Quilled Ketubah with Sculptured Camellia

Here's a ketubah I quilled for a couple whose wedding took place at the Chicago Botanic Garden earlier this summer. Calligrapher Tara Jones of Dallas, Texas had designed the couple's invitation and while looking for ideas for their ketubah, the bride came across my site and recognized Tara's unique lettering style on an earlier certificate she and I had worked on together - small world! The bride then asked if Tara and I would collaborate on their ketubah... yes, we would love to... these pictures show the result.


The 22 x 30 inch marriage contract features the bride and groom's initials in a quilled olive leaf wreath. I based the seafoam green arrangement on the design Tara had created for the top of their letterpress invitation. The on-edge monogram was done in charcoal, double-thickness quilling paper. I referred to angular letter shapes within Tara's text (not pictured) as my guide.


For the area between the text and signature lines, the bride asked me to take inspiration from a botanical print of a camellia that had been custom-printed as the postage stamp for their invitations.