12 Days of Christmas - Day 11
...on the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Free artwork
We love gorgeous artwork and pretty things, and we know you do too! Even better, we love it when they're free.
Newsletter subscribers & current students of Design House Prep School will receive some digital pretties such as printables and wallpaper backgrounds for their smartphones a few times throughout our holiday celebration.
Today, we are celebrating with line botanicals! We absolutely love how gorgeous and versatile this style can be, especially when combined with other styles of art. We have incorporated our line botanical technique into our invitation work alongside watercolor florals, minimal type, calligraphy both modern and traditional, and loved it more every time. We hope you enjoy this line botanical piece and--pssst! If you are interested in making some yourself, we have a Line Botanical course available with DHPS Semester III! So check your inboxes and get downloading!
12 Days of Christmas - Day 10
Giveaway of Awesome - Third prize
Every day of the year, but ESPECIALLY on the holidays, we are so thankful for all of our awesome friends and followers.
In order to give back to everyone in the community, we are running a giveaway contest offering a chance to win one of three awesome prizes!
The giveaway will run until 11:59 PM EST on December 24th, after which we will choose three winners at random to win one prize each! Some entries for the giveaway can be done more than once for additional entries, so make sure to come back and do them again if you want to up your chances!
Here are some details about our third and final prize!
branding consultation
Simply put, branding is the promise of what a client can expect from your experiences and services. It sets you apart from your competition.
One lucky winner of this giveaway will get a 45 minute one-on-one phone/Skype session with Victoria to go over their branding. You can go over anything branding related, including what you're looking to achieve with your business and whether your branding accurately reflects your goals and aesthetic.
The winner will be contacted to schedule their session in Jan 2018. Can't wait to work with you!
12 Days of Christmas - Day 9
...on the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
15% off
any class course from SEMESTER III of Design House Prep School, including Class Passes!
We've had three semesters so far, and our ninth day of Christmas will be for courses in Semester III. If you haven't joined us for DHPS yet, it's an online business school and community focusing on running a profitable creative business. Courses topics included are The Art of Saying No, Paper & Printing Flowchart, Line Botanicals, Digitizing and many more. We also have several creative courses each semester to expose students to new techniques to either further their work or introduce something new. We're all about recognizing the unique struggles that creative business owners face and approach them in a direct and honest way.
Courses are always available to view and do not expire. All students also have access to our private Facebook group, bonus content and live Q&A sessions with Victoria and Karen.
Simply enter the code "9THDAYOFCHRISTMAS" at checkout for any of the Semester III classes TODAY and receive 15% off your order. Third semester courses are:
- The Art of Saying No
- Paper & Printing Flowchart
- Eliciting Support
- Line Botanicals
- Ribbon Making & Fabric Dyeing
- Digitizing Calligraphy & Artwork
or even better,
- 2017 Fall Semester Class Pass
(for all six classes at a 25% discount!)
- 2017 Fall - Creative Class Pass
(for all three creative classes at an additional 15% discount)
- 2017 Fall - Business Class Pass
(for all three business classes at an additional 15% discount)
Any of the courses above are eligible for this holiday discount, and with the way we structured Design House Prep School, these courses build on many of the foundations established in previous semesters!
Click through to check out the courses available and make a purchase!
The "9THDAYOFCHRISTMAS" code is valid only until 11:55pm EST on Dec 24, 2017.
12 Days of Christmas - Day 8
...on the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Free assets
We love gorgeous artwork and pretty things, and we know you do too! Even better, we love it when they're free.
Newsletter subscribers & current students of Design House Prep School will receive some digital pretties such as printables and wallpaper backgrounds for their smartphones a few times throughout our holiday celebration.
Today, we are celebrating with some stock photos, already styled and edited for your use. Whether you want an image background for an announcement or a stock image for social media, you can have the rights to do anything with these images that you'd like. So check your inboxes and get downloading!
12 Days of Christmas - Day 7
...on the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Free pretties
We love gorgeous artwork and pretty things, and we know you do too! Even better, we love it when they're free.
Newsletter subscribers & current students of Design House Prep School will receive some digital pretties such as printables and wallpaper backgrounds for their smartphones a few times throughout our holiday celebration.
Today, we are celebrating with hand-marbled artwork! If you're familiar with Design House Prep School, we taught a course on Japanese suminagashi marbling technique in Semester I. Today's artwork was created using the Italian marbling style, which can produce some very different but still gorgeous results. So check your inboxes and get downloading!
12 Days of Christmas - Day 6
Giveaway of Awesome
Every day of the year, but ESPECIALLY on the holidays, we are so thankful for all of our awesome friends and followers.
In order to give back to everyone in the community, we are running a giveaway contest offering a chance to win one of three awesome prizes!
The giveaway will run until 11:59 PM EST on December 24th, after which we will choose three winners at random to win one prize each! Some entries for the giveaway can be done more than once for additional entries, so make sure to come back and do them again if you want to up your chances!
Here are some details about our second prize!
original artwork
Whether they are watercolor florals or line botanicals, hand calligraphed quotations or delicate venue sketches, we love creating unique pieces of artwork every day at Design House of Moira.
One awesome winner for our holiday giveaway will get the chance to choose their pick of artwork piece selected from a curated collection of Design House of Moira originals. We'll pack it up nicely and mail it off for you to enjoy in person!
The winner will be contacted to make their selection in Jan 2018. Can't wait to see what you pick!
Head below to get as many entries into the giveaway as you can!
12 Days of Christmas - Day 5
...on the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
15% off
any class course from SEMESTER II of Design House Prep School, including Class Passes!
We've had three semesters so far, and our fifth day of Christmas will be for courses in Semester II. If you haven't joined us for DHPS yet, it's an online business school and community focusing on running a profitable creative business. Courses topics included are Watercolor, Pricing for Creative Businesses, Branding, Establishing Your Creative Process and many more. We also have several creative courses each semester to expose students to new techniques to either further their work or introduce something new. We're all about recognizing the unique struggles that creative business owners face and approach them in a direct and honest way.
Courses are always available to view and do not expire. All students also have access to our private Facebook group, bonus content and live Q&A sessions with Victoria and Karen.
Simply enter the code "5THDAYOFCHRISTMAS" at checkout for any of the Semester I classes TODAY and receive 15% off your order. Second semester courses are:
- Pricing for Creative Businesses II
- Watercolor II
- Cyanotype Printing
- Design Boards
- Branding
- Time Management
or even better,
- 2017 Spring Semester Class Pass
(for all six classes at a 25% discount!)
Any of the courses above are eligible for this holiday discount. With the way we structured DHPS, these courses both build upon the first semester courses as well as build a foundation for the subsequent semesters, so if you were looking to take some of the other classes, these might be related!
Click through to check out the courses available and make a purchase!
The "5THDAYOFCHRISTMAS" code is valid only until 11:55pm EST on Dec 20, 2017.
12 Days of Christmas - Day 4
...on the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
15% off
ALL WEDDING STATIONERY ORDERS
Because we wouldn't want our stationery clients to be left out this holiday season, we are offering 15% OFF ALL WEDDING STATIONERY ORDERS if you send in your inquiry TODAY.
That means, any inquiry received today, December 16, that continues on to an eventual contract will be eligible for a 15% discount on their full invitation or save the date order.
Design House of Moira prides itself on creating beautiful, heirloom quality, one of a kind suites of wedding stationery, with every piece tailored to your personality and style. If you or someone you know will be planning an upcoming wedding soon, send us an inquiry at the contact page to see if we would be the right fit for you!
12 Days of Christmas - Day 3
...on the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
free stuff!
We love gorgeous artwork and pretty things, and we know you do too! Even better, we love it when they're free.
Newsletter subscribers of Design House Prep School will receive some digital pretties such as printables and wallpaper backgrounds for their smartphones a few times throughout our holiday celebration.
Today, we are celebrating with loose watercolor florals in a holiday laurel arrangement! So check your inboxes and get downloading!
Bespoke | Meredeth
Meredeth & Chris
simple, modern, full of autumn colors
We began this suite with two objectives: simplicity and autumn. We wanted the main pieces of the suite to be so simple, so we choose a textured Italian paper with a naturally deckled edge to allow the modern calligraphy to be the focus while still having interest. We created a pattern from autumn leaves and flowers, echoing a bit of the mid century modern design of the venue and used a semi transparent paper with a woodgrain pattern as an overlay for the suite. We also created a pattern that tumbled down the back of the mailing envelope echoing the pattern of the overlay.
Meredeth and Chris had a small, intimate destination of Glass House in Connecticut with only 40 guests.
12 Days of Christmas - Day 2
Giveaway of Awesome
Every day of the year, but ESPECIALLY on the holidays, we are so thankful for all of our awesome friends and followers.
In order to give back to everyone in the community, we are running a giveaway contest offering a chance to win one of three awesome prizes!
The giveaway will run until 11:59 PM EST on December 24th, after which we will choose three winners at random to win one prize each!
More details for Prize #1 below!
MENTORING SESSION
In addition to the online courses for creative business owners at Design House Prep School, we also love the chance to deep dive into the struggles and goals of creative business owners on a one-on-one basis. Every one of our businesses is just as unique as we are, and getting to know your specific strengths and background can really change the advice we can offer. To that end, Victoria loves to offer mentoring sessions to business owners as our schedule allows.
One lucky winner of our 12 days of Prep School giveaway will get the chance to sit down with Victoria over the phone or on Skype for 45 minutes, one-on-one, and ask whatever questions they want about their business, really getting a chance to get personalized help on the issues they are facing.
The winner will be contacted to organize a session in Jan 2018. Can't wait to work with you!
12 Days of Christmas - Day 1
...on the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
15% off
any class course from SEMESTER I of Design House Prep School, including Class Passes!
If you haven't joined us for DHPS yet, it's an online business school and community focusing on running a profitable creative business. Courses topics included are Time Management, Establishing Your Creative Process, Finding and Exploring Your Passions and many more. We also have several creative courses each semester to expose students to new techniques to either further their work or introduce something new. We're all about recognizing the unique struggles that creative business owners face and approach them in a direct and honest way.
Courses are always available to view and do not expire. All students also have access to our private Facebook group, bonus content and live Q&A sessions with Victoria and Karen.
Simply enter the code "FIRSTDAYOFCHRISTMAS" at checkout for any of the Semester I classes TODAY and receive 15% off your order. First semester courses are:
- Pricing for Creative Businesses I
- Establishing Your Creative Process
- Finding & Exploring Your Passion
- Sketching for Creative Businesses
- Watercolor I
- Marbling
-No Such Thing As a Bad Client
or even better,
- 2016 Semester Class Pass
(for all six classes at an additional 25% discount!)
Any of the courses above are eligible for this holiday discount, and with the way we structured Design House Prep School, these courses provide many of the foundations on which we build our creative businesses in subsequent semesters!
Click through to check out the courses available and make a purchase!
The "FIRSTDAYOFCHRISTMAS" code is valid only until 11:55pm EST on Dec 16, 2017.
12 Days of Christmas
At Design House Prep School & Design House of Moira, we're singing the tune of the 12 Days of Christmas (we're about to be extremely tired of that song!) Every day, starting December 13th, there will be fun little surprises and goodies each day! If you're not signed up for the newsletter yet, make sure you do! We'll be sending out each day's goodies through our newsletter.
Bespoke | Rebecca & Jeff
Behind the Scenes
Laura was having a winter wedding and wanted to echo the tones of the season without having a Christmas wedding. We worked with her florist and gown designer to incorporate the same floral types as her bouquet and the applique on her gown to create the floral pattern. The outlined line botanicals of her invitation was a wonderful match for the lace on her gown as well.
We first begin working with a client by creating a sketch incorporating their ideas and the vision we have for their pieces. From that sketch, we create all the artwork and work into their proof.
The photos below show Laura's proof, the original artwork that was used to create her design, as well as a few of her printed pieces.
Printed Pieces
Her final pieces were on the larger size and tucked into a custom printed folder. The folder was printed with the simple line botanicals pattern on the outside, and the full color artwork on the inside. All of the invitation pieces were tucked inside and it was tied shut with a burgundy silk ribbon and mailed in an envelope lined with a combined artwork and line botanicals and printed with blooms.
We kept the invitations simple with line botanicals to let the artwork on the folder be the focal point.
Featured | Style Me Pretty
Here are some more lovely shots from Nicole and Matt's gorgeous stable wedding! See the whole feature on Style Me Pretty here!
Nicoles invitations and save the dates were all hand marbled on thick cotton paper then printed in copper foil. Her invitation had both marbled details as well as the pales of blush washes. Each invitation suite was tied together with hand frayed navy silk ribbon, tucked inside a marble lined pale grey envelope and sealed with a custom wax seal. All her menus featured the same pale blush wash and their wax seal at the top of each menu. Each guests' place card was a hexagon on the same hand marbled paper, daintily tied onto a copper mug. The rest of the reception details featured lots of carrera marble, such as the marble hexagon table numbers with copper lettering.
Photography: Love & Light Photographs | Cinematography: Between Sleep and Awake | Event Planning + Design: Gilded Lily Events | Floral Design: Blade Floral and Event Designs | Wedding Dress: Reem Acra | Cake: The Vintage Cake | Shoes: Givenchy | Jewelry: Leonardo Jewellers | Bridesmaids' Dresses: Joanna August | Catering: Brennans | Makeup: Make Me Up Eva | Hair: Beautiful Hair by Heather Turner | Band: Hank Lane Music | Groom's Attire: The Black Tux | Venue: Chandelier Grove | Bar + Linen Rentals: Paul David Partywares | Bridal Boutique: Gabriella New York Bridal Salon | Bride's Makeup: Sara Talias | Draping: Drape Kings | Paper + Calligraphy: Design House of Moira | Photo Booth: Premier Event Rentals | Rentals: Party Rental LTD | Rolls Royce Rental: Concorde Worldwide | Tents, Flooring + Lighting: Sperry Tents | The Color Condition Cocktail Hour Swag: Patina | Vintage + Specialty Rentals: Dovetail Vintage Rentals | Welcome Boxes: That's Darlin'
Featured | Style Me Pretty
I was so excited to wake up this morning to see Nicole and Mikes gorgeous stable wedding featured on Style Me Pretty!
For their wedding, I created hand marbled (yes, each was done by hand!) invitations with copper foil printing, a wax seal, and custom hand frayed ribbon.
Photography: Love & Light Photographs | Cinematography: Between Sleep and Awake | Event Planning + Design: Gilded Lily Events | Floral Design: Blade Floral and Event Designs | Wedding Dress: Reem Acra | Cake: The Vintage Cake | Shoes: Givenchy | Jewelry: Leonardo Jewellers | Bridesmaids' Dresses: Joanna August | Catering: Brennans | Makeup: Make Me Up Eva | Hair: Beautiful Hair by Heather Turner | Band: Hank Lane Music | Groom's Attire: The Black Tux | Venue: Chandelier Grove | Bar + Linen Rentals: Paul David Partywares | Bridal Boutique: Gabriella New York Bridal Salon | Bride's Makeup: Sara Talias | Draping: Drape Kings | Paper + Calligraphy: Design House of Moira | Photo Booth: Premier Event Rentals | Rentals: Party Rental LTD | Rolls Royce Rental: Concorde Worldwide | Tents, Flooring + Lighting: Sperry Tents | The Color Condition Cocktail Hour Swag: Patina | Vintage + Specialty Rentals: Dovetail Vintage Rentals | Welcome Boxes: That's Darlin'
Real Wedding | Jess & Robert
For her programs, we bound white cotton paper with embroidery string in a perfect shade of French blue. Her escort cards bore her large, 2" custom wax seal on pale blue paper, with her guest names in pale gold.
Photography: Love & Light Photographs | Cinematography: Endless Wave Studios | Event Design: Gilded Lily Events | Floral Design: Reynolds | Wedding Dress: Mark Zunino | Cake: Carlo's Bakery | Stationery: Design House Of Moira | Jewelry: Jenny Packham | Bridesmaids' Dresses: Monique Lhuillier | Makeup: Make Me Up Eva | Hair: Up & Out | Band: Almost Easy Band | Groom's Attire: Calvin Klein | Groomsmen's Attire: Calvin Klein | Officiant: Reverend Donald Gebhard | Ceremony Music: Shrewsbury String Quartet | Transportation: ShooBoo Shuttle | Venue: Mallard Island Yacht Club | Bridal Boutique: Kleinfeld Bridal | Bridesmaid's Accessories: Olive + Piper | Bridesmaids' Robes: Cloud Hunter | Cake Topper: Table Setting is My Life | Candleabra Rental: Two of a Kind | Ceremony Lighting: Ocean Tents | Custom Hair Accessories: Foolish Ginger | MOB + MOG Robes: POSY | Maid of Honor Dress: Adrianna Pappell | Rentals: Dovetail Vintage Rentals | Ring Bearer Pillow: JfyBride | Signage: Design House Of Moira | Veil: Mark Zunino | Vintage Hat Box: Trousseau & Co | Welcome Gifts: That's Darlin'
Real Wedding | Jess & Robert
One of my favorite projects last year was creating these gorgeous French blue invitations for Jess and Roberts wedding. We incorporated the same pale shade of blue throughout her wedding stationery. Her invitations were large in size, using a marquis envelope in 7x7 square. Each invitation was hand watercolored with foil printing in pale gold and paired with white cotton cards with French blue printing. Each suite was tucked into it's envelope and sealed shut with a large seal bearing the couples artwork and crest.
View the entire wedding gallery here, featured on Style Me Pretty.
Photography: Love & Light Photographs | Cinematography: Endless Wave Studios | Event Design: Gilded Lily Events | Floral Design: Reynolds | Wedding Dress: Mark Zunino | Cake: Carlo's Bakery | Stationery: Design House Of Moira | Jewelry: Jenny Packham | Bridesmaids' Dresses: Monique Lhuillier | Makeup: Make Me Up Eva | Hair: Up & Out | Band: Almost Easy Band | Groom's Attire: Calvin Klein | Groomsmen's Attire: Calvin Klein | Officiant: Reverend Donald Gebhard | Ceremony Music: Shrewsbury String Quartet | Transportation: ShooBoo Shuttle | Venue: Mallard Island Yacht Club | Bridal Boutique: Kleinfeld Bridal | Bridesmaid's Accessories: Olive + Piper | Bridesmaids' Robes: Cloud Hunter | Cake Topper: Table Setting is My Life | Candleabra Rental: Two of a Kind | Ceremony Lighting: Ocean Tents | Custom Hair Accessories: Foolish Ginger | MOB + MOG Robes: POSY | Maid of Honor Dress: Adrianna Pappell | Rentals: Dovetail Vintage Rentals | Ring Bearer Pillow: JfyBride | Signage: Design House Of Moira | Veil: Mark Zunino | Vintage Hat Box: Trousseau & Co | Welcome Gifts: That's Darlin'
Prep School - Semester II
Time flies! Semester II is almost here, and we will be offering six new courses available from January 13th:
WATERCOLOR II
Our first watercolor course (aptly named Watercolor I from Semester I) focused on color theory and understanding the colors and paints you're working with. With this second step in Watercolor II, we will be building on our previous knowledge, moving on to more color mixing as well as understanding how different base shades mix together.
We'll be mixing custom colors to match Pantone or printed shades, perfect if you're a calligrapher mixing ink to match a clients invitation. We'll also look at how to mix custom ink for dip pens.
PRICING II
This second semester pricing course will dig a bit deeper into the world of pricing. We'll look at specific pricing examples in two industry categories: custom calligraphy projects, and building a pricing sheet as a paper pusher (i.e. stationer).
When we talk about pricing for custom calligraphy projects, this includes oddball projects such as large scale quotes, wedding vows, family crests, large menus, large seating charts, etc. We'll talk about how to price your time as well as the cost of product for these situations. In addition, we'll talk about building your pricing as a calligrapher and the different pricing structures that are available.
The second example we'll get into is pricing paper, printing, assembly details, and your time as a stationer. Having estimates of these costs will help to dramatically cut down the time it takes to return quotes to clients while ensuring accuracy in your pricing.
CYANOTYPE PRINTING
We love to include interesting creative techniques in our course offerings. As creatives it's so important to continue to explore new techniques and expand our horizons when it comes to our craft.
Cyanotype printing was a method of printing invented in 1842. With its origins in reproductions, specifically blueprints (hence the name), it uses the photographic printing and development process to create gorgeous cyan or prussian blue prints.
Aside from using cyanotype printing on paper products, I have successfully used it to create lovely unique prints on fabrics, most recently a silk scarf. While it is a process that requires patience and time (and a dark space with no light!), the results are phenomenal. In this course, we will be learning the ins and outs of the process and create some botanical prints!
DESIGN BOARDS FOR CREATIVES
This course focuses on design boards and how to utilize them in your own creative process to hone in on and communicate design scopes to clients. It works great as a follow up to the Sketching for Creatives and Establishing Your Creative Process courses from Semester I. In fact, we would highly suggest taking at least the Creative Process course before this one, so that you can best put your design boards to work within your creative process.
Further narrowing your creative process allows for less time doing the back and forth with clients as well as reducing the amount of time spent with too many ideas flying around. Design boards help both you as the creative, as well as your client, keep the end design goals in mind, stay focused, and work more efficiently. In this course we will discuss what design boards are and their purpose within your creative process and go through how to create one effectively.
BRANDING
In a creative market, branding is king (or queen, but she's a hereditary queen, so the king doesn't outrank her. There's a little monarchy humor for you!). How you brand yourself affects how potential clients view you before they've ever even made contact.
In this course, we'll look at how to go about branding your company, how to define your brand style, define your market and how to brand for it, and how to design for yourself (we're our hardest clients!).
We'll utilize design boards and sketching, working through our own creative processes, so if you're signed up for class passes of all the Semester I and II courses, definitely consider taking the other ones first!
TIME MANAGEMENT
Whether you run your own business from a studio, balance a full time job with a side hustle and family, or anything in between, knowing how to prioritize your time is integral to running your business effectively and getting things done.
Learning how to prioritize, eliminate, stay on task and delegate is life changing - it certainly was for me! Going from working 80+ hours a week to working 36 or less and taking the month of December off gave me the energy and drive I needed to build my business and stay sane.
I've gotten a lot of questions and feedback from students about the difficulty they face in finding enough time in the day to do all the things they need to do. In this course, we'll get into the nitty gritty of necessity, learn how to prioritize our time and tasks, and get more done in a shorter period of time.
As we finish up 2016 and head into our second semester of Design House Prep School, we are incredibly grateful for all the support we've received from the community. Semester I has been such a great experience for us -- we're so excited to continue offering those classes until the end of next June, and we look forward to continuing to build our community in the spring!
Modern Calligraphy Summit | Free Holiday Video Series!!
gorgeous wreaths by Willdfield Paper Co.
If you missed our awesome video series for the Modern Calligraphy Summit last year, you're in for a treat! We're relaunching the series for your viewing pleasure! Follow the link below and enroll with your email for the free video series!
December 1st: Hand lettering for holiday cards with Drew Europeo
December 2nd: Mixing metallic inks with ME!! (as my covert ops name, Victoria Rothwell)
December 3rd: Creating gorgeous holiday watercolor wreaths with Annie from
You can also enroll for the upcoming Modern Calligraphy Summit 2.0 from December 6-9th!