A favorite client recently asked me to design some personalized stationery for her son.  He recently had a bowling birthday party (which I designed the invitations for, of course) and she wanted him to hand write thank you notes to send out to all of the friends and family who had sent gifts and shared in his birthday celebration.

I was excited by this idea, for a few reasons.  1) Stationery is super versatile; it can be different sizes, shapes, colors, and have any theme you can dream up! (Sort of like invitations). 2) Unlike invitations, there isn’t a whole lot of text that goes into stationery so there is lots of room for thoughtful white space, or detailed images that would get lost in too much text.  3) She already had great ideas!

One of the things I always tell my clients is to send me examples.  I have no problem dreaming up creations completely from scratch, I actually love it! But when it comes to  some of the work I do, like invitations and children’s… well… anything, parents tend to have an idea of what they want.  I love it when Moms and Dads are involved and want something special and unique for their child’s special moment, and I gladly follow their lead, take what materials they give me and run with them!

In this case, there were a few themes/styles that this particular Mom was interested in.  She sent me some visuals that she found online, because she liked the style – simplicity and clean lines but classic style.  (Because she was planning to print them herself she also requested to white backgrounds, to save on ink).  After she mentioned that her son was taking horseback riding lessons and loved it,  a little light went off and I got to work.  Personalized stationery for kids is so much fun to design.

I always try to give my clients a few options so that they can see the different directions the designs could take, and have options to choose from.  I did two designs with the sailing theme, and two with the equestrian theme.

In the end she loved the blue equestrian design the best, and I totally agree!  The design is very simple and clean but very personal, playful and formal enough to be used for any occasion!  This fun formula for a custom design can be used to create a truly personalized stationery for kids to start practicing good manners at a young age.

Another great thing about the whole process is that it is super easy to print at home!  You can buy the color, weight, size and style paper that you like and print your child’s stationery with your home printer.  The affordability of this project is perfect for the little ones since, well, at certain ages all you get on the card are a few scribbles… or spilled chocolate milk.  What ideas do you have for stationery for your children?