The Bride's Guide Blog

Every couple of weeks I highlight one of our friends from the stationery world. This week, I'd like to introduce you to Tiny Pine Press.

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11 Gia Canali Photography

Company name: Tiny Pine Press
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Website: www.tinypinepress.com
Blog: tinypine.wordpress.com
Year established: 2005

Tiny Pine Press is a Los Angeles-based design studio dedicated to producing distinctive, artful stationery incorporating couture paper, luxurious letterpress, and an inventive array of unique materials. With Tiny Pine Press, designer Jennifer Parsons has created a rare brand of handmade correspondence materials, specializing in custom wedding and party invitations as well as business and social stationery. Her signature craftsmanship and distinctive art direction springs from a steadfast commitment to both beauty and timelessness allowing customization at every level of the production process.

Parsons's art is rooted in her upbringing in the Appalachian Mountains of rural southwestern Virginia. The daughter of a factory seamstress, she has a family of artists fueling her lifelong love of paper-based craftsmanship. She studied film at Northwestern University with a focus in production design. Her designs have been described as understated, elegant, wabi-sabi, classic, and completely timeless.

Tiny Pine Press was  included in  Little Book of Letterpress, an August release from Chronicle Books, and has been featured on the blogs Style Me Pretty, Forget Me Knot Wedding Blog. in addition to appearing in other publications. Jennifer was also chosen as the stationer for ABC's The Bachelor: Molly and Jason's Wedding, for the couple's February 2010 nuptials. Jennifer has worked with members of the Hollywood Who’s Who, such as Mariska Hargitay and her Joyful Heart Foundation, Jeri Ryan, and Christine and Kevin Costner.

Specialties: Wedding invitations (with an emphasis on outdoor celebrations); social stationery; custom letterpress printing, particularly on handmade paper; stitching, application of pressed flowers, twigs, and other products of the great outdoors; tea-staining; vintage postage; and being eco-friendly.

Biggest Project: "The one that immediately comes to mind was the first invitation I was commissioned to design. I'd given a homemade stitched birthday card to my friend, Natasha Wagner, who then asked me to design her wedding stationery. I was not a graphic designer and had never printed anything.  I had about a year to play detective, discovering papers, shopping for materials, figuring out the design. The work I did in those months built the foundation for my company.  Her 225 invitations were stitched, cut, and glued by hand on three separate cards. Mother-of-pearl buttons were attached to a cotton organdy band (still one of my favorite materials) and secured with embroidery thread. This was probably doubly challenging because it was a completely new form of art to me, and it was work for a close friend. I have had many projects that were larger in quantity, more difficult in assembly, and with a much faster turnaround, but the first one was where I learned the ropes."

Tiny Pine Press Loves: "Music:  I love harmony, layers of instruments and voices. My favorite are songs I can sing along to and harmonize to while I work (though I usually wait 'til no one else is around).  Favorite musicians: Thomas A. Minor and the Picket Line, Laura Marling, Eleni Mandell, Joanna Newsom, Bonnie Prince Billy, Nick Drake, Van Morrison, Neil Young, The Beach Boys."

"Quilts: Quilts can really bring the unexpected pieces together. Those little scraps of memories are transformed into a collective, cohesive, new piece. When a quilt is made for you, it feels as if someone has tailored your recollections into a blanket to keep you warm, literally and figuratively. I like to think of my projects as 'paper quilts,' though they are seldom used for physical warmth."

"People: I love stories and I love people; this is why I love what I do. I get to meet so many different types of people from all over the world, both in person and virtually. I love getting to know my clients because I feel like my design duties are to translate the personalities of both the bride and the groom and merge them to paper, balancing feminine and masculine aesthetic. This makes me feel good."

"Nature—that everything natural is consistently inconsistent. That being 'imperfect' is natural and, in its own way, perfect. This is my biggest challenge, my greatest love, and a lesson I learn over and over again."

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Tags: natural elements, Stationery, Tiny Pine Press
Posted by Lauren Richel Kelly on October 14, 2010 in Inspiration, Stationery