Last year we held our first ever Sidewalk Sale, and the event was a huge success! This year, we’re planning another Sidewalk Sale with even more product offerings, more food trucks, ice cream from Gannon’s Ice Cream, letterpress printing demonstrations, and even a paper airplane golf course! Event attendees can enter to win a $100 Smock gift card, and we’ll be donating $5 to Onondaga Earth Corps for every person who completes our paper airplane course. Be sure to RSVP to the Sidewalk Sale on Facebook!

Many thanks to the following local vendors for partnering with us for the 2014 Sidewalk Sale: Street Eats, Ladybug Lunchbox, Smoke Inc., PB&J’s Lunchbox, Recess Coffee, Cafe Kubal, and Gannon’s Ice Cream!

*In the event of rain, the Sidewalk Sale will be moved inside to the Delavan Center Art Gallery – enter at the 501 entrance!

We’re looking for three letterpress paper airplane designs for attendees of our upcoming Sidewalk Sale to print. If your design is chosen you will receive a $50 gift certificate at Smock…plus a stack of letterpress printed paper airplanes ready to fold and fly. Take a look at the attached template and design something special for us to print over top.

After printing these at our Sidewalk Sale (which takes place on August 13 and 14, 2014, by the way), attendees will fly your design around a paper airplane golf course inside our printshop. We’re donating $5 to Onondaga Earth Corps for every aircraft that completes the course—so your design can also help us green the city.

That’s it! We can’t wait to see your entries. Please be in touch if you have any questions at all!

Here’s the fine print:

• Use this template as a starting point for your design. The final size will be an 8.5×11 printed sheet.
• The design should be appropriate for 1 color letterpress printing and single sided. You are designing the printing on the outside of the plane, which will print over the template artwork.
• Don’t have graphic design software? That’s ok! Just draw or print something with a single color on an 8.5×11 sheet of paper and send it to us.
• Your design must be received by Thursday, August 7 at midnight ET. Email your design to press@smockpaper.com or mail your design to us at 509 West Fayette Street, Studio 135 Syracuse, NY 13204.

We’ll announce the winners on Monday, August 11.

We recently introduced lots of new products at the National Stationery Show, and some of our favorite new items were made with brides (and grooms!) in mind! Our new Everyday Wedding Essentials are a great supplement to our custom wedding invitations – we’re  now offering blank and numbered foil stamped table cards in silver and gold foil, as well as escort cards, coasters, congratulatory cards and wedding thank you notes. Our numbered table cards are available in sets of 1-10 and 11-20, and our blank table numbers are ideal if you’re having a very large wedding with lots of tables or if you’d prefer to have your calligrapher hand write each number to match your escort cards and place cards, invitation envelopes, and anything else you might be having calligraphed. Our blank table cards work well for menus and other wedding signage, too!

Rainier blank table cards + Rainier escort cards 

Dots blank table cards + Dots escort card

Numbered Dots table cards 

We worked with Fresh Ink to create these chic letterpress engagement party invitations for Carter and Wilson. Their die-cut invitations featured our Halifax invitation design in midnight ink, and our Plaza calligraphy font added a sophisticated touch. The couple introduced a second color and customized the invitation design by adding a marav patterned envelope liner and a croft patterned backing in our flax ink. The final result? Perfect for a fall engagement party.

letterpress ink: midnight | offset back patterning: croft pattern in flax ink | fonts: smock plaza + wallis | paper: 2-ply white | sizes: S-8SQ | die cut: belmont | envelope liner: marav pattern in flax ink | customization #: 19869 | Fresh Ink

These pretty rose gold wedding invitations draw on design elements from our classic Everest and Altar invitation suites. The invitations feature our Chesapeake die-cut shape and a custom monogram, while an Altar patterned envelope liner in jute adds a romantic touch. Coordinating reply cards and reception cards printed in jute ink complete the set.

letterpress ink: jute | foil: rose gold shine | fonts: smock plaza + chaplin | paper: 2-ply white | sizes: s-8 for double envelopes + s-5 | die cut: chesapeake | envelope liner: altar pattern in jute ink | customization #: 21382 | JCG Events

We recently had the pleasure of hosting Jessica Garwood, the art director and store manager of Annie P. Paperie in Perth, Australia. Jessica was in New York for the National Stationery Show and flew up to Syracuse for an afternoon to tour our studio. Today we’re sharing a tour of the Annie P. Paperie boutique and a little Q&A with Jessica – take a look!

Annie P. Paperie began its life 30 years ago as an art supply store. Then in 2002 the owner, Bob Poolman, decided to change everything and create a design stationery boutique, including designing our own range of papers. Today our main passion is working with our clients to design and print their ideal invitations and being able to offer Smock and Bella Figura’s wonderful range of letterpress and foil invitations gives us great joy! We love to source unique products from around the world so that our customers in Perth have access to the best of the best.

What do you love most about your job? What’s the most challenging part? I love coming to work in a creative environment every day, being surrounded by beautiful things and all of the great friends I’ve made since I started working at Annie P. Paperie. Most challenging is probably the drive to and from work – especially with the amount of road works we have in Perth at the moment!

Does your shop support any special causes? Yes, we love to support local causes when we can! This includes donations of products and children’s birthday party workshops for fundraising events and providing boxes of our paper offcuts to nearby schools. Every year we also support the annual Variety WA Kids Christmas Party, which brings joy to sick, disadvantaged and special needs children at Christmas time.

Hottest color palette right now? Navy, blush and gold

Name your top 5 prized possessions:  1. My cocker spaniel, Jack  2. Having Begun I Had To Go On – a screen print by Australian artist, James Jirat Patradoon 3. A collection of ceramic sugar skulls from Mexico 4. Photos of my family and friends. For the past 2 years I have been taking a photo a day and uploading it on Instagram. It’s great to reflect back on those memories. 5. My oblique pen holder and nibs. I started learning calligraphy last year and it has opened up a whole new world for me.

If someone is visiting your shop, what are the other essential stops in your neighborhood? Hire Society – just over the road – is a mecca for everything you would want to hire for an event or party. Typika – our favourite local café to visit for breakfast or lunch. It serves up delicious food and has a great atmosphere. Martineau’s Patisserie – our go to when we need a sweet treat. They have the best French pastries. Corner Store – a great selection of fun vintage homewares and gifts. Touched by Angels – amazing wedding stylists.

Many thanks to Jessica for giving us a peek inside Annie P. Paperie!

Wrap gifts or create festive 4th of July decor with several of our new gift wrap styles! We created a stacked set of red, white & blue gifts using the starry gold & white side of our new Golden Tree wrap, the red striped side of our Berries wrap, and the bright blue patterned side of our Breakers wrap. To finish it off we fashioned a festive firework-inspired gift topper by curling strips of our Chatham and Breakers wraps (just cut strips and use scissors to curl like curling ribbon!).

Aren’t these letterpress social notes from Menage Fine Stationery pretty? We printed these flat social notes in classic black ink and created a pretty black and white envelope liner in our grand champlain pattern to match.

letterpress ink: black | font: submitted | paper: 1-ply white  bamboo | printing: letterpress | sizes: S-5SQ | envelope liner: grand champlain pattern in black | customization #: 20358 | Menage Fine Stationery & Gifts 

These elegant ombre Bat Mitzvah invitations are a must have if you’re looking for a wow-worthy invitation design. Our Amira customization features digital printing and a cool ombre effect, with gold matte foil stamping and a vibrant patterned envelope liner in varying shades of orange to match. We’d bring in fun golden touches — like a glittery golden photobooth backdrop and cake pop tassels — and lots of colorful pink & orange decor to an Amira-inspired party.

Photo credits: Cake, cake pops + flowers / Gold backdrop  

We created these custom photo save the dates for Kristin & Diego’s Palm Beach wedding using one of our newest printing methods – digital printing! Digital printing makes it possible to print photos  and lots of colors on our luxurious bamboo paper, but you can also create a monochromatic look with the occasional pop of color, too.

digital inks: black + gold | fonts: jules + brecht | paper: 1-ply white bamboo | printing: digital | size: S-6SQ | customization #: 20439 | Stationer on Sunrise