It’s a bit ironic that we have sun and summer on the brain today given the blinding snow currently falling over Central New York, but our dreams of sunshine can’t be deterred – we can’t wait for spring to get here! This time of year we start to get a lot of inquiries about invitation designs particularly well-suited to waterfront, beach or destination weddings so we thought we’d dig up some of our favorites from last year to share with you. There’s nothing like the promise of warm summer breezes to get you inspired, snow or no snow.

This first invitation is our Lashar design printed in pewter ink using our Smock Spencerian calligraphy font. The back of the letterpress invitation features gorgeous patterned backing printed in sea mist in our lesina pattern.

This invitation was a beautiful custom version of our Haddington design, printed in espresso ink and blind deboss. The palm tree motif was a custom addition to the design, making it perfect for an elegant destination wedding.

Brought to us by our friends at Peabody Papers in Columbus, Ohio, this version of our popular Vettore design was printed in midnight and seamist inks. The flourishes from the Vettore design were modified in such a way that they remind us of water and waves without being literal.

This custom version of our Engadine design was printed for the folks at Luxe Expressions in Atlanta. It’s a letterpress reply postcard printed in midnight and seamist that features pretty ocean-themed motifs. The card also includes space for guests to reply to multiple weekend events, which is a great option when designing your stationery for a destination wedding.

We’ve had the opportunity lately to print a lot of beautiful letterpress programs, tiny little books detailing order of events, wedding party members, and more. We love the personalized touch that letterpress programs bring to a celebration and can’t wait to print more.

This gorgeous letterpress program is our Lashar design with hand calligraphy accents printed in blind deboss and garden ink, printed for clients of our friends at Paper & Chocolate in Dallas. The inside pages are flat offset printed on our text weight bamboo paper.

A customization of our Vettore design, we printed this letterpress program cover in periwinkle and pewter inks for Paperwhirl in San Francisco.

This pocket-sized letterpress program was printed for Deborah of RSVP Today in Manhattan. The letterpress cover features the motif from our Rousseau pattern with flat offset printed pages. The cover and the pages are hole punched so they can be tied with ribbon.

This program was printed for the folks at Michelle’s Memos in Potomac, Maryland and features our Smock Spencerian calligraphy font. Both the covers and the insert pages are letterpress printed on our luxury bamboo paper for a beautiful stand-out program guests are sure not to leave behind.

This letterpress save the date is one of our favorites of the 2010 wedding season so far, featuring a pretty floral motif from our Social Occasions album and boasting our Smock Spencerian calligraphy font. Printed in navy ink paired with blind deboss, we printed this customization for our friends at Judy Paulen Designs at Bloomingdale’s in New York. It’s incredibly chic and effortlessly elegant, two qualities we happen to love in letterpress save the dates.

We printed these charming little letterpress escort cards for Write For You in Washington, DC. They’re a customization of our Rhon letterpress invitation design, printed in spring and pewter inks featuring our Smock Spencerian calligraphy font and corner rounding.

Brought to us by The Write Image in Rockville, Maryland, we love this letterpress wedding invitation set. The letterpress invitation itself is printed in 2-color letterpress in pearl and black inks and showcases a customization of our Vettore motif using a portrait orientation. The reply card and letterpress rehearsal dinner invitation are printed in 1-color letterpress in black ink, a really great way of keeping letterpress affordable without sacrificing style or elegance.

Since launching our Social Occasions album this past spring, we’ve had the opportunity to create some fabulous custom letterpress invitations for clients worldwide and it has been such a pleasure. These letterpress invitations were printed for a 40th birthday party and feature a lantern motif printed in black and gold inks. We love these elegant letterpress invitations, which were printed for an evening cocktail celebration for an international client. Talk about a fabulous way to ring in your 40th birthday!

It’s getting to be save the date season here at Smock as couples prepare for their upcoming 2010 weddings, so we wanted to share this sweet letterpress save the date. It is our Nevis design printed in pewter ink with corner rounding, brought to us by the folks at Fancy That in New York City. New for 2010, Smock is offering free letterpress save the dates when you order a suite of wedding invitations with outer envelopes and a reply set. Ask your local Smock dealer for details!

A while back we featured Cydney’s first birthday party and today we wanted to share a few more photos of the custom letterpress birthday party invitations we created with Debra Saba of Luxe Expressions for Cydney’s party. The invitation itself was a 2-color letterpress card printed in custom shades of fuchsia and navy with pretty fuchsia edge painting. It featured custom patterned backing paired with a matching envelope liner and came enclosed with a 1-color letterpress directions card. We love this invitation set!

With the holidays soon to be upon us, we’ve been feeling the holiday cheer here at Smock for a while now as we print lots of pretty custom letterpress holiday cards. We’re pretty firm believers that nothing says “happy holidays!” quite like beautiful letterpress cards. We think you’ll agree!

This letterpress holiday card, designed to accommodate a holiday photo, is a customization of our Cindrel letterpress wedding invitation printed for the folks of By Invitation Only in Little Rock, Arkansas. It is printed in red ink and blind deboss, featuring corner rounding and custom hand calligraphy accents.

Another customization of one of our letterpress wedding invitations, this holiday card is our Vettore design printed in red ink.  The envelope liner is our seneca pattern, printed in pewter ink and the design again features that special extra touch of beautiful hand calligraphy. This customization was brought to us by Ecru Modern Stationer in Portland, Oregon.

Another letterpress card designed to include a photo, this darling letterpress holiday card is a custom creation from our friends at Cotton Idea Studio in Newport Beach, California, featuring red ink and a cute little border pulled from a design in our Everyday letterpress collection.

We adore this unique letterpress card, which serves double duty as both a charming holiday greeting and a moving announcement. Such a fabulous idea! Brought to us by Kelley at Houston Invitation Service, it’s printed in red ink on our citron green bamboo paper from our new Social Occasions album.

As the holidays draw near, the team here at Smock is feeling our holiday spirit grow by the day. How are you saying “happy holidays” this holiday season? We’d love to know what you do to make the season merry and bright!

When Smock’s Master Calligraphy, Debi Zeinert of The Blooming Quill, welcomed a new granddaughter this summer, we were positively thrilled for her and her family. It was a true honor and a pleasure for us to print these beautiful custom letterpress baby announcements to welcome baby Natalia into the world. Perfect for welcoming a little baby girl, this customization was based on our pink Lamby greeting card and features lovely hand calligraphy on the inside from Debi herself. The baby lamb motif featured on this card is available through our new Social Occasions album, released earlier this year, so you can mix and match motifs, colors, patterns, and fonts to create the perfect baby announcement or social stationery to celebrate any occasion. This letterpress baby announcement was such a joy to print – we look forward to printing many more!