Viva Las Vegas!

I've posted before about my buddy Vic and his vintage shop, 

V-Male Detroit. Well, every year over Easter weekend, 

Vic is a vendor at one of THE best roots-rock/rockabilly 

music weekenders in the world, Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend. I've had some of the best times of my life there 

and it is an amazing weekend jam-packed with music, dancing, burlesque shows, cheap food, hot rods and vintage enthusiasts dressed to the nines in period appropriate attire. Good times, good times...

I really miss going, but having a baby is going to put a hitch 

in my long Vegas weekends from now on. That's fine by me though, we're having a rockin' time with him at ol' Hamco HQ.

Anyway, the point of me mentioning Vic and VLV is that Easter is right around the corner, which means VLV is going to be here before we know it. Vic is going to be vending again, 

so I thought I would post some of the things that I've had the pleasure of designing that he typically has at his booth.

So here's a variety of products that he'll have available. Starting at the top and moving clockwise, we have packaging for a line of Snoods (which is a fancy form 

of hair net); a label design for Greaser Goo, an all natural sun screen; package top for a fruit covered turban (think Carmen Miranda);  package top for bra inserts and 

clip on kitty ears, and box design for vintage stockings. Everything is printed using 100 lb. cardstock, Xerox Phaser 7750 and finished up by hand cutting and scoring.

Working with Vic is always such a good time. He and I share the same vision and he gives me a chance to make good use out of my collection of vintage ephemera. If you heading to VLV this spring, make sure to stop by and check out some of the cool stuff at the V-Male booth and make sure you tell Vic and Kim 'HI!'.

Reception Invite

Hard to believe it's been over half a year since our reception. Dang...time flies!! I've been meaning to do a post about our invitation for our wedding reception for months. A few things have been keeping me busy like, house hunting/buying/moving/renovating, having a baby, going back to work...and the business of everyday life that seems to get in the way of what you originally set out to do. But, things are settling down a little bit more now. Going back to work has put the routine back into my life that was completely lost on maternity leave. I miss being home with my baby, but being here means that I have the luxury of checking email or posting on this blog—things that go on the back burner when I return to Hamco at the end of a workday. So, once again, I am going to try and post with some regularity to this little blog o' mine.

So back to the invite.

My husband and I eloped in June, 2010. We chose the tiki gardens of the historic Mai Kai in Ft. Lauderdale. It had everything we wanted. A cool destination, historic significance, unique setting and built in entertainment, plus a-MAZING cocktails (of course, I couldn't enjoy having recently discovering I was pregnant)! I don't remember this, but apparently the last (and only) time I was there, I told my travel pals that I wanted to get married there. Premonition? Maybe. It was perfection. Eloping has a small guest list. A couple of our closest friends joined us as our Best Man and Matron of Honor, but that was it. No family, no other friends...just the four of us.

So we wanted to have a reception when we returned. We chose another historic location for our reception, Cliff Bell's Jazz Club in Detroit.

Since the two venues had very little in common, I wanted an invite that sort of tied the feeling of the Mai Kai and our tiki wedding in with our brunch. Using the Mai Kai mug as my inspiration, I created a barrel shaped invite. I had found a terrific local photographer on Craigslist, who's work seemed to elude to her ability to capture the events exactly the way I wanted (and she did an amazing job! www.daniellerphotography.com), so I incorporated her image and a few other Mai Kai, beachy, tiki items into the design. Once again, I relied on my trusty (ahem) die-cutter to contour cut the barrel shape. I added tiki drink stirrers to every invite so that they would look like a cocktail when folded with the stirrer sticking out. I used regular bright white Hammermill 100 lb. cardstock for the invites and chose French Dur-o-tone paper for the envelopes and ran everything through the Xerox Phaser 7750 (god I love those printers!).

Originally I chose French Parchtone in Natural for the invites, but due to the ink coverage on the laser printer, the paper was completely obscured under the printing, so instead I used that paper to make a guest book and thank you tags for the deserts/parting gift. Everything had a nice, aged and rustic look to it, which was exactly what I had wanted. The hawaiian and tiki clip art are downloads from French.com as well. Gotta love French!

I was super happy with the results of the invite and the party. Next time I'll use a padded envelope, as a few of the stirrers suffered the wrath of the automated machinery at the post office. Guests were super impressed by their invites and the souvenir stirrer added a little novelty.