Vettore has long been one of our favorite letterpress wedding invitation designs and judging by its popularity, Smock customers agree! And as lovely as it is, it’s easy to see why so many people love Vettore!

The original Vettore design is printed in sea mist and midnight inks for a look that is romantic and a little bit vintage. The excitement of seeing how couples make the design their own never fades and we love some of the latest adaptations so much so that we just had to share them with you. How gorgeous are these?

Vettore printed in clover and midnight with a vertical orientation and pattern backing in our seneca pattern, brought to us by the folks at Peabody Papers in Columbus, Ohio. We love how this puts a fresh and modern spin on the design, especially with the extra special touch that comes from using our Smock Spencerian calligraphy font.

This incredible customization uses gold ink paired with blind deboss and it’s utterly sophisticated matched with the lined envelope in our clairveaux pattern printed in gold ink. A big thank you to Paper Chase in Margate, New Jersey for this classy take on Vettore!

We absolutely love edge painting and this lovely customization from Pearl Beach Paperie in Orlando, Florida is a perfect example of why. We love the eggplant and gold inks paired with the gold edge painting as it is so incredibly chic and luxurious.

Seeing what our awesome Smock stores dream up with their clients is thrilling for us and truly inspiring. We love seeing how creative and playful they can be with ink colors, embellishments and patterns and we can’t wait to share more great Smock customizations!

Here at Smock we get to work with some pretty cool people throwing some amazing parties, which we absolutely love. In fact we find it so much fun that we want to share those parties with everyone else! If you’re hosting a great brunch, baby or bridal shower, birthday party, anniversary celebration, or a fabulous spring kick-off barbecue, we want details! Email us at hello@smockpaper.com and tell us about your event and you could be featured on Smock’s blog. Parties of all shapes, sizes, and themes are welcome! In the meantime, check out this fabulous baby shower at the incredible Thoughtful Day, a blog we positively adore.

We love this use of our adorable Liony letterpress invitations featuring hand calligraphy by our favorite calligrapher, Debi Zeinert of Blooming Quill, in Whimsy for a first birthday party. It’s simple and oh so sweet, and the perfect way to set the stage for a fantastic birthday celebration.

One of the things we most love about our Smock letterpress wedding invitations is the complete versatility in design. By selecting the patterns, envelope linings and ink colors of choice, a bride or groom can dream up a totally new version of a Smock design that is unique to their personality and their event. Lately, we’ve been seeing a lot of gorgeous adaptations of the lovely Vettore design and wanted to share one that we find particularly fun. The original Vettore design is printed in midnight and sea mist ink for a pretty, classic look.

In this Vettore customization, the couple chose mango and clover inks for a look that is much more modern and bold. By using calligraphy accents the design remains a bit traditional and yet completely updated.

The bold mango patterned backing in our Willoughby pattern is an exciting and unexpected touch when guests open the envelope, which is beautifully lined in clover Willoughby.

We adore this version of Vettore, customized by RSVP Studio in Toronto and their client, for its fun and festive nature. It’s somehow strikingly bold and quietly tradtional all at the same time and we couldn’t love it more.

Today we’re really excited to introduce one of the fabulous new stores Smock is working with in Hong Kong in our new Smock Store Spotlight feature. Julie Sung is the proprietor of Six Chancery Lane, the exclusive location of Smock’s letterpress wedding invitations in Hong Kong, and she happily shared some incredible insight and a look into her fabulous shop. Six Chancery Lane is a unique shop devoted to Julie’s handmade soaps and her love for letterpress, a combination we find especially fun.

Julie grew up in Taiwan, but spent many years in the U.S. when she was younger, having just recently moved to Hong Kong about five years ago. Her background includes experience in the media industry, in both television and movies, but her passion has always been design and creating things that are handmade. Julie shares, “I think I have found my calling with Six Chancery Lane – wonderful, thoughtful, handmade products and great designs just make me happy. I get so much satisfaction out of creating beautiful stationery for my clients or seeing them appreciate a beautifully packaged bar of our handmade soap.”

We were so intrigued by the concept of Six Chancery Lane as a soap and letterpress boutique that we just had to know more about Julie’s inspiration behind her lovely store…

Six Chancery Lane really is a reflection of who I am and what I love, bringing together my two passions – handmade soaps and letterpress – and combining it with a desire to share products that are unique, handcrafted, not mass-produced, environmentally-friendly, and beautiful, with people who care about the same things. Originally, I started making soaps myself when I couldn’t find anything suitable for my sensitive skin in retail stores. I immediately fell in love with the craft of soapmaking, ultimately spending countless hours in my kitchen researching, testing new recipes and improving upon existing ones, until I finally had to find more space! Our soaps are all made in-house at Six Chancery Lane from the very best ingredients and then individually wrapped in beautiful paper I have personally sourced from around the world. I fell in love with letterpress when I was planning my own wedding and discovered, to my dismay, that I could not find letterpress in Hong Kong. I decided to learn all I could about letterpress, through research and taking classes in the U.S. Through Six Chancery Lane, I have finally have a venue to bring beautiful letterpress cards and stationery to discerning brides and customers in Hong Kong.

And we just had to know…
If you could describe your personality in letterpress, which Smock invitation would you be and why?
I would have to choose “Haddington” in black and raspberry ink with a raspberry Champlain liner. It is simple, clean, and subtle; classic yet contemporary at the same time. The splash of bright color on a black and white background stands out without trying too hard.

What are some fun traditions typical of Hong Kong weddings that you enjoy?
An interesting tradition for Hong Kong weddings is something known as “Door Games”. On the day of the wedding, the groom accompanied by his groomsmen, must go pick up the bride at her home. But before he can get in the door to see his bride for the first time, he must pass a series of test and tasks presented to them by the bridesmaids who are guarding the door. The “games” include quizzing the groom on facts about his future wife and other physical and embarrassing deeds. The bridesmaids can be pretty creative with what they demand the guys to do. It’s always a lot of fun and laughs. Of course, I enjoy this tradition, because I’m on the serving end and not the receiving!

What’s your top pick destination for first time travelers to Hong Kong?
Hong Kong is such a dynamic city. It really is a blend of East and West. There is so much to do, but if you could only do one thing, I would recommend taking in the breathtaking view of the city on Victoria Peak. Hong Kong has some of the best architecture in the world, and when the city is lit up at night, there really isn’t anything else in the world that really compares.

Where are your favorite places to shop?
I love to browse small, distinctive, local shops in SoHo, Hong Kong. There are a lot of great boutiques selling everything from trendy clothes to antique jewelry. I also love night markets in Taipei. You can find all sorts of wonderful things for amazingly low prices.  Not to mention there is a lot of delicious street food for you to sample. Oh, and I can spend hours on Etsy.

Why did you feel compelled to bring Smock’s signature bamboo letterpress to the people of Hong Kong?
Well, first of all, the designs are amazing. So clean and classy, yet very modern. Also, I love the fact that Smock is so eco-friendly. A lot of times people think things that are environmental means you have to sacrifice on quality or looks, but Smock proves that that’s not the case. And basically because letterpress from Smock is about the most beautiful I’ve seen and I just want to share that with people in Hong Kong.

Thank you so much, Julie, for sharing a glimpse into what Six Chancery Lane is all about! We love knowing more about the great places where Smock is featured and hope you’ll make Six Chancery Lane one of your stops if you’re ever in Hong Kong. This is just the first of several Smock Store Spotlight features to come and we can’t wait to share more of the great shops where you can find Smock across the globe!

Kansas City Spaces calls Smock “the write stuff.” They continue, “Let’s face it: despite the increasing popularity of e-vites and bulk e-mail “letters,” some of us still send out real letters, cards, moving notices, graduation information….and didn’t your mother teach you about responding to gifts? No e-mails please. Thankfully, to the rescue of us traditionalists comes Smock letterpress stationery, a truly gorgeous line of papers sustainbly printed on bamboo….but the best thing for you? The cards look absolutely beautiful.”

Other cool Smock mentions….

Instyle Wedding’s styleschool blog picks the Kurai letterpress wedding invitation as a “luxury green” choice.

Brides.com features Smock’s Engadine menu in a showcase of creative menu options. Brides writes: “Imagine a wind-powered stationer that uses vegetable-based inks; recycles, reuses or composts all waste; and donates to a variety of environmental causes. That’s Smock Stationary and they do all of the above plus more. As the first and only print shop to offer letterpress printing on luxurious bamboo paper, what could be better for the responsible bride and groom? Bamboo is one of the best renewable resources in the world and, as a paper, is soft, thick and textured, like a fabric.”

Other Smock blog mentions: Coochicoos features the Liony fill-in party invitations // Sprig features the Derby letterpress notecard // Paper Crave features Smock’s new line of letterpress greeting cards // Casasugar showcases our Ellie letterpress notes //Style At Home’s Natural Chic blog//Working Everyday Woman // Bella Signature Design // brönette // The Nest’s bangels & clay blog // Oh So Beautiful Paper // cardobserver //

We’re all for color this season, but we absolutely fell in love with this letterpress wedding invitation design that celebrates all that is good and beautiful about neutrals. This invitation is based on our Haddington design — the invitation is letterpressed in espresso ink with an elegant blind deboss palm tree at the top. All of our pocket folios are custom, so we can add whatever patterns & ink colors you’d like to the folio exterior and interior. With this invitation, we left the the folio exterior unprinted, which means the focus is all about the warmth of the bamboo paper. The interior of the folio features the champlain pattern in a gentle sand ink. Pair that with a lined envelope that mirrors the interior of the folio (champlain pattern, sand ink) — and you have an invitation that is pure sophisticated pleasure and harmony. Sent to us by our ever creative friends at JAM/Mindy Weiss in Los Angeles.

The Rhon has been such a fun letterpress wedding invitation design to customize – we’ve printed it in blues, hot pinks, grays, and greens, and it’s made an awesome letterpress Bat Mitzvah invitation too (see all the Rhon customizations here). But we loved this idea of printing the Rhon design as a 1 color invitation (and horizontal too – cool!). All of our 2 color designs can be printed as 1 color to help keep costs down and keep the look elegantly streamlined. And our reply cards, or any of our pieces, are fully customizable to fit as much text as you need. This letterpress invitation was sent to us by our friends at Write For You in Washington DC.

In addition to doing pro bono printing for the environmental organizations and causes that we love, we also donate our letterpress stationery and invitations to worthy events that are working to protect the planet. We were so happy to help out the Waterkeeper Alliance for two silent eco-auctions these past few months – we donated custom letterpress stationery and helped raise over $1,000 for this great nonprofit, which works internationally to keep water clean. Enjoy the pictures (taken by Bill Marsh Photography from the Lake Louise event). Pictures of the Deer Valley event can be found here (go to gallery then photos)




Both celebrity ski events looked amazing and inspiring – so many good looking people coming together to enjoy the outdoors and help the planet (and it’s true, we had fun celebrity spotting too)! But our hearts flip-flopped when we get to see the pics from the Fairmont Lake Louise event. Lake Louise is one of the most gorgeous places on the planet to us. Harold (my husband and co-owner of Smock) and I honeymooned in the Canadian Rockies (staying at the Lake Louise hostel of course!), but we’ve returned every other year or so during the fall to hike, be inspired by the mountains there, and stalk the lobby of the beautiful Fairmont Lake Louise. We named our now 2-year-old son Jasper after Jasper National Park (a bit north of Lake Louise), and we’ve taken Jasper to Lake Louise and the surrounding mountains the last two Septembers. If you need a place to remind you of why this world is good, climb into a few mountain passes around Lake Louise.

Carrie, who coordinates the auctions, was so kind to send us write-ups about the two events.

Each December, more than two hundred celebrities and corporate leaders come together for the Waterkeeper Gala at Deer Valley Celebrity Skifest to show their support for one of the most serious environmental issue of our time: CLEAN WATER. This exciting event hosts luminaries from the worlds of film, philanthropy, business, television and Olympic sport and features Live and Silent Auctions that deliver on the latest lifestyle, fashion, home, luxury and eco-conscious living trends. This year, Smock was a featured partner in Skifest’s first-ever EcoAuction and our custom bamboo letterpress stationery set inspired a bidding war between an eco-entrepreneur and an anonymous bidder. Celebrities including Larry David, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Gavin Rossdale, Gwen Stefani, Matthew Modine, Gloria Reuben, Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt joined environmental leader and founder of Waterkeeper Alliance Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to raise over $500,000 to support Waterkeeper’s fight for everyone’s right to clean water. The entire weekend of events, including the auctions, was featured in a full hour CBS Sports presentation, which continues to air throughout the winter.

After the success of Smock’s custom bamboo letterpress stationery lot at Deer Valley Celebrity Skifest, Waterkeeper invited Smock to participate in their Canadian Ski Fundraiser – the Fairmont Lake Louise Celebrity Sports Invitational. This hotly-anticipated event draws together more than 600 celebrities, sports stars, philanthropists and corporate leaders to enjoy a wintersports weekend in the Canadian Rockies benefiting Waterkeeper Alliance. Smock was once again featured in the Silent Auction at a gala that played host to celebrities including Alec Baldwin, Peter Fonda, John McEnroe, Marcia Gay Harden, Joe Pantoliano, Melissa Rivers, Alan Thicke and Jonathan Silverman.