color palette. There are just too many colors in the world for paper to match them all! It was the overall feel and the way the colors played with each other that I was really drawn to. hint: if you can't find the perfect color of paper for your invite remember there are loads of ways to include it through embellishments like rubber stamping, ribbon, brads or printing in color.
If you want to learn how to make this invitation, check back (or better yet, join our other followers) for a future post with detailed instructions to construct this fashion inspired invitation.
From the Portland Paper Zone,
Rachel db.
All paper and crafting items used to make this invitation can be found at your local Paper Zone. For informational purposes only, not to be viewed as endorsements: designed using Adobe InDesign with fonts from Dafont.com and clip art from Old Fashioned Frames clip art and cd-rom book from Dover Publications. Printed on a Canon MP620 home ink-jet printer. Rachel is a part-time associate at the Portland Paper Zone. In addition to helping the crafty masses find the perfect product for their project, she can be found sprucing up the worker-owned A Better Cycleand managing her small business BikeCozy.
A fellow Paper Zone staff member stumbled on this fantastic blog that is all about the love of paper. And well, we love paper too! The blog: Oh So Beautiful Paper has everything for the DIY at heart and even more for the DIY bride + groom. This post, Real DIY Invitations: Brynna & Eric is a how-to using paper bought in one of our stores here in Portland. They used printed scrapbooking paper to create wedding programs and other cardstock for their invite.
Have you created a wedding invitation from our store in Portland? We would love to see it & showcase it here! Don't forget there may be a store closer to you, click on the "home" logo for more store locations.
Thanks to some digging around one of the ultimate craft sites, Martha Stewart, we came up with our newest front table display: Cherry Blossoms! These blossoms will never wilt and are a great way to celebrate the upcoming Spring season. Follow this "how to" and make your own for a table centerpiece in a vase, hanging decor for an upcoming wedding, or even just for fun at home.
Paper Cherry Blossoms
1.) Pick your blossom colors in vellum (we chose pinks!) 2. Cut your paper to 3.5" x 3.5" and 4.5" x 4.5" squares. This will make small and large blossoms 3. Follow this template here for folding and cutting your flowers 4. Using hot glue attach your flowers to your branches.
As promised here are some highlights from our 10th Annual Extravaganza (Eleganza) here in our store! Once a year we and our other stores pull together our favorite local wedding vendors to highlight some of what they do best: plan weddings.
Being a DIY store we set up our newest invite ideas to inspire the DIY bride + groom to get crafty for their big day. See some of those ideas here! A big thanks to our group of wedding vendors, find their links to the left in our growing Local Wedding Vendor list!
Getting married? Stop in and let us inspire you to create your wedding vision!
Who doesn't love a happy hour? I have come to see that in Portland they are quite popular and we thought a crafting happy hour would fit perfectly in this creative city. Come by between 4-6pm every Wednesday night (in our Portland location only) and receive 15% Off Everything in our store! Plus we have this awesome area for crafting in our store, have a project you want to complete or that needs a big space to spread out? Come by and use our space!
Our classes and workshops for March is finally updated! Click on our green button in the left column to get the most update information about learning everything from card making to invitations to bookbinding!
A project that has been on our creative to do list for while now is finally here! We wanted to launch a blog that would bring together so much of what we love about our store & Portland in one place: new product, creative ideas, classes & workshops, local vendors, DIY projects, wedding how-to, and links to our many Crafty Portland blogs and sites. We think we have some of the most talented customers around and will be spotlighting some of what they do, as well as local venues & shops that we've come to frequent.
Have something to add? Email us! If you are interested in getting your blog linked to, want to write a guest post, or think of something we just have to know about in our creative city we want to hear about it!
The photos above are from our Wedding Extravaganza that took place a few Saturday's ago. Being that we are in the middle of our side of the wedding planning process ideas for the DIY bride are in full effect, come take a look.
We are not the only Paper Zone store, there may be one closer to you. Click on the Home Page to the right for all our locations.
You might have heard about the construction on Grand Avenue for the new street car access being installed. In fact, if you've tried to drive by the store lately, there is absolutely no way you could have not noticed.
We are very much open during all the construction going on, hoping to help you with all your paper (& beyond!) needs. And even with the street parking currently occupied, we're very lucky to have off street parking right out front!
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