A custom design concept often begins with a list. What the couple wants to see in their ketubah? What do they definitely don't want to see? And I proceed from there. As a designer it's my job to flesh out the clients' vision and bring it to life in an edited, beautiful design. And I'm not gonna lie, sometimes I struggle with editing, myself. To have many ideas - same as to see many color variations - can often be too many ideas. More times than not I drive my assistant crazy because I work in tandem on 2 to 4 designs - sometimes to completion - before I can decide on the design to show the clients. It's not good time and labor management, but it's my creative process. And I definitely went through about 6 versions of this design before I settled on the one I showed Holly & Bill. (I still have the other versions in my back-pocket, waiting for their day.)

Holly & Will wanted their papercut ketubah to encompass their relationship across the years. It's a beautiful concept and oh my gosh we had a lot of pretty imagery to pull from! Holly gave me a list that included: lace, Chicago Musical Theater, castles, pumpkins, the Scottish Highland games, Superman, the ship necklace Will gave her, 'Safe in the Waves' motto, and more. A lot, right? Sounds random but she included a backstory and reason for every element to explain the emotional connection. The challenge for me was to pick and choose what to include and to create a cohesive composition that worked together not only aesthetically but also story-wise.

The two biggest elements I needed to feature were the bridge in Cedarburg, Wisconsin where the couple got engaged (Bill actually proposed to Holly there!) and a cutie-patootie otter couple (they mate for life!) - besides the ketubah text, of course;) Through their symbols - personal and universal - their love story needed to be told with a beginning, middle, and future. That the artwork came out so adorable is just a great bonus!

In March of last year I received a commission by an Australian couple to create a design that celebrated their love of world travel and their shared history. They had a very specific vision of what they wanted ("Two Celtic Art Nouveau-ish style tyke trees with intertwined branches"), and a list of deeply thought-of symbols dear to them that had to be organically incorporated.

It was a tall order for sure, and if I remember correctly I was sick throughout it, desperately trying to catch up between days spent miserable in bed. This is one of those orders where the final design would have been 100% less beautiful were it not for the clients' feedback and dogged determination to make their vision work. I mean, I am so embarrassed by the first draft that I'm not even going to show you, that's how bad it was. This all made for an embarrassingly slow turnaround, but I take comfort in the fact that in the end we have a beautiful artwork to show for it.
I shared before my process arriving from concept to finished piece in my post about Creating a Custom Ketubah Unique To You. Truthfully, I found the accompanying visual of the inspiration elements and the resulting papercut interesting and surprising myself. For this order the clients wanted to include so many items that hold special meaning and memories for them, from candlesticks to movie silhouettes, it's easy to overlook the text is just as important and had to fit not only the traditional Hebrew and English, but Gaelic as well. This design is a great example of morphing so many ideas and wishes together into a beautiful papercut (with the help of my patient clients). In fact, they wanted so much that the best way to make it happen was to split the design into two papercut layers. I'ts safe to say, the play of overlapping layers only benefited the ketubah.

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And my virtual dusting off continues: Last post showed beautiful custom work I forgot to publish way back in 2013, this one is even worse with photos that have been languishing since 2012!

So you found the perfect ketubah for you, but something's missing... You want it to be personal, unique to you. Why not add in your initials?
The ketubot in this post are of ketubot available in my shop which clients also asked to further personalize with their initials for perpetuity.

Jennifer & Ben wanted a beautiful weeping willow tree that showed the majesty of it in all its glory! And a few critters thrown in if you look closely:) 

Stephanie and Jon love animals, and so they wanted a big ol' Tree of Life with forest animals all around it and hiding in it, and well, it's not hard to get me to draw trees!

Kissing deer, frolicking monkeys and lounging fox, I wanted two of each. When I was drawing this ketubah I kept thinking of a classic of Israeli children's literature called Apartment for Rent, where each floor of a residential building is home to different animals who all have to get along. Except for the curious dog who's harassing the monkey, this bunch seems all to get along.

This is a custom design ordered for the one year anniversary of Daniel & Amy Elias, who were married in September of 2013. Using photos of their actual wedding, Daniel asked for a simple papercut design of their special chuppah: the canopy was made of a family heirloom textile, and the chuppah's posts were decorated with the bride's bouquet and the groom's ring box.

Along with papercuts that embody home, or depict a location, there are ones which are fully fanciful.

The following ketubah is open to the eye of the beholder, but for the couple who commissioned it, it is full of symbolic testimonies of their love story. The keywords for this design were art deco shapes, stylized trees, mountains and lightning bolt.  

For this order the keywords describing their Oregon home were rainy, foggy, rain forest. Might not be what others associate with Oregon, but worked well for me:) I took on the challenge of depicting an overcast and often wet place without making it gloomy. Two-tonal grey and wild ferns draw the eye to the giant fir trees framing the text, making a wild, atmospheric forest design, perfect for a nature-loving couple.