We are so excited to kick off another round of the Smock Design Contest! Over the next 10 days, we’ll be honoring some really gorgeous designs that have been sent to us by our Smock retailers. So without further ado, let us begin by showcasing our first honoree!

Joellen and the team at Bennett Schneider, Inc. brought us what may be the perfect color selection for the letterpress wedding Aberdeen suite.

The tangerine ink helps this wedding announcement pop in such a way that it doesn’t overpower the design or distract from the details.  Sometimes all it takes is a little tweak to make a letterpressed card look fantastic, and that is just what they did!

inks: tangerine + black | fonts: Spencerian +  Cooper  | 2-ply ivory | printing: letterpress | liner: payette in tangerine | invite size: S-6

This design won an honorable mention in our Smock design competition for the first half of 2011. This twice-a-year competition recognizes outstanding and inspired designs submitted by our beloved dealers.

Couldn’t make it to the Summer Social at Urbanic? Dying to make your own bundle of fabulous Smock pinwheels? Here’s the how-to!

No great pinwheel is complete without our eco gift wrap – it’s double-sided, so you’ll get bold & beautiful patterns no matter which way you decide to create your masterpiece. Our gift wrap is sustainably printed on 100% post-consumer recycled, FSC-certified paper, so it’s not just pretty, but it’s eco-friendly, too! We’re diggin’ the Sorbet, Pollen and Anchor gift wraps – so perfect for summertime. Pick out your favorite patterns & get crafting today!

Photography – The Why We Love

Inspired by our bright red and purple Picadilly and Flounce eco gift wrap, I created this modern party inspiration shoot for my blog, The Sweetest Occasion. I used a paper punch to create hearts from the gift wrap and then hot glued them to small dowels to form a cute DIY cake topper. Recycled cardboard heart-shaped boxes got a coat of gold spray paint and then were topped with a gift wrap heart. I chose bright purple and red anemones  simply arranged in sleek white vases to pick up on the colors of the gift wrap. DIY twizzle sticks using metallic purple pom poms hot glued to bamboo sticks and a few raspberries tossed in with the champagne bring the whole look together. We love seeing how people put our pretty double-sided gift wrap to use so please share you inspired creations with us!

{Photos by Megan Dailor.}

A couple of months ago we worked with Posh Parties in Jupiter, Florida, one of our awesome Smock dealers, to create a custom box for engage!10 at The Breakers.The boxes were based on our new (and already incredibly popular) Smock gift boxes and created especially for the engage!10 festivities. The event organizers placed cute tags and flowers on each one and packed each box with a scrumptious lunch. We love this idea for a casual picnic wedding or a rehearsal dinner on the beach. Check out our gift box collection in our shop, available now.

While in New York City last week for our Kate’s Paperie events, we took the time to visit many of our favorite Smock retailers! We have lots of photos of our events with Kate’s to share, but first we wanted to share a little glimpse at the rest of our travels across Manhattan and Brooklyn. Our first stop was The Village Invites on 43rd where we spent time chatting with Linda, Adrienne and Jaye. They have the prettiest assortment of great gift wrap and big spools of ribbon that make us dream of wrapping the loveliest of holiday packages.

Being Halloween week, there was no shortage of costumes to be found throughout the city. Here, Lindsy poses with a great Big Bird costume and with a creepy skeleton in our hotel lobby.

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Last week my husband and I had the opportunity to visit our favorite place on earth (New England!) in celebration of our first wedding anniversary. I thought I’d share a few highlights from our trip – including visits to a handful of amazing Smock dealers! We stayed in Portsmouth, New Hampshire at the Ale House Inn, an independent, locally owned and operated hotel with a commitment to sustainability and eco hospitality practices. Residing in a renovated old warehouse (kind of like Smock!) the hotel features gorgeous rooms boasting a blend of urban and vintage decor and the best hotel staff I’ve ever encountered.

Portsmouth itself is an appropriately named port town with an active and bustling port. It was settled in 1630 with many of the original homes still intact today. There is great food with plenty of options for a vegetarian like me and streets lined with local, independent shops.

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For those of you still finishing up last minute shopping, we wanted to take a moment to share some of our favorite gift giving ideas this holiday season. I polled the Smock team for their suggestions for great presents and honestly wish I could be the recipient of all of these incredible gifts! These ideas are sure to please.

Smock’s creative director and designer, Amy Graham Stigler, is in love with upcycled mittens made from old sweaters. (You can visit Simple Up for easy to follow patterns for making your own hat and mittens.)

Smock co-owner Debbie Urbanski recommends Cannellini heirloom beans – these beans are so delicious you’ll never go back to grocery store beans again. In fact, they are so popular, Rancho Gordo was sold out of them for nearly a year!

My personal favorite gift to give this holiday season is a great hand-poured soy candle (or two) from Linnea’s Lights. Not only are the fragrances amazing, but the packaging is simply divine.

Our client coordinator, Lindsy, is a big fan of this pretty embroidered clutch from Free People. It’s a lovely gift for any lady in your life like a sister or a special girlfriend.

Beth Ann, one of our in-house graphic designers, is gifting this great recipe basket from Longaberger this year. This handcrafted basket is the perfect gift for the cooking or baking enthusiast in your life.

This idea is quite near and dear to our hearts – our office manager, Carrie, took old salvaged books and created cool boxes by hollowing them out and lining them in scraps of our eco gift wrap. She’s filling each with fun little goodies for her family and friends.

Working with incredible retailers across the country and internationally is, hands down, the best part about what we do at Smock. They keep us inspired and energized and looking forward to creating imaginative, sustainably printed letterpress for customers worldwide. One store in particular that continues to amaze us is Urbanic Paper Boutique and their fabulous blog Parcel Post, where owner Audrey Woollen routinely feature a glimpse into life at Urbanic and the great paper products they carry. We’re always delighted when Smock products pop up in their weekly Friday at the Shop feature and have found ourselves continually loving the great photos they’ve taken of our 100% post consumer recycled gift wrap.

All of our gift wraps are double-sided, printed with bright festive patterns that coordinate with many of our letterpress greeting cards and letterpress gift tags. Later this week, we’ll be featuring Urbanic in our Smock Store Spotlight feature so be sure to stop back for all the behind the scenes details of one of our favorite paper shops!

{Photos by Urbanic for Parcel Post.}

Featuring beautiful letterpress details by Smock in our Rhon design, calligraphy from our master calligrapher Debi Zeinert, and the beautiful styling of Lemiga Events, this tablescape is undeniably beautiful. Once again sent to us by the lovely Debra Saba of Luxe Expressions, Debra and the other talented professionals of StudioWed in Atlanta pulled together this tablescape design that has us totally inspired. (And the photos, taken by Blue World Studios, are just as beautiful!)

From the amazing linens from I Do Linens, to the adorable place cards poking out of pretty peaches, to the breathtaking flowers from Tulip, the details are so fresh and so pretty. It would make for a beautiful wedding, but would be equally as brilliant for a great anniversary or engagement party. The possibilities are endless!

We are completely charmed by how lovely our Smock letterpress menus and place cards look nestled in among such fabulous details. And how amazing is that cake from Sweet Sensations? Even the fresh lemons and adorable bottles of lemonade are incredibly sweet – we’re so thrilled to have our Smock letterpress included in such an inspiring design!

A big thank you to Debra for all of the incredible inspiration this week – it’s such a pleasure to share it with everyone!

We loved seeing our Rhon letterpress wedding invitation design in pewter and verbena inks pop up in this beautiful inspiration board featured here on The Inspired Bride yesterday. We think this kind of sunshine-filled inspiration is perfect for a vibrant summer affair and we extend a big thank you to Maddy of The Inspired Bride for including Smock! Also, The Inspired Bride is celebrating the launch of their beautiful new site, so be sure to pop over and visit for lots of fabulous ideas sure to inspire.

{Inspiration Board via The Inspired Bride}
Inspiration Board Credits:
Decorated Tent, The Knot
Placecards, Martha Stewart Weddings
Groom’s Tie and Boutonniere, The Knot
Bridesmaid’s Dress, Jenny Yoo
Table Card, The Knot
Planter Decor, The Knot
Cake, Cake Girls
Invitation, Smock
Honey Jar Favor, The Knot