{our new years cards}

Ever since we have been married, I started sending out holiday cards (see 2012 here and 2013 here).  It wasn't so much prompted by the fact that we were married, but more so because the first holiday season after we got married was shortly after we moved to Chicago and I conveniently had nice high resolution wedding photos to use.  This year December was insanely busy for us and while I could have still made it time to get out holiday cards to our friends and family before Christmas Eve, I just wasn't that excited by the idea of rushing it.  Plus, I love celebrating the New Years Eve and the fresh start of a brand new year so sending out Happy New Year cards just sounded like a lot more "us."

I usually like to design the invites myself and have them printed locally at my fave printer in DTLA, but as I stated previously time was not my biggest asset this holiday season so I looked to Paperless Post's real paper options since I am obsessed with pretty much every single one of their digital invites.  Obviously I filtered it to only show me the options that came with gold foil...because when gold foil is on the table that's the only option there is. Period.  I toyed around with a few options for photos and since Muji refused to cooperate this year he got cut. (sorry muji!) I loved the way the black and white photo really made the gold foil pop even more so even though my dress was a banging holiday red I choose to lose the style points in favor of artistic points with the crisp B&W filter.

I've always loved those little details that make paper goods special whether it's a kick-ass liner (ahem Palm Leaves #humblebrag) or small enclosure cards like this one from the beer tasting invites I designed (I'm clearly in the mood to be patting myself on the back right now eh?).  In spirit of adding a little something extra to the cards (and also because I had a sweet coupon code!) we decided to add in a little 3" by 5" envelope with a cocktail recipe to ring in the new year!  I went with the extra thick paper on the recipe card and it was truly worth every penny so if you ever end up ordering anything through Paperless Post then...treat yo self!

I think I've discussed our holiday cards in way more detail than is truly necessary so I'll stop here and let ya check em out below including some awesome outtakes that landed on the virtual cutting room floor.

Happy New Year!

{this little envelope just kills me. in a good way.}

 {2015...the year of drinking}

and now...the outtakes...

 {strategically placed gold foil to preserve muji's dignitiy}

 {loved this one so much and was like 2 seconds from ordering it but it was a bit too candid}

{maybe next year muji will decide to be a part of this family}

{our holiday cards}

Last year I used Minted to create our holiday cards and I was conveniently able to use one of our wedding photos since it was the Christmas following our April wedding.  This year I went the complete DIY route by designing the cards myself having them printed locally in Chicago.  I knew I wanted to take our holiday photo in front of the Chicago skyline so we opted to get a little dressed up and use North Avenue Beach for a quick photoshoot.

My handwriting is horrible so I always chose to fully print our return and recipient addresses since it doesn't take that much longer than handwriting them all.  I used the same envelopes from last year opted for the red version which I ordered from right here.  I am really happy with how simple this design turned out- especially the mix of the light mint green with the stark bright red seams on the envelopes.  Plus DIY-ing the whole thing saved money and allowed me to get exactly what I had in mind!