Pearl & Rose Designs

Hey y'all!

If you're new here, and I have every reason to believe you are, WELCOME! I used to blog here pretty regularly about my life as a mom to my two precious twin girls, Tamsie Pearl and Evangelyn Rose. However, around the end of last year, I started getting SUPER busy with art projects that took up all my free time. I wound up launching my business, Pearl & Rose Designs, and I just haven't had time to blog since! 

Mainly I have been making hand-drawn wedding maps for clients, but I have also been addressing envelopes and creating chalkboards and other custom drawings. This fall I'm hoping to launch personalized stationery, notecards and prints. I'm particularly looking forward to designing some Scripture verse prints!

Here is my most recent concoction:

I just finished this one up this past weekend. A client ordered a hand-drawn map for her son's wedding in Cologne, Germany - thus making this my first-ever international map! Basically she told me the places they wanted me to include on the map, and I made it happen. Now she is taking the artwork to a stationery store here in Memphis, RSVP Stationers, and having them use it to make gift bags for wedding guests, and she's also having it framed for the newlyweds.

Here's my Facebook page with pricing info, updates and everything else related to Pearl & Rose Designs. Feel free to like it!!!

But first, let me back up. I graduated from Ouachita Baptist University in 2005 with a major in mass communications and a minor in art. In fact, here's the first map I ever did! This one was for an assignment for one of my classes in school. It was supposed to be a map of my life so far: 

Little did I know this would be the first hand-drawn map of many to come!

Then, once I graduated, I wound up working in the PR department of a local non-profit. While there, I was asked to create their annual Christmas card artwork, and this is what I came up with:

It was supposed to look like the front of our medical clinic. The little design inside in the middle represents a quilt hanging in the lobby of the clinic.

One of my best friends from college, JT, wound up moving to Memphis and working there with me. She now works at RSVP, and for years she has been encouraging me to bring up samples of my handwriting so they could refer clients to me for addressing envelopes, etc. 

Now meanwhile, my husband and I moved to Louisville to attend Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and then about a year and a half later we found out I was pregnant with identical twin girls! They wound up developing Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome, had to be delivered at 29 weeks and 4 days, had an 8-week stay in the NICU... and then we wound up moving back home to Memphis to be closer to family since we needed all the help we could get! I've been a stay-at-home mom ever since they came along, and now I have no idea when I'll wrap up my final three classes to graduate with my master's in women's ministry! Ha! But I am absolutely loving this season of life with my precious girls, and I wouldn't trade this time with them for the world.

Well around November of last year, I FINALLY got around to taking some samples up to RSVP, and then that very afternoon they called and asked me if I could make a map for a client's son's wedding in Fort Worth. I had never heard of hand-drawn maps for weddings before, but I figured I could give it a try. Here was the result:

Ever since then, I have had a steady stream of business! This one was a gift from a wife to her husband on his birthday:

This was a map for a wedding in Fort Smith, AR:

Here's one way my first client wound up using her artwork:

This one was an anniversary gift from a wife to her husband. Each place on the map represents a special place in their story:

 Along the way, I've picked up some addressing projects. Here is a sample I made using the style I did for one batch of envelopes:

I also recreated an invitation on a chalkboard for an engagement party a client was throwing:

And here's the menu:

One client opened a vintage resale business in Bartlett and asked me to do the lettering on doors in the shop:

A dear friend asked me to make this map as a wedding anniversary gift to her husband:

One client just requested a simple map featuring the wedding ceremony location and the reception location:

 A sweet friend from college ordered this map for her wedding in Little Rock:

RSVP sent a client my way for this wedding map in Memphis:

These were calling cards included in invitations for a bridal luncheon thrown by a client:

This was for a destination wedding in Florida:

For a client's wedding in Birmingham:

This was a gift for a mother, showcasing special places from her lifetime in two different cities:

Here's a Memphis skyline design I did for RSVP to use:

And a sample address from another batch of wedding invitations:

So it has been a very busy year so far!! This October I will be participating in an exciting craft fair here, and I'm planning to debut some prints and notecards there. Eventually I'm hoping to open an Etsy store where I will sell prints, notepads, notecards, and such. But for now I'm only on Facebook. Please like my page and send me a message if you have any custom projects for me, and stay tuned for when I have things available you can order!

Thanks so much! :)

Much love,

Shelby