Did You Know? Custom Graffiti Art Trend in Invitations

I'm spotting a trend over here at LV and I wanted to let the world know.

We're starting to see more and more graffiti art in invitations.

It all started with this invitation, which quickly became one of our best selling designs of all time. 

We love it, and I think it's easy to see why: Luscious Verde can customize the invitation's art to include any motif--from musical instruments to sports equipment and everything in between.  

Here's that guitar graffiti art again, but done in a really interesting colorway--copper and black. 

Gotta love that!

And here's where it gets really custom. This invitation's graffiti started with a drawing that our customer supplied us with. Then our artists did their magic on it, creating the color scheme, sprucing it up a bit and finally, turning it into a die cut piece for use on the front of the invitation and the party card.

the front of the invite

the party cards

This Bat Mitzvah invitation evokes the graffiti feel with the use of a special typestyle 

that was used to create a double layer diecut of the Bat Mitzvah girl's name.

Graffiti showing up in the envelope liner of a Bar Mitzvah invitation with a hockey theme. 

Pretty fun trend, if you ask me!

Did You Know? Wrap Around Address Label Stickers

I'm back today with my favorite kinda post, a "Did You Know?" posting.

Today I want to tell you about Luscious Verde's Wrap Around Address Label Stickers.

Why?

Because they're HOT!

It's standard practice with invitations and announcements to have a printed return address on the back of an envelope. Everybody knows that.

But how about adding another element of your design/theme to your envelope? And not in an ordinary kind of way, either. Sure, you can print that design element right onto the envelope, but it stands out so much more in wrap around sticker form.

Here's the heavyweight plied invitation--cool typesetting on the front and pattern on the back

As if this invitation wasn't cool enough, check this out . . .

wrap around sticker address label . . .

with a photo AND the orange and fuchsia chevron pattern from the back of the invitation.

I told you this was HOT!

Do You Really Need to Send a Paper Invitation?

I had a pretty interesting experience this past weekend. My husband and I were invited to a friend's 40th birthday party. Let's call him "Jack." It was given by his loving and creative wife ("Jill"), who went through a lot of effort and expense to make the birthday bash memorable.

There was delicious catered food, a bar, decorations throughout the house, even a homemade and hilarious "photo booth" where guests could get dressed up and have their pictures taken with an old Polaroid camera. All in all, this should have been a great party.

But something was missing. It was pretty obvious, really.

The guests. There just weren't a lot of them.

Sure, it was nice, but it just didn't have the feel of a lively party. And if I had to venture a guess, I'd guess what went wrong was the way the hostess sent the invitations.

My first clue that we were invited to a party came in the form of a Facebook event invitation, to which I promptly  made a mental note and then moved on to one of the other hundreds of bits of social media information that enter my consciousness every single day. I never responded. Never got out my iPhone and entered the event in my calendar. A few minutes later, I had forgotten all about Jack's birthday party.

Fast-forward a few weeks. I get an e-mail from Jill. "Thank the lord," I think to myself. I would have forgotten all about Jack's party.

Here's what the e-mail said:

It has come to my attention that everyone is not on Facebook as often as I am, or perhaps I screwed something up in trying to set up a Facebook event, so please accept my apology for the late notice but we hope you can join us to celebrate Jack's 40th birthday!

Saturday, March 17

7:00 pm

The Hills

123 Mountain Lane

Short Hills, NJ

No gifts!

Please RSVP to Jill at jillonthehill@yahoo.com or by text to 555-1234

Hope you can make it!

Warmly,

Jill

This time I took action. Asked my husband if he wanted to go, got out my iPhone, scheduled the party, got a babysitter. You know the routine.

But apparently, not a lot of the other invitees did as I did. And I'm pretty sure I know why.

Here's what guests think when they receive a virtual invitation:

• This is a casual party
• I can stop by if I want to, whether I have Rsvp'd or not
• I can blow this party off if I want to, because it's a casual party and the hosts aren't all that concerned with whether or not I attend

Here's what guests think when they receive a paper invitation in the mail:

• Wow, I am important to the hosts of this party. My attendance matters to them
• This is an important party/event. The hosts have obviously taken a lot of care to make sure that I know about this event
• I need to respond to the hosts to let them know if I will attend or not (although paper invitations are no guarantee that guests will reply, I'm positive that the response rates rock over virtual invitations)
• I should attend this party/event even if I don't really feel like it, because it's an important event in the life cycle of my friend or family member

Now poor Jack, he thinks his friends don't love him.

Oh Jill, you should have sent a paper invitation in the mail!

Let this be a lesson. The invitation to a party sets the tone. Make sure that your invitation reflects the seriousness of the event and the level of effort you are putting into it.

Wendy @ L.V.

Have you or anyone you know experienced anything like this? What are your thoughts?

It's Derby Time!

Seriously, how cute is our Derby card from the Essentials album! I love the printed die-cut horse race adhered over the seersucker pattern!

The hardest part of this weekend is deciding whether to drink a margarita in honor of Cinco de (drinko) Mayo or a nice refined mint julep in honor of the Kentucky Derby. Either way, I love a nice holiday weekend that focuses on drinking and big hats. Have a good weekend y'all!

Megan- @L.V.