When we print letterpress dinner menus, we can’t help but marvel over the great food we know guests are going to deilght in enjoying – cinnamon and port wine poached anjou pear? Sounds declicious! Brought to us by Aileen’s Invitations in Miami, this letterpress menu is our Kurai design printed in rich raspberry ink. The vertical orientation, in combination with the border around the edges, makes this customization quite different from the original design. This customization is the definition of sophisticated elegance.

A big thank you to our lovely friends at Aileen’s Invitations for allowing us the pleasure of printing these great letterpress menus!

Earlier this month, Smock was excited for the opportunity to contribute some of our fun letterpress greeting cards to goody bags handed out to guests at the recent Rubie Green event at Calypso Home in New York City. Rubie Green, a line of incredibly stylish organic upholstery textiles and bedding, was created by Michelle Adams who is the former editor of Domino magazine so it was a thrill for us to contribute to an event that was both fabulously chic, but also wonderfully eco-minded. This was such a great opportunity to introduce Smock to some new friends!

First of all, it has to be noted that the Calypso store provided a beautiful backdrop for this event…

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Here at Smock, we absolutely love Stationery Trends a fabulous trade magazine dedicated to all things stationery and paper. This year we were thrilled to be featured in Stationery Trends several times, including a piece about our double-sided 100% post consumer recycled gift wrap in our Calliope design in the winter issue…

In May, with the National Stationery Show fast approaching and just in time for Smock’s first birthday, we were completely excited to see one of our letterpress birthday cards, our Happy Happy Birthday to You card, on the cover of the spring 2009 issue of Stationery Trends! Coincidentally, the magazine was also celebrating their first birthday and wanted to showcase a great birthday card on the cover. We’re sincerely honored that they chose one of ours! Inside that same issue, they also showcased a beautiful customization of one of our letterpress wedding invitation designs, Rhon, which we printed as a letterpress bat mitzvah invitation.

Thank you so much to the folks at Stationery Trends for a great publication and for continually supporting Smock!

Niki Kantor Rubin, proprietress of Papery & Cakery in Boca Raton, Florida brings a unique background to her unique business, a stationery and patisserie boutique. With an educational background in history and a law degree from George Washington University, Niki began her career clerking for a criminal judge. From the beginning, her law practice failed to be completely satisfying and she had never shaken her lifelong passion for design, art and creating. Then a few years ago she starting planning her wedding to her “camp sweetheart” – they met while both working as counselors at a summer camp nearly a decade ago – and realized how much she loved planning all of the stationery and paper details that they incorporated in their celebration. Along the way, she met the owner of the stationery store that is now Papery & Cakery – one thing led to another and when Niki was offered the opportunity to buy the store she did so. And she never looked back.

These days, Niki loves working with clients to create the stationery of their dreams. Unlike her days in law practice, she’s now inspired by what she does and feels lucky to help people celebrate the special occasions in their lives. Niki shares, “I’m inspired by everything around me. Florida weather is truly amazing. We live near the ocean and walk our golden retriever [and Papery & Cakery mascot], Ray, to the beach almost daily.  I try to carry environmentally friendly vendors, like Smock for all of my clients. I’m a magazine junkie, and get butterflies when Martha Stewart arrives in the mail. There is so much to see on the web, I try to keep up with the blogging world, and keep my blog contemporary and chic.”

We’ve mentioned it before, but in addition to all things paper and letterpress, here at Smock we have a pretty deeply rooted love for yummy treats, too. The Papery & Cakery blog is one of our favorite reads because it celebrates two of our favorite things – stationery and delicious sweets. Each week, Niki’s sister Ali, who was a pastry student when Niki launched Papery & Cakery and is now a freelance baker in New York City, shares her inspired recipes in her Cakery Friday feature. Last week, she showcased her recipe for festive pumpkin spice marshmallows, which Ali and Niki were sweet enough to share here on the Smock blog…

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When we first heard about the Salt City Urban Art & Craft Market, we were excited. Really really excited. And then we learned that the market was taking place right here in Smock’s neighborhood in downtown Syracuse – and that so many of our favorite talented local artisans were participating – and we literally jumped for joy. So if you’re here in Syracuse this weekend on Saturday, October 24 – or even if you’re a short drive away – you can’t miss this.

Salt City Urban Art & Craft Market is going to be an exciting marketplace for local and regional independent artists, designers, and crafters to showcase their work. It’s all about bringing fresh, fun and unique handmade goods to the public. There will be music, door prizes, and some of the area’s most talented artists, designers, crafters, jewelry makers, and artisans. All under one roof. We can’t wait.

We’re completely excited with the depth and variety of vendors participating at Salt City. Some of them are even our favorite designers with studios right here in the same old warehouse turned artist’s haven that Smock calls home! From book binders to stationery lines to fashion designers to potters and blown glass aficionados, there will be something for everyone. It may just be the perfect time to check a friend or two off your holiday gift-giving list!

Above, just a small sampling of what’s in store at Salt City. Fun and adorable organic baby and yoga wear from babybe and we love the beautiful jewelry from after winter. Unique prints and drawings from Anne Slattery | Tilting Press and beautiful hand-bound books from Amaranth Press. The funky, fashionable handbags from Lilipad Creations are a favorite with the ladies here at Smock – we all have at least one! And bright polka-dotted bowls from Luckalilly are definitely on a few holiday wish lists around here. Consider us completely inspired.

If you’re not in the Syracuse area and interested in finding out about cool indie craft fairs in your area, check out Handmade Nation and their listing of indie markets on the Handmade Nation blog – scroll down for a listing of indie craft fairs on the right sidebar. And if you are in Syracuse, make sure you get to Salt City this weekend. With the impressive lineup of inspired artisans who will be exhibiting, you won’t be disappointed.

Finally, the moment you’ve been waiting for breathlessly for weeks – it’s time to wrap up our first ever Smock Design Contest by sharing our first place winner! This absolutely stunning customization, brought to us by our friends at Real Card Company in Seattle, was the clear favorite, taking our ever-popular Rhon letterpress wedding invitation design and completely reinventing it into something extraordinarily special. We loved it before we even printed it and seeing is believing – the end result is truly beautiful! It was a real favorite of Smock’s Creative Director, Amy Graham Stigler. From the soft romantic colors, pewter and wisteria, to the asymmetrical layout featuring a unique variation of the Rhon floral motif and horizontal orientation, Amy loved how this design was truly personalized to make a one of a kind creation.

Letterpress printed in soft wisteria and pewter inks, this invitation also features chic patterned backing in our rowe pattern in pewter.

While the letterpress invitation itself was printed in 2-color letterpress, the reply card was letterpress printed in 1-color in pewter ink. We love the play between colors and patterns in this incredible set – it’s both elegant and formal, but still fun and just a touch modern. A huge thank you to Real Card Company for collaborating with us on this incredible customization and congratulations on winning the first Smock Design Contest!

For more fabulous customizations of Smock’s letterpress wedding invitations, check out the rest of the honorees in our Smock Design Contest for incredible inspiration!

Brought to us by our friends at Alphagraphics in Chicago, the first runner-up in our Smock Design Contest is this truly customized letterpress social note in our Lashar design. It features fabulous edge painting, pattern backing and a gorgeous lined envelope for a look that is totally luxe and completely personalized. Letterpress printed in red and pool inks, the card itself showcases gorgeous red patterned backing in our champlain pattern. It’s edge painted in espresso and then paired with an envelope lined in our payette pattern in espresso ink. This is truly a piece where every detail was considered – the front of the card even features beautiful hand calligraphy in red ink. Smock’s Creative Director, Amy Graham Stigler, fell in love with this customization for it’s unique play between pattern and color. We’d love to be the recipients of one of these amazingly beautiful letterpress correspondence cards!

Thank you to Alphagraphics for sending us such a truly unique creation!

The second runner-up in our Smock Design Contest is this inspired Rhon customization, a beautiful suite of pieces in tangerine and taupe, from The Write Image in Salt Lake City. Smock’s Creative Director, Amy Graham Stigler, fell in love with the sophisticated color palette and the use of our beautiful Smock Spencerian calligraphy font. With the leaves changing rapidly in Upstate NY, we think it’s the perfect letterpress invitation set for a charming fall wedding.

The letterpress reply cards feature 1-color letterpress, printed in taupe. Not only is it really chic, but it’s also a great option for keeping letterpress more affordable. We always suggest this as a great way to save money without losing a bit of style.

And we all know that nothing says “thank you” quite like customized letterpress thank you cards to coordinate with your letterpress invitations. These letterpress thank you notes are especially beautiful and definitely among our recent favorites to print. (See more of our favorite letterpress thank you cards.)

Thank you so much to our friends at The Write Image for sending us this beautiful letterpress customization! We’re winding down on revealing the winners of our Smock design contest so stay tuned – the last two honorees are absolutely incredible customizations!