You may have noticed that the beautiful boxes, gift wraps, notebooks, and pre-printed cards are missing from our website. Sadly, we made the decision to discontinue the Everyday line as of December 31, 2017. The main reason was declining sales due to a tough retail market, but we are also changing to better support Smock Custom printing and Bella Figura printing. Our custom printing is growing and we want to give it more focus.
Thankfully, there are many other talented stationers making awesome paper goods. You might want to check out:
Thanks again for your support over the years and let us know if you have any questions. Also, please think of Smock Custom for your wedding invitations, bar and bat mitzvah announcements, and holiday card printing.
If you want to know the extent of letterpress potential, just ask Ailbhe at Pretty as a Picture. Not only do our dear friends from Ireland consistently send us amazing work, but this set was for Ailbhe’s own wedding! With a hand-drawn map and coat of arms that Ailbhe created herself along with hand calligraphy by Sarah Hanna, plus the combination of letterpress and offset printing with foil stamping, this will forever be one of our all-time favorite invitations. Congrats again, Ailbhe!
inks: taupe + seamist + gold shine foil | fonts: garamond | calligraphy: custom by Sarah Hanna | paper: 2-ply ivory | printing: letterpress + offset + foil | submitted artwork from Ailbhe Ryan| invite size: S7 | folio: offset + letterpress in seamist + taupe | customization #: 12824 |
For the last week, we’ve been posting the honorable mentions for the Smock Design Contest. Now we’re down to the final three! Our good friend Nole at Oh So Beautiful Paper chose our winners for this competition, and selected Alphagraphics Lyric Opera Invitation as the 3rd place winner. Here’s what Nole had to say about the design: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a corporate invitation that was so pretty! I love the patterns, the font selections, and the fold out layout. Gorgeous.”
Nole, we couldn’t agree more! It’s not often we get to print letterpress invitations for galas, concerts, or charitable events, so when we do, we tend to get pretty excited. This espresso and gold invitation to the Lyric Opera’s Charitable Subscriber Concert and Dinner was extraordinary! It was, indeed, a ticketed concert (which explains the use of the pocketfold), and the invitation invited 100 of the Opera’s premier patrons to dinner and a concert.
To the untrained eye, this striped, monogrammed pocketfold invitation looks beautiful and classy. For those who spend a lot of time at Chicago’s Civic Opera House, they’ll notice graphic elements that remind them of the gilded gold walls and ceilings of that very building. When designing the invitation, Amy at Alphagraphics used the opera’s Art Deco elements and color scheme as her guide. She created an invitation that was reminiscent of the old stately edifice, glamorous in its timelessness.
Her work was well appreciated by all! Both the Lyric Opera and the event’s attendees thought the invitation was a fantastic bidding to a wonderful evening of music and feasting. Bravo Amy, Bravo!
Congratulations again to Alphagraphics for taking 3rd place in our design contest. This twice-a-year competition recognizes outstanding and inspired designs submitted by our beloved dealers.
Stop on by our booth at the New York International Gift Fair for an explosion of color August 13th to 18th. You can go home with beautiful Smock buttons or a DIY pinwheel kit, both made from our signature gift wrap. You will also witness our new letterpress and offset cards for September 2011—available NOWHERE else…yet! Careful the ink may still be wet on these ones. We hope to see you at booth #4162 at the Jacob Javits center during the show. 
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 //
Smock’s designer Amy Graham Stigler is guest blogging on Design Mom this week about how to host kid-friendly dinner parties. Lots of smart, practical inspiration and advice. Check out some general tips, how to set the stage, the food, and the food and drinks. Also check out a a sweet post Design Mom did on Smock a few months ago, featuring some of our letterpress social stationery and letterpress fill-in invitations too. Enjoy! And then go out and host a dinner party of your own!
This is a vibrantly cool variation of our Cavall letterpress wedding invitation design — and it really showcases how back printing & envelope lining can make an invitation unforgettable. This invitation is for a Valentine’s Day wedding, so the mix of a peacock blue-green ink for the invitation, and raspberry ink for the envelope liner and backing, seemed perfect to us. We love the elegant energy of the patterns at play too (the Seneca pattern for the liner — one of our most popular patterns right now — and the Ledon pattern for the backing). We just couldn’t stop looking at this set! This invitation was sent to us by No Regrets in Newton, Massachusetts.
Nothing can beat this Nevis save the date design in a rich black letterpress ink, paired with cool patternings at play. It’s modern and elegant and just really, really cool. The Nevis has been one of our hot letterpress invitation designs for the season so far. Sent to us by our friends at Peabody Papers in Columbus, Ohio.
Wordshop, one of our favorite stationery stores in Denver, was recently named one of the 20 Best New Boutiques by 5280.com (Colorado’s largest and award-winning magazine). We were thrilled to see Smock mentioned as well. Hooray! 5280.com writes that they love to visit Wordshop because of the “separate outdoor nook, complete with vintage desks and a writing bar, where we can site with a latte, our thoughts, and a pen and paper.” That sounds so addictive and lovely!
MY NANA. Who is 99. And lovely. And fading. And a huge inspiration (for her artistic nature, her attention to detail, her love of beauty). Here she is when she was a touch younger. Just a touch. This is how I will always remember her.
