The ladies at Merci New York and Facetime Beatuy Concierge have teamed up to give away one prize package of free wedding day hair, make-up and fashion styling for the lucky bride and up to five bridesmaids!

Here's more information on the contest, including rules and how to enter:

To enter, readers must visit the Facetime Beauty Concierge website for inspiration, and comment below, describing their ideal wedding day look for the bride and bridesmaids, along with the confirmed date and location of the respective wedding {dates will not be transferable, so please only enter if the wedding date and venue are solidified}.

To increase your chances of winning the complete NYC Bridal Styling Package {valued at over $2,000}, there are four additional ways to enter this contest:

1. Tweet this: I entered to win wedding day hair, make-up + fashion styling via the @FacetimeBeauty #BridalGiveaway on @MerciNYC http://su.pr/1yPQoN. Then leave a second comment once you’ve tweeted, along with your Twitter name.
2. Blog about the Facetime Beauty Bridal Giveaway {feel free to use our oh-so-pretty giveaway graphic!} and comment with your blog link.
3. Post about the giveaway on a message board and comment with your link.
4. Share the Facetime Beauty Bridal Giveaway on Facebook and let us know via a comment.

Remember, in order to qualify:

• The wedding must take place in the New York City area {no more than a one hour drive outside Manhattan}.
• The wedding date must take place in 2010 or 2011. Dates are non-transferable, and must be included in your entry, along with your venue.
• Facetime Beauty Concierge and Merci New York must both available for the wedding date.

The giveaway winner will be chosen at random and announced via the Merci New York blog on Friday, September 10th at 8:00 PM EST. Good luck!

Here's some original logos I designed - based on using a cupcake as a featured image:

After a few rounds of edits, we decided to move forward with a 'think bubble' graphic and a beautiful pale pink and grey color palette. Here's the final business cards:

I had a lot of fun working with Hazel on these cards and thought her support and encouragement for Taylor was incredible sweet! To see Taylors work, visit Think Sweet NYC's facebook page.

Channeling the glory days of New York's 1930s, the invites focused on a single Art Deco pattern paired with a striking purple and silver color palette.

Here's the entire suite, including: invitation, reception card, rsvp set and outer envelope and envelope liner

The suite was printed on Crane's Lettra which beautifully reproduced the letterpress type and blind embossed pattern. My biggest challenge was finding just the right color envelopes. These are made by Eames.

Calligraphy by Tara Jones

This top graphic shows the reception card. The pattern shown in grey was blind embossed onto the paper. On the bottom is the RSVP envelope - which I totally fell in love with. I took the dots from the pattern and used them to florish the address.

The image for the liner came from a few conversations I had with the couple, who were both were extremely close to their family. We decided upom making a family tree, which became an important element in the ceremony programs and the reception. Trees are symbolic in the jewish culture and the design really gavethe final suite an extremely personal feeling.

For a tutorial on how to make custom envelope liners, click here.

At the reception, I picked up the color palette and 1930s vibe in these cocktail napkins and signature cocktail signs.

And for the Rehearsal Dinner and Sunday Brunch, the palette and design was reinvented again, but this time digitally printed onto metallic paper.

Other images of this event can be found here / here / here and here.

Photography by Jen Huang

One project I just completed is garlands made from squares of tissue paper. You may remember this stuff from kindergarten craft-time. Back in the day, we would dip the squares in glue, scrunch them and use to color a simple shape - like this heart for Valentine's Day.

In all, I sewed 6 garlands - ranging in 25' - 40'. The squares are available in various prepackaged sets and it only takes a small amount to make a big impact. I used three colors, white, lavender and lime and ended up using only one package, which kept the project under $8 - talk about budget-savvy!

Materials:

• Tissue Paper Squares: Oriental Trading Company had the best selections I found. Their price for a set of 8 colors (625 squares of each color) is just $4.99.
• Thread: I used standard white sewing thread. Originally I purchased clear thread, but it kept breaking in the sewing machine. The white worked perfectly and I used less than 1 full spool (including the thread for the bobbin).
• Sewing Machine: I had to do some tests first with the tension since tissue paper is very brittle to sew. A chain stitch worked perfectly to hold the pieces just right.

Here's a little step-by-step recreation:

1. I started by separating the squares of tissue paper and organizing them by color. This took a little more time then expected, but it makes sewing a breeze.
2. My sewing machine was threaded with white thread and with some gentle pressure on my foot petal, I kept a slow, constant pace, alternating the three colors.
3. Close-up detail of the spacing used for the squares. Some were layered on top of each other and others we're spaced out a little wider, as in this example.
4. Detail of the finished garland

Prudent Baby has a a cute modified version of this project using petal shaped tissue paper. This Martha Stewart Weddings feature was the original inspiration behind this project!

Taking a cue from fantasy and mixing it with the great outdoors, the concept began with having a series of paper scrolls from which the name cards would be attached. The original concept went through a few rounds of changes - especially on the actual day, when we needed to enlist some last minute help to construct a stable stand for the piece.

Here's my original sketches showing how the cards were to be placed onto the scrolls.

And here's the close-up of the two-piece design we settled upon.

Lastly, the final display decorated and ready.... I think you'll agree it came out quite fantastic! We used a combination of sheet moss, faux leaves, flowers and butterflies to decorate the base. The scrolls were attached to the frame using bark covered wire and the trees used for the actual frame came from the property.

To replicate this idea, here's a list of resources for where you can get similar materials:

• Butterflies: Floral Trims has a great selection
• Sheet Moss: Can be ordered online or found at Michael's crafts
• Faux Leaves: We used an assortment from Michael's crafts
• Bark Covered Wire
• Mini Envelopes
• Paper Scrolls: We used recycled paper that had bits of bark in the pulp

Still on the lookout for your wedding gown? If you happen to be in New York during August 27th - 28th, sign up now! Designer Michelle Rahn is going to be at the Carlyle Hotel (talk about the epitome of NY Chic!) helping lucky brides shop and style their wedding day look.

Lady M Confections will be on site offering brides delicious Mille Crepes.

RSVP by August 24th by emailing info@michellerahn.com or call 312.243.1919. Be sure to sign-up now before slots fill up!

all photos ©QuatreCoeur
It was so fun to work with them day-of and I loved how the final arrangements came out! Above is a shot of the final table name signs featured in last week's DIY Wood Transfer Tutorial.

Visit their blog for more centerpiece images and a peek at the bride's bouquet.

She send out this evite to friends for an upcoming birthday bash. I love the design of it and thought you might appreciate it just as much. I just thought the colors, fonts and small details were adorable, no?!

For more about Brooke, visit her blog, Claremont Road or her company, Curious & Co. And if you are looking for chic and fun letterpress wedding invitations, stay tuned for the upcoming launch of the Claremont Collection.

Thank you so much for choosing us - we're thrilled!!! Special shout out to Twirl Boutique who was the popular vote winner for the Vendor Blog Category. They are in the running to compete for the $1,000 grand prize.

Best of luck to all of the blogs out there that were also nominated. It's wonderful to be included in this roundup of great blogs!

The room was in the shape of a large octagon - with windowed doors opening out to a patio that overlooks the golf course greens. To bring the outdoor element so prevalent in the ceremony inside to the reception, we created these simple wood table name signs. Here's a little tutorial on how to replicate the look.

Supplies:

1. Wood rounds: ours were purchasd from Walnut Hollow
2. Colorless blending marker: we recommend Chartpak brand
3. Masking tape
4. Photocopied image: either output the design flipped (mirrored) or ask your copy center to do so.

Directions:

• After you've designed your image/text to fit onto your piece of wood, output it from a laser printer or have it photocopied. This transfer method will not work on ink jet printouts.
• Place your photocopy image side down and position it onto the wood using masking tape.
• Cover entire area of image with colorless blender marker. Keep the image taped down and gently pick up on the corners to make sure your transfer has been completed before removing.
• To help the image along, we recommend burnishing the back of the printout with a spoon.
• Remove the printout and masking tape and decorate as you see fit.

For decorating, we used these butterfly Dresden sheets from Paper Dreams Factory. They were decoupaged using acryllic matte medium.

 more photos of the final pieces to come soon...

The idea was to incorporate a photo of them taken during their engagement shoot but to give a bit of a vintage feel to the piece. By adding some classic fonts and properly de-saturating the image (see below), we created the right look.

Thank you to those of you who voted already. If you haven't had a chance to cast your ballot, be sure to do so before July 16th.

Be sure to cast votes for your favorite blogs - category winners receive a $100 gift card from Amazon.com and the blog with the most votes wins a $1,000 gift card.

Other Categories Include:

• Wedding Planning Blogs
• Regional Blogs
• DIY Wedding Blogs
• Budget Wedding Blogs
• Real Bride Blogs
• Eco-Friendly Wedding Blogs 
• Wedding Style Blogs
• Destination Wedding Blog
• Wedding Photography Blogs

But I do have a lot of cool projects that are just about ready to showcase, including:

• fan shaped wedding programs,
• an outdoor wishing tree (fabric supplied by my awesome dad)
• a larger-than-life version of a thumb print guest book (hint: canvas and paint)
• suspending over 500 butterflies ranging in sizes from 1" - 24"
• amazing wood-slice table numbers

Needless to say, it's busy around here and I promise there is so much great stuff to share, but I have to take a break, so I'm going to be signing off for a little while. Will try to post here and there from the road.

Hope each of you has a great holiday and looking forward to sharing some of ours upon our return.

Later in the week, I popped in for a chat with Melinda and met Nicole Block of Nic Events who recently launched a ready-to-order wedding line, available exclusively at Lion in the Sun. I completely fell in love with her work - both as a paper lover and someone who is smitten with all things Brooklyn, these pieces evoke the essence and adoration for my local area.

In addition to custom stationery, Lion in the Sun has a really well edited range of cards, gift wrap, interesting gifts and other paper goods. And if you're a bride looking for something very Brooklyn specific, I assure that Nic's new line will not disappoint.