We were inspired by these amazing snowflakes on How About Orange and decided to create our own crafty garland with the pretty paper folds instead of snowflakes! It’s really simple and the end result is stunning, and you’ll only need a few items: paper, scissors, and a glue stick! We used our double-sided, eco-friendly Pageant gift wrap — it’s really cheerful & festive!
Cut 10-15 6 inch squares of your favorite Smock gift wrap. We used Pageant.
Fold each square in half diagonally, then fold it in half diagonally a second time.
Use the scissors to make straight cuts on the triangle, and make sure each cut is evenly spaced apart – we created 5 cuts. Be sure to cut into the folded side of the triangle.
Unfold the paper, then begin assembly by bending the tips of the inner-most sections toward each other. Curl with your fingers to give it shape, then glue the pieces together.
Bend the next set of sections around in the opposite direction until they meet. Overlap the ends and secure with a glue stick. Continue this process until each section is combined.
Begin assembling your garland by gluing the ends of the ornaments to one another. Let dry, hang, and enjoy!
The holidays are right around the corner, so it’s time to start shopping for gifts! At Smock, we’ve got something for everyone — whether it’s pretty letterpress stationery for her, or man-friendly notebooks for him, we’ve got you covered. This is a carefully selected assortment of our best-selling items, so they’re sure to please everyone on your list! We’ve even got some great stocking stuffer ideas — all for under $15!! So stop by your local Smock retailer or visit our website to get started on your holiday shopping today! And don’t forget to stock up on a few rolls of our double-sided, eco-friendly gift wrap for a perfectly coordinated present (and to find out how to make matching bows, visit us on Youtube!).
1. Veranda Medium Keepsake Box $12 | 2. Quadrille Attachments Sticky Note Cube $18 | 3. Pollen Letterpress Scratchpad $7 | 4. Sorbet Letterpress Art Print Calendar $8 | 5. Honeycomb Letterpress Social Notes $14 for a 6 count box | 6. Veranda Notebook $9 | 7. Berry Memo $7 | 8. Cayman Offset Social Notes $12 for an 8 count box | 9. Picadilly Jotters $6 for a 2-pack | 10. Newport Lettersheets $20 for a set of 12
1. Oxford jotters $6 for a 2-pack | 2. Planet Memo $7 | 3. Ridley Lettersheets $20 for a set of 12 | 4. Bicyclette Letterpress Social Notes $14 for a 6 count box | 5. Peacock Letterpress Art Print Calendar $8 | 6. Koi Notebook $9 | 7. Bicyclette Scratchpad $7 | 8. Pembroke Offset Social Notes $12 for an 8 count box | 9. Oxford Medium Keepsake Box $12 | 10. Beetle Attachments Sticky Note Cube $18
1. Peacock Letterpress Scratchpad $7 | 2. Bubbles Letterpress Gift Tags $8 for a 6-pack | 3. Ming Memo $7| 4. Herons Letterpress Social Notes $14 for a 6 count box | 5. Pollen Jotters $6 for a 2-pack | 6. Oxford Letterpress Art Print Calendar $8 | 7. Pollen Letterpress Art Print Calendar $8 | 8. Jade Letterpress Gift Tags $8 for a 6-pack | 9. Crochet Memo $7 | 10. Flowerburst Letterpress Scratchpad $7
With the holiday season underway, we know that there’s going to be lots of gift wrapping in the near future! Add a special touch to your gifts this year with handmade bows — they’re beautiful and will add the perfect personal touch to all of your gifts. (And bonus — they’re really easy to make!)
You can visit us on Youtube to see the instructional video that we put together, which shows you the whole process step-by-step. We’ve also put together this handy set of instructions that you can print out. You’ll need some of our eco gift wrap, scissors, a ruler, and a glue stick or double-sided tape for this project. Happy wrapping!
If you haven’t gotten started on your holiday shopping yet, head over to our sale section for some great gifts for the paper lovers in your life! Sale section items are marked down to 50% off, and if that weren’t reason enough to start shopping, we’re adding a bonus: all proceeds from sale items purchased on Monday, November 28 or Tuesday, November 29 will be donated to Earthworks Oil & Gas Accountability Project to help raise awareness about hydrofracking. Through this project, Earthworks teams up with tribal, urban and rural communities to protect their homes and the environment from the devastating impacts of oil and gas development. Your purchases can make a difference! Need some ideas? We’ve put together some great combinations for gift sets with items straight from our sale section, so check out our picks! We’ve included a wide range, so you’ll find ideas for under $15 or $30. Our sale section has also got some fantastic holiday cards & gift tags, so stock up before they’re gone!
Great Gifts under $15
Perfect for the person who loves to send little notes just because. Pair a box of our Ellie notecards with a box of coordinating petite folded notes — at just $7 per box, give these letterpress cards as a set for a pretty present at just $14.
Know a paper-crazy kid? Introduce them to letterpress with these sweet cards! Petite folds in fun colors with kid-friendly motifs come in sets of 8. At only $7 per box, these would be great little stocking stuffers! Choose from our Ellie, Horsey, Liony and Ducky notes.
Great gifts under $30
Our Thackthwaite attachment is a pretty cube full of sticky notes — 700 of them, to be exact. Attachments from Smock are made from 100% post-consumer recycled paper and they’re FSC certified, so they’re eco-friendly and cute. Snag this deal (marked down to $9!) and pair with a set of blank Thackthwaite notecards for just $21.
Pair some flat social notes with one of our notebooks for another great gift idea under $30 — we love seeing our Horsey flat notes with a Persimmon notebook, a fun combination for only $16.
At just $2 per card, we love the idea of giving a sampling of cards (paired with a lovely keepsake box, like the Veranda box pictured below). Simply choose 10-12 cards from our fabulous selection of designs, package your picks in a small keepsake box, and you’ve got a great present for less than $30. Cards for special occasions such as engagements, birthdays, a new baby or ‘just because’ will have the recipient of this thoughtful gift prepared for the year.
Holiday Cards
Don’t forget about holiday cards! Check out the beautiful holiday cards in our sale section — stock up on our Joy & Peace cards and send stylish letterpress greetings this season. Our Joy petite folds make great gift tags, and our Celebrate cards make lovely thank you notes after the gift giving is over. Looking for something more traditional?? Check out our Holly letterpress greeting cards or our festive Poinsettia gift tags – boxes sell for just $7 each!
We’ll be posting more gift ideas along with DIY projects for the holidays over the next few weeks (including tutorials for gift bows and the most beautiful holiday wreaths ever), so stay tuned!
How cute is this paper holiday dress!? Jessica Sanders from Salutations in Charlotte is the dress maker extraordinaire behind this beautiful Christmas cocktail dress – made with our double-sided, eco-friendly Mistletoe wrap, this dress has us so excited for the holiday season! Those presents and custom holiday cards are pretty as can be, too — be sure to stop by your local Smock retailer to take advantage of our custom letterpress holiday promotion and stock up on holiday essentials today!
Have you created a masterpiece with our eco-friendly gift wrap? Share it with us! Get in touch with details and photos today!
If you’ve toured the Smock offices recently, you probably saw the amazing bunting some of our team put together a while back (and if you haven’t been on a tour yet, look below!). Today’s DIY project will show you how to make your very own bunting in just a few quick steps – it’s easy! And you’ll only need a few items.
You will need:
- Your favorite Smock gift wraps
- Twine, rope, yarn, or ribbon (we love the way twine looks!)
- Scissors
- An adhesive of some sort — hot glue or double-sided tape
The first step of this DIY is to determine how large you want the little banners on your bunting to be. Ours are about 7.5 inches wide and about 9.5 inches high. If you want yours to be the same size, we created this handy little cutting guide for your convenience! Next, you’ll want to determine how much bunting you’ll need (for 25 feet of bunting, you’ll need around 42 little banners).
Cut your banners out with your favorite Smock gift wraps — we chose to mix it up & use a little bit of everything, but there’s tons of ways to make yours. You could use just one pattern straight across for a uniform look, or alternate the front and back patterns to switch things up while still color coordinating. You can also pick a few to varying wraps like we did for a vibrant, festive look.
Next, you’ll want to secure the bunting to the twine — there are a few ways to go about this. Before securing anything, be sure to give yourself a little extra twine (maybe a foot or two) to be able to hang the bunting. Then, start by making a small fold along the top of the triangle banner (the fold should be somewhere between a 1/4 and 1/2 inch). Use your adhesive to connect the twine & paper — we used a handy tape gun (pictured above) with double-sided tape to quickly secure the twine to the paper, and this made the process really quick and easy. If you don’t have double-sided tape, a hot-glue gun would work well, too. We haven’t tried this with regular glue, but we’re sure it would work if you use something to hold down the folds while the glue dries. You’ll want to space your banners about 1-2 inches apart.
After you’ve secured your banners to the twine, you’ll notice little triangles that form from folding the paper over (pictured below) — just snip these little overlapping pieces off with your scissors for a clean, even look.
Repeat this process until you’ve created enough bunting for your decorating needs! If you didn’t pre-cut your twine, be sure to leave a little extra on the end to make hanging a breeze. The end result will be a perfectly cheerful strand of bunting!
Making your own bunting?? Share your images with us on Facebook – we’d love to see them!
We are beyond thrilled to share a few articles and blog posts that our work has been featured in recently! We love it when the amazing editors, bloggers, and magazines out there decide to feature our stuff. Our first feature was from Brides magazine — which highlighted our Isle gift-tags.
Next up, Stationery Trends. The latest issue featured our Hekla design, a modern invitation with gorgeous chevron patterning — and a new addition for 2011.
One of our beloved Smock retailers (the Stationer of New Orleans) was featured in the issue alongside a few pieces of custom Smock stationery!
Stationery Trends also gave Smock a few shout-outs in their summer edition, featuring our bee-autiful Honeycomb thank you cards, our gift wrap flowers from the National Stationery Show, and the oh-so-sweet Sugar & Spice greeting card.
Earlier this year, Greetings Etc. also showcased Smock – Birthday Turtle made an appearance, and a few of our amazing Smock retailers (The Dandelion Patch, Paper & Chocolate, and Sweet Paper) were also featured!
And last – but certainly not least! – we were thrilled to see our calendars on Design*Sponge, our Pollen scratchpads and letterpress calendars on Oh So Beautiful Paper, and lots of letterpress love all-around from Design Crush, 100 Layer Cake, Paper Runway, Outblush, Paper Crave, and Invitation Crush. Thanks again to all of these amazing publications for choosing to feature Smock!
We were SO excited to team up with Antoinette at Paperista for the incredible paper project that we’re about to share. The stationery boutique wanted to create a super-special display for a recent bridal event, so they teamed up with a local college design student to create fashion out of paper. Rika VanHeerde Snyder – a student in the Apparel Design Program at the University of Minnesota and intern at Joynoelle – created the most amazing, one-of-a-kind, letterpress wedding gown and cocktail dress for the display. The dresses were made entirely from recycled Smock stationery and invitations, as well as a bit of our eco-friendly gift wrap. We were completely blown away by the end result — take a look!
Rika worked with hundreds of scraps of bamboo paper to create the dresses.
The corset top on the wedding gown is completely stunning. The gown was crafted with our ivory bamboo paper, and some of the letterpress ink colors that are shown include raspberry, mango and taupe.
The cocktail dress was created with our white bamboo paper and features pretty hints of blue (our Ceylon gift wrap).
A huge thank you to the lovely ladies at Paperista for choosing to work with us on this incredible project!
{Photos by Erica Loeks Photography}
Got the back to school blues? This DIY is an adorable way to spruce up your school books (or any other books, for that matter) and it’s super easy! You will need:
To start, you’ll need to measure and cut your sheet of gift wrap to fit your book. We recommend giving a 3-4-inch margin on either side of the (open) book, and then a 1-2-inch margin above and below the book.
After you’ve cut your gift wrap, fold up the top and bottom of the sheet. Be sure that the folds are not shorter than the book. Use a few pieces of tape in the middle to keep everything straight.
Next, with the book inside, fold the paper in half, making sure the sides are even. Then, take the top part of the gift wrap and fold it neatly under the book’s cover. Repeat this step on the bottom.
After you’ve made even folds, carefully slip onto the book, securing the book’s cover into the little pockets that the folds create. Secure with tape.
Tada! We are loving the end result. And since our gift wrap is double-sided, you can alternate patterns – perfect for prettying up a set of books to display at home!
During our West Coast travels, Lindsy and I had the chance to stop in and visit lots of our LA dealers – we were thrilled to be able to stop in to the shops and meet our lovely retailers in person! Today we’re highlighting some images of two of the stores we visited during our trip – we’ll start with Presence Studio City, a stationery and gift shop in Studio City. Presence offers a carefully curated selection of unique gifts – including some gorgeous hardcover books, one-of-a-kind jewelry, home decor, fragrant candles, and more.
We chatted with Kaila from Presence – she was kind enough to tell us more about this sweet boutique!
What about the store are you most proud of?
We try to showcase unique yet affordable gifts that people won’t find anywhere else. We also pride ourselves on our customer service – many of our stationery and gift customers come back on return visits because they were so happy with their experience.
What’s the hottest color palette right now?
We’ve been seeing a lot of blues right now – cool tones of blue paired with silver, lots of navy, some turquoise here and there too. Blue is definitely a popular color right now.
One of our other stops in LA was to Landis Gifts & Stationery – a shop that truly has something special for everyone. Located on Larchmont Boulevard – an area that got its start in the early 1920’s – the shop is nestled into one of the most historic areas in LA and is surrounded by a wonderful mix of boutiques and restaurants.
Edie shared some thoughts about some of our latest products – check out her interview with Lindsy!
[iframe http://www.youtube.com/embed/0Noymj7rL8k 650 370]