HaselBride

{Magazine Monday}: Vintage, color-coordinating stamps.

The first magazine Monday is a topic I'm sure you've seen, but I can't resist sharing the many beautiful photographs featuring it.  At first, I thought it was a bit over the top, but I am now a vintage stamp convert.

I love, love these Kate Spade invites {left} with the blue and green stamps. These stamps truly add that pop of color and coordinate so well. The second image {right} shows the inclusion of the vintage stamps on the rsvp card. {click to view larger}

    

MSW Fall 2007, p. 68 and 269

These stamps don't match perfectly {left}, but really add that extra touch. Plus, I adore the use of the woodgrain throughout the paper suite.

 

MSW Fall 2007, p. 297 and MSW Spring 2007, p. 44.

Martha Stewart weddings online features calls vintage stamps a "good thing": Put Your Stamp On It.

 

MSW Winter 2007, p. 289 and 295

Needless to say, I've become addicted to using somewhat, coordinating vintage stamps. I always thought it looked great, but after reading this post on Oh Happy Day {my favorite non-wedding blog ever, Jordan's finds are pretty practical, but oh so chic and stylish} and looking through the ebay store Jordan linked to {SeaJay Stamp and Coin} I was hooked. I had never realized there were so many different and beautiful stamps–many related to Nick and I's hobbies and interests. How could I not use vintage stamps? So, I started bidding. I am now the proud owner of my first two sets: Pioneers of Flight stamp series–Orville and Wilbur Wright and the National Park Service's {NPS} 50th anniversary commemorative stamp. I'm hoping to use them on the save the dates, since they are bit more playful.

A little back story on the NPS stamp. I had to have it even though it doesn't necessarily match my save the date perfectly. Big dorks that we are, Nick and I have a NPS passport. This summer, while visiting the Wright Dunbar Interpretive Center in Dayton, Ohio we realized we've been to a lot of NPS sites so we bought the passport to keep track of our trips. For every place you visit, your passport is stamped. You can also purchase NPS stickers to place in each region's section in the book.

Top image layout and bottom photo © HaselBride, photographs/content © Martha Stewart weddings.

I have a confession...

I love magazines.

I mean, LOVE. I have every back issue of Lucky since I first discovered the magazine in high school and a few years ago started hanging onto other fabulous magazines to use as reference. {Vogue, domino, Blueprint, HOW, to name a few.}

It didn't come as much of a surprise to my friends and family that once I got engaged I was going to buy every single wedding magazine known to man woman.  Heck, I'd been buying the occasional wedding magazine since I was ten! Of course, I did buy them all and then some–purchasing even the ones that are overstuffed with ads and truthfully, kind of ridiculous.

When I realized we would be getting married sooner rather than later {our original plan was May 2009}, I began freaking out. The "bible" of wedding magazines, and my personal favorite, Martha Stewart weddings would only come out four times in the year before our wedding, and I'd already seen two of those issues. So, I did what any self-respecting magazine lover would do––I turned to ebay.

I am now the proud owner of so many wedding magazines, it is almost embarrassing. In less than four months time, I have amassed quite the wedding magazine collection. Suppose I'll have to keep up those dreams of becoming a stationery and invitation designer after our wedding.

A diagram:

This is one of my many built-in my bookshelves. Shameful, I know. After I took this photo, I discovered another file of wedding magazines that had escaped my careful organization. Oops.

So, starting next Monday, I am going to share the wealth and introduce a new weekly* feature: Magazine Mondays aka Mostly Martha Mondays. I hope to bring you some of the details from magazines that are inspiring our day or are just plain inspiring. I've surfed MSW's website quite a bit and my biggest complaint is the size of the images. Tiny, tiny. The team prides themselves on the details. How can you see the details when the image is less than two inches wide? Now some of my favorite details will be available for viewing much larger.

Photo © HaselBride.

*Hopefully. This might be another big task I've brought on myself, considering I just started a part-time design job, have more freelance jobs now than when I was home all day; AND really have to start worrying about getting our save-the-dates out the door and our wedding website up and running. I'm hoping this feature will help me have specific things to post on HaselBride when our wedding stuff is at a lull. Think you could you help keep me motivated?!