Atlanta, GA - In this post I show some of the wedding art I was privileged to create for a very special event.  Last weekend my amazing sister-in-law Toshie married her fiancé Tyler at the Alpharetta Athletic Club.  I was honored to play a small role in planning this day and creating some fun and pretty things for and around her wedding! There are endless opportunities for art when planning a special event like a wedding!  I would encourage those in the beginning stages of planning a wedding or even a small event to be on the lookout for art opportunities.  Your whole wedding does not have to be DIY..but a few simple touches of well planned art can leave your guests feeling like VIPs.

Hand-painted Wedding Shower Invitations

My mother-in-law and I, along with several of Toshie's friends, threw Toshie a wedding shower.  I had been hand-painting a lot of note cards at the time and really wanted a chance to paint some invitations.  So, I hand-painted the background for Toshie's wedding shower invite and then digitally added the shower information on top.  I loved the way it looked.  I used mint green and coral for the colors to coordinate with the ones she choose for the wedding.  After finishing the invites, I practiced my hand at calligraphy while addressing the envelopes.  I had so much fun creating these for her!  I had a local professional printer print all of the invites.  You can read a blog post and see more pictures of these here.

Easy "Bride to Be" Banner

When throwing the shower, Toshie's mom (my mother-in-law) asked me to create a banner for the day.  I cut scrapbook paper into triangles and punched two holes at the top of each.  I used simple curling ribbon (I believe the full name is crimped poly curling ribbon..thanks to google..who knew?) to tie each triangle together.  I then drew a big letter on top in pretty font.  I used one of the free font websites and found one I liked as a sample.  After sketching it out with a pencil I then drew over it with a black magic marker.  It was simple and easy and it created a fun focal point for the party.

Wedding Dress-up Portrait

Another request her mom made was for me to create a painting/drawing of Toshie and Tyler when they were younger playing dress-up for their wedding day.  Now, Toshie and Tyler didn't know each other when they were younger, so I just had to pretend and work from their old pictures.  I seriously hesitated to even show you this one.  I do not do portraits.  I still do not do portraits.  But when your mother-in-law asks…there are exceptions to every rule.  Here is a picture of Toshie (I think I actually worked off of a different picture, but this gives you an idea).  Included here are some of the pre-sketches I did for the final painting.  If you look real close in the picture with the hanging banner, you can see the final painting. : )  haha.  I think my portrait career is on hold until further practice. 

Wedding Chalkboard Art

One of the last wedding art projects I got to do for Toshie was chalkboard art!  I fell in love with creating chalkboard art when I worked at Glazed & Fired and got to create signs like this Starry Night Chalkboard. On the day of the wedding we had a small chalkboard I was originally going to write the menu on, but then Toshie decided to put instructions for the "guest book" she created on it instead.

I love what she did for her guest "book"!  She spray painted wooded hearts and asked each guest to sign one.  I think she is going to glue them in a shadow box and eventually hang it up in her house.  So cute!  So I created a chalkboard art sign to help guide guests in signing the hearts!    

After I created the guest "hearts" chalkboard sign, Toshie's other bridesmaids commandeered the Country Club's chalkboard sign and charged me with putting something on it.  So, I drew this flower wreath for them. It was not my original design…I was inspired by this sign by LauraStewartDesign.  But I still love the way it turned out!