inspiration from charleston

working 9 to five and overtime

Morning til night, we've been working overtime on Americana lately. Can't wait for the festival to get cranked up in a couple weeks and show you all the goods. If you're in Music City you don't want to miss it!

two are two

2 friends contacted us 2 to design their 2 daughter's 2nd birthdays. Whew, whole lotta 2s going on there. We obliged and created an invitation around the play-train that awaits all the toddlers at the party. Hopefully the little ladies will happily climb aboard!

birthday girl

I'm pretty sure 2 year olds don't really care about having their own stationary, but I'm also pretty sure their momma's do. We wrapped up some cards for a birthday girl last week and they were a total hit. Maybe not quite as exciting as the baby pool & sprinklers, but a hit none the less! You can find 'em in the shop.

long ridge farm

Wow, this week went fast! Kinda nice to have a holiday in the middle of the week and hope y'all had a great 4th. All I know is it's hot. Really hot. Anyway, I wanted to share a small project we finished up. We got a request to revise our BBQ invite for a Kentucky party. The location was in the families gorgeous new barn. You can go see pics here (super photographer by the way). Currier whipped up another fab sketch for the occasion and it's going on koozies, stationary, and farm items. Sure wish we had a barn like this in our backyard!

You can see gorgeous pics of the barn & big celebration at Bella Grace.

tenn hens etsy site

Blogging 3 days in a row… say what? I know, I know, we have a lot to chatter on about around here. The heat has set in, but Tenn Hens is kicking into high gear this summer and we're hoping you'll follow along.

We launched this creative venture of ours back in 2005 with a little dream. That little dream was to create a line of our own Tenn Hens products. Some folks from our past life in the advertising world kind of looked down on that. I guess it wasn't as "serious" as designing campaigns for national brands and I think we kind of believed them for a while. But what we discovered over the years, besides doing what makes YOU happy, is that there's more than ONE way to run a design business. So… we worked, we grew and we decided we loved designing marketing pieces for businesses, but we also loved designing invitations and stationary.

That all lead us to today. We went back to that little dream of ours from the very beginning and hatched the Tenn Hens Etsy site. It will be evolving and growing and we sure hope you'll check it out and spread the word. Thanks friends!

cultivating new ground

Now that we have finally updated our website (hooray, hooray), the tenn hens blog is going to well… go back to being a blog. More Hens news, more personal stuff, more design inspiration, and of course we'll keep sharing new projects here and there. The website will be more of our portfolio and services info. Whew, I feel better already.

Anyway, since this IS a blog I wanted to share a pretty spread that just came out in Elle Decor. Not a magazine I normally buy, but one that's always filled with beauty when I do pick up a copy. Our clients country home is featured in the pages this month. I was reading along and at the end they mention a milestone birthday bash the family hosted at the house. Well, I do believe we designed that milestone invitation and it's remained one of my very favorites. So cheers to them and the beautiful landscape they've carved out in the country.

an apple a day

The littlest hen on the block needed some stationary so we whipped up a "good apple" design for her to give to teachers. { notebooks from Target }

ps : you can buy 'em in our shop!

shaker village wedding

Remember our Kentucky bride we mentioned earlier this year? Well, we're ready to share the rest of her wedding details. The big day took place at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. It's a sprawling piece of land dedicated to preserving a historical piece of the Shaker community and it gave us plenty of lovely visuals to work with. Long fence rows, barns, horses, furniture making, and Shaker style buildings… "make you kindly welcome" as the Shakers would say.

palmetto bluff wedding

One of my favorite people got married this Spring. I couldn't be at the wedding, but Tenn Hens made a small appearance at the nuptials with our paper designs. The bride's only request was a palette of coral + gray so we took the reins and came up with a bold and colorful suite. There was a bit of DIY from the crafty bride as well. Paper Presentation is a great resource for all you paper lovers out there. We ordered these great kraft backers and scalloped cards, which you can print from home, and designed a simple program for guests. A bright and happy look for a very happy day.


and one more by the bride's photographer… Ashley Seawell 

the americana train

It's still early in the year, but the Americana Music folks are already gearing up for the 2012 Festival &Conference. After coming up with a new "look" for this years events, we've been busy designing web banners and ads to get the word out. Here's a sneak peek of the design. And… if you're in Nashville you should definitely check out the film, Big Easy Express, AMA is sponsoring. Looks like a wild ride!

tenn hens goes international

That's right friends… Tenn Hens just shipped our first order overseas. We wrapped up some Bun in the Oven invites for a lady in Australia and hope she enjoys them as much as we did. It's a tiny step towards selling our designs in a larger market, but we are dipping our toes in an Etsy shop with much more to come.


…follow up from overseas… "My package came in the mail today and i would like to thank you. They are everything i wanted and more"

you is…

We've are working on some new art prints for the Tenn Hens shop and want to share one of our favorites in the works. After watching The Help, we just couldn't resist using this precious quote.

kentucky bride

I was in the checkout line at the grocery yesterday when I spied the new Southern Living Weddings. Tenn Hens was featured in the magazine last year so I was dying to check it out. It was crazy to see some of our work in print! Since the feature came out we've had lots of lovely folks contact us about designing invitations. In fact, we are currently working with a Kentucky bride on all her wedding materials. Here's a sneak peek of the save the date and the rest we'll share soon. Now, I'm off to flip through my copy of the new issue.

new year news

Yes we're already a month in, but better late than never… hello 2012! We have been busy bees over here and have so much to cover so here goes. One of the biggest things happening at Tenn Hens is that Bonnie has moved to Dallas. Yee-haw! Her husband started a job there so they have recently relocated. It sounds like a big change, and it is, but it's pretty much business as usual here at the shop. We are still working full time on some great new projects and just hoping to expand our business in the big D. Thanks to Face-time and the 'ole internet we're able to continue doing what we love  together just in two different cites. So, if you know anyone in the Dallas area looking for a designer, or a new friend, tell them to give us a ring.

In other news, we've been doing a ton of invitation work. Designing special party invitations is such a joy and allows us to create something truly memorable & personable for folks. Here's a quick view…



… more to come y'all so stay tuned in!