You know the best way to beat the summer heat? Imagine cool spring breezes! My recent springtime-inspired collaboration with Samantha Nichols and a fantastic group of wedding professionals is up on Style Me Pretty today. It’s chock full of bright greens, natural decor and cool calligraphy — plus a great DIY-garland tutorial! Take a peek for more breezy loveliness…

p.s. The invitation set & menu we created will be available for customization in our shop later this year. Yay!

Emily Ayer, one of our lovely custom-order brides, has been sharing the story of her Southern-inspired wedding invitations on her blog this week. How fun is that?! Emily is such a sweetheart, and we had a delightful time collaborating together. I was so doggone excited about this project, y’all! Be sure to take a looksie at Parts I and II for all of the behind-the-scenes details. (You know you want to see more!)

As creative director for Southern Weddings Magazine, Emily is no stranger to beautiful events so it’s fascinating to read about her own wedding planning process and all of the adventures that she’s having. Don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see the beautiful & meaningful day she’s creating.

Hugs, Em!

Brenton & Laura (such a sweet couple!) recently asked us to create a special version of our DIY seed packets just for them. We were happy to help. They printed & assembled the envelopes together at home in Australia, and then each guest left the reception with a lavender-seed-stuffed-envelope to plant in their own garden — isn’t that such a lovely way to remember a wedding?

For more ideas & gorgeous photos from their rustic farm wedding, head on over to Feather & Stone. Many thanks to Brenton & Laura for inviting us to collaborate with them, and special hugs for Seth & Tenielle (photographers extraordinaire) who shared this sneak peek!

A little peek into the 2013 sketch book… Black letter meets Victorian!

Putting the finishing touches on a few neutral-inspired, calligraphy-filled wedding invitations for an upcoming photo shoot. Can’t wait for the reveal!!!

Winston says hello. 

I know a lot of you are animal lovers, so I’m super excited to share good news! Our newest project studio assistant Winston went back to the vet yesterday for his first post-heartworm treatment of Interceptor, and all went well. Winnie’s completely recovered from last month’s icky arsenic shots and is now only coughing once in a blue moon. Our best guess is that the treatment was successful, though of course we won’t get confirmation of that for a few months. Apparently it takes that long for the last traces of the heartworms to leave his system. (Boo-hiss heartworms!) Winston’s ready and raring to get back in action, though — only two more weeks until ball-chasing and woodland-romping can resume! (I will try to take some videos so you guys can see how redonkulously adorable this little fella is. When he gets excited, his ears flop around like Dumbo, lol.)

Thank you all so very much for your prayers, love, encouragement and patience. I can’t tell you how touched we felt knowing y’all were in Winston’s corner and I am 100% positive that your loving energy made all the difference in his recovery. Truly, he is a dog transformed.

And because everything has gone so well, I have more happy news to share: our studio hours are back to normal!!! Double yay!!!

I’ll have lots more posts very soon – there’s so much new work to share with you, I can hardly stand it!

Just a little screen-cap peek into some new custom work I’m brewing up. Dahlias, for the win!

Today’s round up is all about S-P-R-I-N-G! She’s definitely here, as my peonies know.

- A pretty watercolor moth print by Mikrofaza
- A breezy and modern crinkle-cotton dress in the perfect shade of leaf
- Recipes for my springtime favorites: ramps, rhubarb, sorrel and morels
- Bridesmaids in Wellies, swoon!
- Wendy Waldman gets her dulcimer on
- A beautiful tissue paper vine tutorial from Martha
- Sullivan Owen puts my favorite striped tree peony blooms to work

Happy Friday, Lovelies! What are you up to this weekend?

There are so many things to love about Easter weekend, but one of my favorite activities is dyeing eggs. They’re color you can eat! Mr. Magpie & I don’t have kids, but that doesn’t stop me from whipping up a couple dozen of these pretties every year.

After seeing so many gorgeous examples of naturally-dyed eggs on Pinterest, we decided to ditch the food coloring and experiment with the contents of our fridge.

The spotted grey-purple eggs were dyed in an overnight-bath of grape juice and vinegar. Vinegar is an acid and it reacts with the calcium shells, which produces a neat mottling effect.

To make the bluish-teal eggs, I filled a stock-pot halfway with water, added a cut-up head of red cabbage, and boiled the whole mess until the brew was nice and dark. (And stinky. Pee-ew cabbage.) Then I added a  few teaspoons of baking soda, cooled & strained the mix, and dunked the eggs overnight. I hear that adding vinegar instead of the baking soda makes a pretty pink-purple. Chemistry, FTW!

I also tried to dye eggs with tumeric & paprika, but the color didn’t really stick to the eggshells. In all cases, the overnight eggs + dye-baths were kept in the fridge, as we plan to eat these all week.

I just love how unique each egg becomes. How about you? Are you experimenting with natural dyes this weekend?

As some of you know, in late January we rescued a very sweet & very ill senior dog who had been abandoned in a farm field. We christened him Winston, and he’s living up to his namesake. This dog has pluck.

In addition to dealing with near blindness, deafness, arthritis, hypothyroidism, severe anemia and a hemolytic crisis, Winnie is also fighting a nasty case of heart worms. Despite all of this, he remains an incredibly loving and wonderful companion so he’s been helping out sleeping at the studio with us each day. We love looking after him.

After two months of awesome veterinarian care (shout out to Dr. Mike!) Winston is finally ready to fight his biggest battle yet. Monday morning, he’ll receive the first of two heart-worm-destroying Immiticide injections. Assuming all goes well, he will be confined & monitored for around two months, so that we can prevent and/or quickly treat any embolisms that result from the worms’ deaths. This means that Winnie is essentially under house arrest for the foreseeable future. Because yours truly will be his nurse, I want to let y’all know about a few changes in our schedule for the next few weeks.

Current Clients: Design & production of your order will continue on schedule, from my home office. C’est si bon.

Communication: Barring any emergencies, I will be available via email and Google chat, Monday thru Friday, from noon – 5pm, CST. Status updates will be shared via Twitter, so if you’d like to stay in the know, please follow @MagpiePaper here. Plus, we’d love to say hello.

Samples & Product Orders: Any samples or products ordered from our shop will ship on Mondays only. If you need your items for an upcoming event, please plan accordingly. If you have any questions about scheduling, I would be glad to help you determine whether we’ll be able to ship your items in time before you place your order.You can email me here.

Font Orders: We’ve got you covered. Your download link(s) will be provided immediately after your font purchase, just like normal.

With lots of love & prayers, Winston should be up and at ‘em soon and it’ll be back to business as usual. Many thanks, Lovelies, for your understanding. Winnie sends puppy kisses!