Travel quotes

Today's post features travel quotes used by customers in The Leaf Press's travel journals (all of which can feature a message of the customer's choice on the first page). Hopefully these will inspire you if you're planning an adventure this year, or help you with ideas if you're looking for a message to go in a travel journal.

'Stamp' travel journal

First page of a travel journal - an ideal place for an inspirational travel quote!

These are the most popular quotes used by The Leaf Press's customers in travel journals:

"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page."
Saint Augustine

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
Mark Twain

"The journey not the arrival matters."
T S Eliot

"Not all those who wander are lost."
J R R Tolkien

"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."
John Augustus Shedd

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
Marcel Proust

Here are some travel related quotes relating to travel companions:

"He travels the fastest who travels alone."
Rudyard Kipling

"Never go on trips with anyone you do not love."
Rudyard Kipling

"I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them."
Mark Twain

And finally, here is a quote that can't exactly be defined as 'inspirational', but did make me laugh....

"The cool thing about being famous is traveling. I have always wanted to travel across seas, like to Canada and stuff."
Britney Spears

Happy travelling!

Handmade wedding seating plans

I have been working on some new photos for the online shop to show The Leaf Press's handmade A2 wedding seating plans.

It's very difficult to illustrate to customers what their seating plan will look like as each seating plan is handmade and the customer can choose:

• The design used (from The Leaf Press's wedding stationery ranges).
• The mountboard colour.
• The colour used for the one or two layers of backing card.
• The layout - obviously this depends on the layout of tables there will be at the actual reception.

Here are the photos I have added to the seating plan product listing.

Seating plan in sage green and duck egg blue colour scheme using the Dots design. Horseshoe arrangement of tables with dessert/cake table in centre and labels to indicate where bar/cafe and dance floor are.

Seating plan in spring green and lilac on dark grey mountboard in the Bunting design. Long top table and six tables seating eight each.

Detail from a seating plan with light blue and silver colour scheme on an off-white mountboard in the Snowflake design.

Glemham Hall Open Day

The Leaf Press had a lovely time at the Glemham Hall Open Day last Sunday, chatting to lots of couples about their plans for their wedding and showing them The Leaf Press's wedding stationery ranges. Here are a few photos from the day.

A decorated table, with The Leaf Press's menu and place cards

Part of The Leaf Press's display

Cafe style tables with the brilliant Chris Woods greeting visitors in the background

Can you spot the dessert/cake table towards the right of the shot?

Everyone loved the FolkEast 'daffs in wellies' display!

Wedding invitation wording ideas - part 3 - How do you include the guests' names on your wedding invitations?

Welcome to part 3 of The Leaf Press's wedding stationery wording guide, which looks at how to include the guests' names on your wedding invitations.

Please refer back to part 1 of the guide to see an example of a wedding invitation layout.

Traditionally, the invitation wording requests 'the pleasure of your company' and the guests' names are handwritten in the top left-hand corner of the invitation:

If you don't wish to do this, or the design of your invitation will not allow it, you can consider addressing the envelope quite specifically:

Alternatively, you can choose to have a dotted line for writing the name(s) of the guests on. In this instance, the wording changes to 'request the pleasure of the company of' followed by the dotted line:

Finally, most wedding stationery providers offer a service whereby the guests names are printed, usually at an additional cost. The Leaf Press offers this for 25p per invitation. It's a way of making your guests feel special!

A note about children:

Some couples choose not to have children at their wedding. If this is the case you need to make sure that the names on the invitation reflect this e.g. don't put 'The Carters' if you don't want the Carter children to attend. It is worth noting that some may assume children are invited unless you state otherwise.


I hope you have found this guide useful. I would welcome comments and am happy to answer any questions you have. Click here to e-mail The Leaf Press or here to visit The Leaf Press website.

Wedding invitation wording ideas - part 2 - who should wedding invitations be sent from and how are they worded?

Welcome to part two of The Leaf Press's wedding stationery wording guide. This will look at who wedding invitations should be sent from and how this part of the text is worded. The text quoted in the examples below forms part of a wedding invitation, please refer back to part 1 of this guide to see a full wedding invitation layout.

You will usually start your wedding invite by saying who it is from. Traditionally, invitations were sent from the Bride's parents and this is still the case for many weddings. Some couples however, especially when already living together, decide to send invitations from themselves. Additionally, even when the invitation is being sent from parents, family composition may dictate that different wording is required.

Here are some examples of different ways you can phrase your wording. With any of the names, how the name is written is down to to personal choice – for instance, in the first example it could be Mr John Reynolds, John Reynolds or Mr J Reynolds. Whatever format you use, use this format for all names.

The invitation is sent from the bride's parents, who are married:

Mr and Mrs John Reynolds

request the pleasure of your company

at the wedding of their daughter ...

The invitation is sent from the bride's parents, who are divorced:

Mr John Reynolds and Mrs Sandra Phillips

request the pleasure of your company

at the wedding of their daughter ...

(if both parents still have the same surname it would be Mr John Reynolds and Mrs Sandra Reynolds)

The invitation is sent from one of the bride's parents:

Mrs Sandra Reynolds

requests the pleasure of your company

at the wedding of her daughter ...

The invitation is sent from the bride's mother/father and step-parent:

Mr and Mrs Stephen Reynolds

request the pleasure of your company

at the wedding of her daughter

The invitation is sent from both sets of parents:

Mr and Mrs John Reynolds and Mr and Mrs Stephen Hobland

request the pleasure of your company

at the wedding of ...

The invitation is sent from someone other than the bride's parents:

Mr Joseph Taylor

requests the pleasure of the company

at the wedding of his niece ...

The invitation is sent from the couple themselves:

Elizabeth Reynolds and Mark Hobland

request the pleasure of your company

at their wedding ...

or

Together with their families/parents

Elizabeth Reynolds and Mark Hobland

request the pleasure of your company

at their wedding ...

I hope this information is helpful. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email The Leaf Press.

Wedding invitation wording ideas

The Leaf Press is happy to help customers who require advice with wording their wedding invitations. I thought it would be useful to compile this information in a guide which I hope a wider audience will find useful.

The guide is in three parts:

1. An illustrated example of a wedding invitation layout
2. Who should wedding invitations be sent from and how are they worded?
3. How do you include the guests' names on your wedding invitations?

Part 1: An illustrated example of a wedding invitation layout

So you've chosen the design for your wedding invitations, sorted out the colour scheme and have a list of who to invite. All that's left to do now is decide on the wording to use on your invitations. This guide is intended to give you lots of ideas for wording and layout to assist you with writing the text for your invites.

The picture below shows a typical layout for wedding invitation wording. Note the following:

• The bride and groom's names are emphasised - this can be done by using a different font, capital letters, a different colour or a larger font.
• In this example the main text is centre aligned with the RSVP information left aligned. Depending on the design, you may wish to use different alignment. For example, with The Leaf Press's dandelion wedding invitations, the design is on the left hand side so the wording is most effectively displayed with right alignment.
• The RSVP address is in smaller writing and separated from the main text.
• This layout could also be used for an evening invitation. The venue location would replace the church location, the time would change and the the text from 'and afterwards at ...' onward would be removed.

Please click on the picture to view it in a larger size:

This example uses open punctuation, which minimises use of punctuation marks. Open punctuation is regarded as easier to read. Full punctuation - commas/full stops at the end of sentences and in names, addresses etc - is less commonly used. Whichever style of punctuation you use, the most important thing is that you are consistent and use the same style throughout.

Next week parts 2 and 3 of the wedding invitation wording ideas guide will be published, so please visit the blog again.

Pinterest

I have just discovered Pinterest! I feel it could get quite addictive. So far I have added a few of my own product images (so sorry to my current 4 Pinterest followers for bombarding you) and created a board with different wedding images relating to the colour sky blue. I have been producing a travel ticket wedding invitation sample in sky blue and lilac this morning so I thought I'd see what else is out there in sky blue - which as it turns out is quite a lot!

travel ticket invitation sample in sky blue and lilac

My Pinterest profile is at http://pinterest.com/suzyleafpress/

Personalised new baby pictures

I have just added a new product to the website which I have been meaning to introduce for ages - a personalised name picture for a baby boy or girl. I have been making these for friends, friends of friends and in some cases friends of friends of friends for some time, in fact I've done so many it partially explains the delay in putting them up for sale properly!

Each pictures is A4 in size and spells out the baby's name and date of birth in raised letters and circles. For little boys there are baby elephants each side of the date of birth and for little girls two butterflies to the left of the date of birth. The patterns are made up of dots, stripes and elephants/butterflies for boys/girls respectively. The boys colour scheme is red, light blue and dark blue and for the girls it's pink, purple and peach.

Each picture is supplied mounted and in a cellophane bag and can be viewed in the Stationery Gifts section of the shop.

Coming soon - Christening pictures!

baby boy personalised picture

baby boy picture details

 

baby girl new birth picture

baby girl personalised picture details

Glemham Hall Wedding Fair

I had a great time at the Glemham Hall Wedding Fair last Sunday, chatting to lots of lovely brides and grooms to be. There was a huge variation in how far along visitors were with their wedding planning, from those getting married quite soon to others who'd only just got engaged and even one lady who wasn't actually engaged but was hoping some wedding themed literature would 'inspire' her boyfriend!

As usual the marquee at Glemham Hall was looking fab, with decorations by Table Angels, The Decorated Cake Co, Events Couture and, of course, The Leaf Press! Others exhibiting included Patrick Stockley Weddings (showcasing amazing albums of previous weddings) and The Tea Service which hires out beautiful vintage china (and had very tempting marshmallows on the stall!).

Here are my photos of the day.

The Leaf Press seating plan next to cake by the Decorated Cake Co

'Bunting' menu and place cards on the tables

The Leaf Press's stall

New travel notebook designs

The personalised travel notebooks I sell have been very popular through the summer, especially as little wedding gifts, so I wanted to add to the range of designs available. Here are pictures of two new travel notebooks. The first is a revision of a design that was already available 'Travels'. With this notebook I've used a colour scheme that I hope appeals equally to men and women.

The second 'Travel Patterns' is a new design featuring travel related images in horizontal bands across the notebook. This has a pastel colour scheme with a lemon colour base.

Both designs can have a title on the front cover and are gift-wrapped in tissue paper.