We have the lovely Jenny from Jenny’s Paper, Ink! to thank for these incredible letterpress Bat Mitzvah invitations that we recently had the pleasure of printing. The invitations have a sweet, youthful look and feature fun fonts and bold colors. Jenny said the inspiration for these Bat Mitzvah invitations began with a custom sleeve – Sari fell in love with the idea of keeping the entire invitation set together without using a typical folio or bellyband. From there, they created a logo that could be used throughout the event by pairing our Louise font with our Dawson cartouche. Next came the patterns and colors — Sari’s favorite color is blue, so robin’s egg was a perfect choice, and adding black as a second ink color gave the invitation a bold look. The Champlain pattern was used in different ways throughout the entire set, and complemented the playful fonts and bold ink combination beautifully.  The finished product was amazing and set the tone for a fabulous weekend with family and friends. Congratulations and thank you to Jenny for sending us such a stunning invitation set!

inks: robin’s egg + black + inkless blind deboss | fonts: percy + louise  | paper: 2-ply white | printing: letterpress | liner: custom liner pattern in robin’s egg + black | custom sleeve: champlain pattern with dawson cartouche  | size: s7 for sleeve

This design won an honorable mention in our Smock design competition for the first half of 2012. This twice-a-year competition recognizes outstanding and inspired designs submitted by our beloved dealers.

We featured these stunning letterpress invitations back in October and are thrilled to show them off one more time as a design contest honoree! This sophisticated set was sent to us by Darcy at Pearl Beach Paperie in Orlando, Florida, and features charming vintage airplanes and a rich color combination of cherry and black inks. The swirls and flourished fonts set a whimsical tone which balances the chic gold stripes printed on the folios and envelope liners. Congratulations and thank you to Pearl Beach Paperie for sending us such a lovely invitation set!

ink: cherry + black | fonts: custom| paper: 2-ply ivory | printing: letterpress | folio exterior: custom pattern in cherry | folio interior: custom pattern in gold | liner: custom pattern in gold |invite size: 5.125 x 7.75 |

This design won an honorable mention in our Smock design competition for the first half of 2012. This twice-a-year competition recognizes outstanding and inspired designs submitted by our beloved dealers.

Our fabulous friends at By Invitation Only in Little Rock, Arkansas submitted these custom save the dates to us for printing! We were completely blown away when we saw the end result — we knew these had to be a part of our annual design contest. These save the dates were actually printed for Paige – one of the lovely ladies at By Invitation Only.  It was our pleasure to work on save the dates that just overflow with sweetness.

Choosing our smaller card size (S5) is a wonderful way to help keep costs down and with this set, the smaller card really worked – since the back of the card reads small card, big party – and with letterpress on both the front and back these save the dates are so beautifully textured and without a doubt, one of a kind!

inks: papaya + pms 333 | fonts: smock clermont + mack | paper: 2-ply ivory | printing: letterpress – both sides | liner: custom pattern in papaya | size: S5

This design won an honorable mention in our Smock design competition for the first half of 2012. This twice-a-year competition recognizes outstanding and inspired designs submitted by our beloved dealers.

Randi, owner of the Printed Page in Atlantic Beach, New York customized a bright and beautiful bridal shower invitation for her daughter, Kelly. We often design small cards for our Smock dealers in order to display our promotions, and the card that we designed for our free envelope printing promotion just so happened to inspire Randi.

Randi had mentioned that the shower would be held in April and would have an “April showers” theme. She explained that the party favors were going to be pink and yellow umbrellas and wanted an elegant invitation to tie everything together. She states, “The inspiration came from one of your designs that reminded me of a modern heart. Since this is a shower invite, I thought it was both feminine and relevant. I bought pink and yellow umbrellas for give away gifts for all of the guests, and I am attaching hang tags with the same design to the umbrellas with ribbon. The tags will be the place cards and the umbrellas will add color and fun to the place card table!”

Randi, congratulations to you and your daughter! These invitations are perfect!

customization = letterpress inks: azalea + yolk | fonts: spence + cooper | paper color: white | paper size: s-6 | edge painting: yolk | envelope liner: sherbrooke reversed in yolk

This design won an honorable mention in our Smock design competition for the first half of 2012. This twice-a-year competition recognizes outstanding and inspired designs submitted by our beloved dealers.

Take a peek at these vibrant and high spirited save the dates!  We have Melanie at Salutations in Charlotte, North Carolina to thank for these beauties!  We were even able to get a bit of a back story to find out where the inspiration came to create a design so eye catching and brilliant. The bride loved the bold pattern of our Evans design and wanted to use our robin’s egg ink color to truly make a statement.  We love to see couples choosing more modern and chic designs for their save the dates, even when they’re planning on sending a super formal invitation suite like these guys are planning.  The happy couple said that their save the dates totally matched their fun and bubbly personalities — and we couldn’t agree more! Thanks so much to Salutations for sending us such a fun save the date set — we can’t wait to see the invitations!

inks: robin’s egg + black | fonts: chaplin + carrington + smock harrison | paper: 2-ply white | printing: letterpress | liner: the sinclair pattern in robin’s egg | size: S6

This design won an honorable mention in our Smock design competition for the first half of 2012. This twice-a-year competition recognizes outstanding and inspired designs submitted by our beloved dealers.

It’s that time of year again – the Smock Design Contest is back! Twice a year, we search through our customer jobs in search of the most beautiful, most inspired customizations submitted by our lovely retailers all across the country. We think you are really going to be impressed – the designs we found blew us all away! Check back daily for new posts; we’ll announce the winner of the contest, chosen by the lovely Nole at Oh So Beautiful Paper, next week! For now, let’s ooh and ahh at the first honoree!

We fell in love with these trendy Dawson wedding invitations submitted by our wonderful friend Liz at Union Street Papery in San Francisco, California. It easily shows off simple beauty, with the grass ink perfectly contrasting the cheery apricot folio!  This set has the most subtle elements, keeping it looking fresh and fun.  With its clean lines and beautiful color combo, this minimalistic invitation is what’s happening!  A huge CONGRATULATIONS and THANK YOU go out to Union Street Papery!

ink: grass | fonts: smock harrison + percy | paper 1-ply white | printing: letterpress | die cut: chesapeake | custom sleeve: page pattern; custom cartouche in apricot |invite size: 5.4375 x 8.0625

With a pairing of our navy and azalea inks we have a real beauty on our hands!  These lovely letterpress save the dates were submitted to us by our great friends at By Invitation Only in Little Rock, Arkansas.  The couple chose our willoughby pattern for the top and bottom of their save the dates – which we think adds a real elegant factor.  We can’t get enough of this stunning color combination because it’s not overly feminine and has just a touch of boyish charm – within the navy ink.  And we’re all about couples sending their save the dates early – it’s customary to mail save the dates six months to a year before the big day.  This allows your guests enough time to book their accommodations, save enough spending money and request time off work.  Mailing your save the dates early also allows your guests to count down the days til the “I Do’s”.

inks: navy + azalea | fonts: cahun + shaw | paper: 2-ply white | printing: letterpress | size: S6

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!

Our latest Smock Design Contest was yet another success (THANK YOU!). We were so thrilled to see all the customizations, and the hard work from our lovely dealers certainly paid off! At this time we are pleased to show off the Smock Design Contest Winner Plaques! Designed by our talented in-house designer Lindsy Aragona, these stunning plaques are letterpressed in our rich ocean and azure inks on our 2-ply white bamboo paper.  The amazing Debi Zeinert adds her gorgeous touch of hand calligraphy. We gave these plaques to our top ten winners. Our next Smock Design Contest will be featured in 2012!

We were so thrilled when Lily Kesselman (the amazing photographer behind this next real wedding) shared her images of Katie & Jack’s gorgeous New York wedding. Katie worked with our friends at Judy Paulen Designs for their elegant Haddington wedding invitations, which were printed in midnight ink on our white bamboo paper.  This wedding is overflowing with preppy sophistication and we can’t get enough of it!

Katie and Jack were married at the Convent of The Sacred Heart on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. After the ceremony, the couple rode to their reception in style in an iconic vintage taxi, while the guests and bridal party headed to the reception on chartered Greyline double-decker buses – complete with champagne and a tour of the city!