We were thrilled to learn that the Amazon Conservation Association, one of the environmental groups that Smock supports, has started encouraging couples to bypass traditional wedding favors at their receptions and go eco instead. Instead of candied almonds, personalized mix CDs or other traditional less-green “keepsakes” for your guests, why not help save the Amazon rainforests (and help slow global warming) instead? For a $5 donation per guest, you can thank your loved ones with a contribution to help protect the Amazon. Couples will receive one beautiful favor card per two guests, sustainably letterpressed on our bamboo paper, to display on tables at their reception explaining how your donation has helped create a better livelihood for local communities and to help conserve the biological diversity of the Amazon basin. Because Smock wants to support the good work that ACA is doing, we donated the design and letterpress printing of the favor cards, which are based on our Engadine letterpress wedding invitations. Smock will gladly personalize these favor cards for free for those couples who have chosen Smock for their letterpress wedding invitations.
The Amazon rainforest is home to 30% of the plant and animal species on Earth and additionally, 20% of all fresh water on the planet flows through the basin’s rivers. Recognizing the importance of the Amazon rainforest to the greater ecological systems of the world as a source of countless foods, fibers and potential new medicines, the ACA works to protect these invaluable forests as they are facing increasing threats from slash and burn agriculture, wildlife poaching, mining, illegal logging, oil prospecting, and large development projects. Rainforests are also a vital force in shaping the world’s weather and climate patterns with the UN citing that 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions are related to tropical deforestation. It is estimated that at current rates, more than half of the Amazon rainforest may be destroyed or severely damaged by 2030. ACA is working together with local communities and partner organizations throughout the region to protect these precious forests.
How does your tax deductible donation help?
Your $25 donation can:
- Help a Brazil nut harvester achieve organic certification
- Plant 50 trees in a highland Andean community
Your $50 donation can:
- Help a community build a tree nursery for reforestation projects
- Help a Brazil nut harvester get legal title to the land they manage
- Sponsor an environmental education program for Peruvian schoolchildren
Your $150 donation can:
- Help protect the habitat of the giant river otter
- Support research on sustainable forest products such as natural dyes
- Fund a field expedition to study the Bolivian pampas
- Outfit a park ranger on the front lines of Amazonian conservation
Your $500 donation can:
- Train the next generation of Amazonian scientists: sponsor a Peruvian student’s research at one of our field stations
- Support clean power for Amazonian science: buy a solar panel to boost power at the Amazon’s most active research station
- Track long-term trends in Amazonian animal communities: support a month of surveys in the Los Amigos Conservation Concession
Your $1,000 donation can:
- Protect forest habitat for jaguars
- Help an indigenous community preserve its ancestral lands
- Buy a laptop for the Amazon’s most active research station, providing a young Peruvian researcher access to the Internet and online scientific literature
- Strengthen the front lines of Amazonian conservation: provide two months of salary and benefits for a park ranger at the Los Amigos Conservation Concession
You can learn more about the ACA’s environmental partners on their website and for more information about wedding favor donations and receiving your own letterpress favor cards through the ACA and Smock, contact Gena at info@amazonconservation.org.
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.
We’ve been fans of the Nest for awhile — they’re a great nonprofit who gives micro-credit loans to women artists in developing countries, and they’re funded by products sold on their web site. And we love to donate our letterpress printing and design to causes we believe in. So we were thrilled to design and print (pro bono) these lovely letterpress cards, to help the Nest with their donation campaign (the design is based on one of our new letterpress greeting cards).
The Nest very sweetly sent us these cool travel mugs – one for every person in our print shop. The red color makes up so happy while sipping our herbal tea (or, okay, we sip coffee in them too).
Read about another pro bono letterpress printing project that we donated to the Amazon Conservation Fund. And learn more about the Nest and the good that they do here.
The Amazon Conversation Association is one amazing environmental nonprofit that we support through 1% for the Planet (we donate 1% of sales to the ACA and the Pesticide Action Network) — but we are also so excited to support the Amazon Conservation Association by printing pro bono these letterpress cards for them this year. Letterpressed on bamboo paper of course….the sweet illustration is by Susan Cousineau, a Los Amigos Researcher in 2008. 
If you’re still looking for unique holiday gifts that help save the world, go right this minute to Nest (www.buildanest.com). Nest is a nonprofit who gives micro-credit loans to women artists in developing countries, and they’re funded by products sold on their web site. We were excited to learn about Nest for a lot of reasons (inspiration! cool gifts! women helping women!), but also because developing countries are often where drastic environmental mis-uses are occurring, simply because there are not enough economic opportunities other than clear-cutting, etc. On Nest, we’re selling a selection of Smock letterpress note cards, letterpress thank you cards, letterpress gift tags, and 100% post-consumer recycled gift wrap. A percentage of every sale goes to fund the hard and good work that Nest is doing. Nest was recently picked by Oprah as a “Gift that Gives.” Thanks to our new Smock wedding dealer, Debra at Luxe Expressions, for turning us onto this cool organization!
Polka Dot Bride is running a really cool contest with Smock: tell how you’re making your life more green, and you can win some Smock stationery. We love all the ideas people are posting about, but especially using herbs as centerpieces for a wedding or party — cool! Check it out here, and you have one day left to enter too….thanks to Polka Dot Bride for hosting the contest too. What fun!
Receive free gift wrapping (with our 100% post-consumer recycled gift wrap) + a free cute matching gift card with your message handwritten inside. All you need to do is purchase $25 from smockpaper.com and then plant a tree during checkout ($1 donation to American Forests). Smock, by the way, always matches tree donations, so if you plant a tree, we’ll plant a tree too. This promotion begins now and goes until Dec. 25. Here are some autumn photos to get you in the mood, taken at our local neighborhood park one frosty morning when the light was lovely and bright and the trees were all aflame.
Over here at Smock, we believe that environmental letterpress and eco green printing is so much more than simply using recycled paper & soy inks. If a print shop is committed to the environment, its green practices should really affect everything that company does. So we were thrilled when our parent company, Boxcar Press, subsidized a 20-week Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm subscription for employees this year. It was a perfect fit: we got to love local organic farms; love the environment; and care for our letterpress team here too via really, really good vegetables. Tuesday was the last day that these amazing bins of produce got delivered to us from Grindstone Farm in Pulaski, NY and Wyllie Fox Farm in Cato, NY. We all know the growing season in CNY is pretty much over (we had our first snow fall this week too!), but we’re sure going to miss all the veggies. Pictured below is Carrie, our office manager, who helped organize everything. Thanks, Carrie + Grindstone + Wyllie Fox! We can’t wait until summer next year.
One of our Chicago stores, Magnificent Milestones, hosted an Ecouture night recently at their really beautiful West Loop location (partly to announce the arrival of Smock at their store!). We printed the letterpress invitations for the evening on our bamboo paper (they choose the Cavall design). Greg Christian Catering (who specializes in green, local, sustainable and organic cuisine) supplied the food. See more pictures from the night here. Lovely!