We’re so excited to introduce our newest card in the “Change the World” letterpress card series, where we donate 100% of profits to a critical environmental issue. The second card in our series is called Fracking, and will benefit Earthworks. The cards also come with an anti-fracking tattoo!
Here’s the problem: In the U.S., we’re drilling around 2,000 new oil and gas wells per month. 90% of these new wells use a process called “hydraulic fracturing”, also known as fracking. To get the natural gas out of the ground, fracking requires 3-15 million gallons of water plus a lot of chemicals. Rarely do we know what these chemicals are; the oil and gas industry is exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Superfund law. A large percentage of this chemical laced water remains in the crevices of the earth, soaking into the ground, and threatening our clean water supply.
Is there a realistic solution? Fracking is scary, but it’s only part of the problem – change needs to happen. Earthworks’ Oil & Gas Accountability Project is working to reform the entire oil and gas industry. Earthworks believes that corporations should be allowed to extract and process mineral fuels only if they can do so without harming human health or contaminating the air, water, and soil, with an eye on impacts at all levels: local, regional, and global. This means achieving the following goals:
- No water pollution: protect public health, the environment, and the climate from toxic, hazardous, and carcinogenic chemicals used in the extraction of fossil fuel energy resources;
- Low emissions: protect public health, the environment, and the climate from pollutants emitted during the drilling and ongoing production of energy resources;
- No-Go Zones: protect sacred areas, fragile ecosystems, neighborhoods, drinking watersheds and densely populated areas targeted for energy development;
- Landowner or Community Consent: continue to develop and then implement laws and policies ensuring that landowners have essential co-equal rights to negotiate with, and to say ‘no’ to, energy development.
Take action now:
- Contact your legislators and ask them to protect our clean air and clean water from fracking by supporting the FRAC Act. The FRAC Act would close the “Halliburton loophole” in the Safe Drinking Water Act that allows drillers to inject hazardous materials — unchecked — directly into underground drinking water supplies.
- Get informed: learn more at Earthworks.
- Make a contribution: help Earthworks continue the good fight by making a donation. If you follow this link, you can get your very own “Gas and Water Don’t Mix” temporary tattoos (created & designed by Smock!) when you make a contribution to Earthworks (while supplies last).
- Join the conversation on our tumblr blog: In collaboration with Earthworks, we’ve created a tumblr blog called Gas and Water Don’t Mix (gas-and-water-dont-mix.tumblr.com), a place where those who care about fracking can build a communal voice around the issue. Concerned citizens can go on and add a photo of themselves in a place they love, and include a few sentences about why they are freaked out by fracking. We’re encouraging everyone to don the Gas and Water Don’t Mix temporary tattoo in solidarity of the issue on the blog.
We’ve been hard at work here at Smock dreaming up beautiful new letterpress stationery goods for our biggest release of the year, and we can’t wait for you to see everything that’s new! We’ve got lots of notebooks (including classy new spiral notebooks!), calendars, new man-friendly stationery, double-sided gift wrap, fabulous keepsake boxes, shiny foil stamped occasion cards, handy notepads, and lots, lots more. Hurry over & see all the gorgeous new stuff today!
We’re all for making an invitation suite all your own – and truly having fun when choosing customizations that reflect your personality. Our pewter and yolk inks shine in this cutting-edge letterpress Palmer suite – and we just can’t get enough of the fun embellishments seen throughout this set. We love that our plymouth die cut shape is carried through on the reply card, website card and accommodation cards. This peppy and colorful suite makes it difficult to shake the good vibes we’re feeling. We’re in the midst of the summer wedding season – and are excited to showcase a set with its own sense of style. Not to mention this invitation includes even more glam with a folio printed on both the interior and exterior – in very ultramodern patterns. The letterpress belly band in our ness pattern makes the perfect touch with a beautiful textured look. We’d like to give a HUGE thank you to our friend Enisha at The Dandelion Patch in Vienna, Virignia for sending us this imaginative customization!
inks: pewter + yolk | fonts: percy + louise | paper: 1-ply white | printing: letterpress | die cut: plymouth | folio exterior: hoveton pattern in yolk | folio interior: pearl pattern in silver | edge paint: yolk | liner: the ness pattern in silver | letterpress belly band |invite size: s7
This beautiful, and hardly “simple” custom design paired with a custom neon pink ink made one of the more dynamic letterpress sleeves we’ve seen yet. This was one of those letterpress invitation sets that got passed around from hand to hand, met by a series of “oohs” and “aahs.” Thanks so much to Simply Put by Ashley Woodman for all their hard work!
ink: navy + custom neon | fonts: custom submitted | paper: 2-ply white | printing: letterpress | letterpress sleeve, custom artwork | invitation size: s-7 seeve |
It’s easy to get swept away in these beautiful and delicate letterpress save the dates. These beauties were submitted to us by our great friend, Nancy at Epitome Papers in Edina, Minnesota. We think you’ll agree that these save the dates are current and look absolutely fabulous printed in three ink colors. The oversized textured starfish is the perfect motif for a seaside wedding in Key Largo, Florida. These save the dates are whimsical in their own right – while still being playful and chic. The seahorse pattern envelope liner really makes a bold statement of what guests can expect as far as wedding atmosphere. We can just close our eyes and feel the warmth of the golden sunshine and the white sandy beaches!
inks: spring + slate + inkless blind deboss | font: smock harrison | paper: 2-ply white bamboo | printing: letterpress | edge painting in spring | back patterning: gala in spring |liner: the seahorse pattern in slate | invite size: S8SQ
Dawson has proven to be one of our most popular letterpress wedding suites and with just the right nudge from Paper on the Avenue, the inks and patterns selected made this invitation set really sharp! Standing out is a beautiful lime folio with a custom monogram incorporated on the cover. Great work by Megan; we look forward to seeing what comes next!
inks: lime + taupe | fonts: carrington + cecilia | paper: 1-ply white | printing: letterpress + offset | | offset folio with monogram custom pattern folio |
Our good friend, Shelby at Seaside Papery in Coronado, California submitted this lovely Burstell letterpress wedding suite for printing. Talk about being pretty in pink with the most beautiful feminine touches! We are totally smitten with the perfect pocketfold – offset printed on both the interior and exterior. The taupe ink is such a soft, neutral tone- and when you pair this with a light shade of pink this set looks all the more delicate and truly picturesque.
inks: taupe + pms 176u| fonts: smock harrison + inigo | paper: 1-ply white | printing: letterpress |folio exterior: champlain pattern in taupe | folio interior: sherbrooke pattern in pms 176u | invite size: 5.125 x 7.75
It’s time again for us to extend our endless thanks to the wonderful editors and bloggers out there for featuring Smock in their fantastic publications this spring! Smock’s double-sided gift wrap, letterpress wedding invitations, jotters and more have been spotted in some amazing places lately.
First up, Brides magazine featured letterpress wedding invitations from our custom line in their April and May issues — a pretty customization of our Hekla invitation was featured alongside some of our signature envelope liners (based on our gift wrap!) and feature fun chevron stripes in a pretty purple hue. In May, our Tallmossen invitations were featured (also seen with signature envelope liners!) in a gorgeous round-up of wedding elements with Mediterranean charm.
Next up, an absolutely adorable DIY from the June issue of Woman’s Day magazine. Woman’s Day did a “Berry Pretty!” project with our Pollen, Sorbet, and Pearl double-sided gift wrap –aren’t those containers fantastic?!
Stationery Trends magazine did an extensive (and fabulous) feature of our creative director Amy Graham Stigler, showcasing her for their “Designer Profile” in the 2012 winter edition.
Celebrate magazine did an amazing round-up of nautical party-picks in their May/June issue, so we were thrilled to see our cheery Breakers gift wrap featured in such fun company!
Victoria Magazine also featured a fun assortment of vibrant, floral inspired stationery and included our Fete and Veranda jotters along with our Picadilly notebook.
We’d also love to extend a huge “thanks” to the following websites and blogs that have featured Smock over the past few months: Real Simple, Oh So Beautiful Paper (times 2!), Once Wed, Papercrave, Style Me Pretty, Green Wedding Shoes, Eco-beautiful Weddings, Young House Love, Discover Paper, EcoChicDesign, The Stationery Place, Curating Style, Simply Modern Weddings, Wedding Row Charlotte and the Washingtonian!
It’s official: foil stamping has arrived at Smock! Today we’re sharing a special sneak peek of the letterpress invitations we printed for the 2012 National Stationery Show, and we think you’ll love the new additions we’re bringing to the line. We’re adding two gorgeous new fonts to our collection of exclusive Smock calligraphy fonts, and these invitations feature both of those new fonts! Plaza is an elegant, formal script based on Sarah Hanna‘s calligraphy, and Stella (based on a Kelle McCarter hand) has a more playful, whimsical feel. The invitations are just a hint at what’s new: besides foil stamping and new calligraphy fonts, we’re also introducing four inspired new wedding suites, 12 dazzling colors for foil stamping, 100% recycled coasters, and lots of cool new products for our Everyday line (including 6 new styles of double-sided gift wrap, new notebook styles, more man-friendly stationery, and much, much more!). A special thanks to master calligrapher Debi Zeinert from The Blooming Quill for addressing the invitation envelopes – aren’t they gorgeous!? 
Foil stamping will be available at Smock dealers in early June, so stay tuned!
Mother’s Day is May 13 and quickly approaching, so make sure you’re ready with a nice letterpress card and a sweet gift for mom! Cheery stationery goods in bright colors and patterns are sure to be a hit, but she’ll be even more impressed when you wrap it up beautifully with some of our eco-friendly, double-sided gift wrap (here’s a hint: you can use one side to wrap the gift and use the other like ribbon)! We’ve picked out a few of our favorite gifts for mom, but be sure to take a look at all of our new letterpress stationery goods to find the perfect gift today! And if your mom has a green thumb, be sure to check out our sustainable Sunflower cards (pictured below) — 100% of profits help the Pesticide Action Network, and the cards come with organic sunflower seeds that can be planted in her garden!
1. Botanical Thanks boxed letterpress cards $14 for 6 | 2. Mother’s Day Flower Burst letterpress card $4 | 3. Ness notebook $9 | 4. Pearl Jotters $6 for 2 | 5. Queen for a Day letterpress card $4 | 6. Flower Burst letterpress scratchpad $7 | 7. Pearl boxes: small $6; medium $12; large $18 | 8. Park boxed offset notes $12 for 8 | 9. Picadilly notebook $9 | 10. Carri attachments sticky note cube $18 | 11. Mom & Trust letterpress card $4 | 12. Sunflower boxed letterpress cards $14 (100% of profits help save the honey bees!)