In celebration of spring and the upcoming Easter weekend, Smock’s creative director Amy Graham Stigler shares a few of her favorite things about spring with us today. We’re feeling completely inspired to start our spring cleaning and planting now. How about you?

Spring is my favorite season (when it cooperates) so its hard to narrow the field of things I love best. So here are a few things: I LOVE the light and early blooms and freshness of the air. I LOVE that I can run outside without worrying about ice and snow and frigid temps. I LOVE that the markets resume (flea and farmers). I LOVE that my kids are either on a bike or in a tree. I LOVE our magnolia and apple trees that absolutely explode with flowers and fragrance.

For Easter, we always start with an Easter egg hunt. The kids each get a basket with a few goodies and then go searching for sweets and eggs, which we dyed the night before. If weather permits the hunt continues outside. And we always do brunch with the Easter bunnies that the kids still adore – even though they are ‘on to them’.

We start to reclaim our yard and prepare our vegetable and herb garden. We start frequenting the farmer’s markets for herbs and flowers to plant and early edibles. We start our weekend family hikes on the many trails in our area. And my husband and I try to fit in a ‘date trail run’ at least once a week.

Casual dinner parties with friends and their kids is our favorite way to entertain so in the spring we just tweak the menu and decor to fit the season. The vases are filled with tulips and daffodils and other happy spring blooms, the menu gets a bit lighter, such as a seasonal soup and a salad, and we always hope that some portion of the evening can be spent outdoors. Of course, decorating cupcakes or sugar cookies with pastel candies is always a sweet way to end the evening.

Brought to us by the friendly folks at Paper & Chocolate in Dallas, the next honoree in our Smock Design Contest is a custom letterpress holiday card that was an absolute joy to print. The design was created using a Spencerian calligraphy motif from our Social Occasions album printed in red and grass inks. The patterned envelope liner uses our iznik pattern with patterned backing on the card itself in our sherbrooke pattern. The piece was then corner rounded and edge painted in red for a complete look that is incredibly festive and perfect for the holiday season.

To learn more about Paper & Chocolate, check out their recent Smock Store Spotlight.

Keeping on with our Smock Design Contest honorees, this next design is a custom Haddington letterpress wedding invitation sent to us by Just Paper & Tea in Washington, DC. It was printed in tangerine and a custom bright pink ink with bright pink edge painting and a matching liner in our payette pattern. We love this bold modern take on the classic wedding invitation using our Haddington calligraphy design in bright cheerful ink colors. Paired with edge painting and a patterned envelope liner, it’s a thoroughly modern interpretation of a timeless design.

Thanks so much to our friends at Just Paper & Tea for sending us this amazing creation!

The next honoree in our Smock Design Contest is this custom save the date that we printed for our friends at Saluations in Charlotte, North Carolina. This is a double-sided design that we offset printed in peacock and seamist inks on our 1-ply bamboo paper. Salutations’s self-proclaimed Chief Style Officer Holly shares, “This save the date is my favorite so far! This was a collaborative effort with a fabulous bride who had a great design sense. We started with a vintage duogram. Inspiration was then drawn from the Tallulah design in the Social Occasions album, as well as the champlain pattern that she saw on a Smock box we had in the store from an order that had just arrived. It was so exciting to see the design ideas crafted into a beautiful reality by Smock’s wonderful designers and printers!”

Thank you so much to the team at Saulations for bringing us this incredible customization – it’s one of our very favorite save the dates!

Brought to us by our lovely friends at Urbanic Paper Boutique, this next honoree in our Smock Design Contest is a customization of our Helani letterpress wedding invitation design. We love the gorgeous color palette, printed in azalea and pewter inks, and the fun mixing and matching of patterns. The letterpress invitation itself is printed in 2-color letterpress with patterned backing printed in azalea ink in our willoughby pattern. The reply post card was printed in 1-color letterpress in azalea ink with a sweet little accommodation card printed in pewter ink. For the perfect finishing touch, the envelope was lined in our champlain patterned printed in pewter.

Thank you so much to Urbanic for allowing us the great pleasure of printing this letterpress invitation suite. To learn more about this amazing Smock dealer, check out their recent Smock Store Spotlight feature.

The next honoree in our Smock Design Contest is this cool custom letterpress birthday party invitation brought to us by our friends at Wordshop in Denver. A play on our Bourbon letterpress thank you card, it’s printed in gold and pewter inks in honor of a very special first birthday party. We love this custom design and are honored to include it among our Smock Design contest winners.

As promised last week, we’re so excited to share with you the winning designs in our latest Smock Design Contest. This breathtaking customization of our Engadine design is a letterpress save the date brought to us by our friends at Gus & Ruby Letterpress in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The warm burnt orange and ruby colors were custom ink colors chosen specifically to match the look and feel of the couple’s wedding. Samantha from Gus & Ruby shares, “We were so happy to collaborate with Heather (the bride-to-be) to create a classic save-the-date that would set the tone for her fall wedding.  The rich colors and seasonal graphic made this design the perfect choice.”

Thank you so much to Samantha and Whitney of Gus & Ruby for bringing us this amazing customization. To learn more about their fabulous store, check out their recent Smock Store Spotlight feature.

Smock and our parent company Boxcar Press are looking for a creative, inspired, stationery-loving individual to join our team as a blog intern. We are looking for someone with passion, incredible writing skills and the ability to contribute approximately 3 to 4 blog posts a week. This is a six month unpaid internship offering an unparalleled opportunity to gain an intimate working knowledge of a cool letterpress shop and our Smock stationery line. You’ll work closely with and have the opportunity to be mentored by our blog editor and get awesome experience researching, prepping, and writing for blogs with national readership.

Candidates can live anywhere in the world, but a reliable internet connection and access to email is a must. For more information please email press@smockpaper.com with your resume, a brief description of why you’d like to work with us, a writing sample, and a short list of your favorite blogs and why you love them. We can’t wait to hear from you!

A unique stationery boutique on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, RSVP Today is a quaint by-appointment-only studio specializing in fine stationery and a beloved Smock dealer. Proprietress Deborah Hassan holds a business degree from New York University and spent many years in the corporate world working for a Fortune 500 company before becoming an entrepreneur. She shares, “When it came time to open my own store I wanted to sell a product I was passionate about. My love for paper began when I was a child; collecting samples of invitations and stationery that I purchased and received throughout the years.”

Debbie’s studio space is filled with gorgeous letterpress creations and is a haven for stationery lovers. She works attentively with each client to dream up the invitations, card and announcements of their dreams, filled with unique details and personal touches. We love this recent customization of our Cindrel letterpress wedding invitation design that she created with a client for their upcoming June wedding. It features a custom folio printed in azalea ink that showcases a unique customization of the Cindrel motif creating a frame around the couple’s wedding date. The interior of the folio is printed in our pippin pattern in blush ink and features several inserts detailing event information, lists of local accommodations and more. The letterpress invitation itself is a horizontal version of our Cindrel design printed in azalea ink paired with navy to match the other event details the couple is planning for their wedding.

In our typical fashion, we had to ask Deborah a few questions to get a feel for what makes her tick…

If you were invited to the White House for dinner, what would you wear?
I would want to wear something elegant and special. As with any invitation, it is important to have a memorable and unique presentation that reflects the event.

If you could describe your personality in letterpress, which Smock design would you be and why?
It would be Vettore, which I used when I did my letterpress holiday cards through Smock. I used Spence and Engravers printed in red ink.

What would you suggest as must-visit places for first time visitors to New York?
My studio is right across the street from the Guggenheim Museum and Central Park, both must sees on your visit. It is also right off Madison Avenue, an area boasting some of the most renowned stores in the world.

What is your favorite part about what you do?
I love helping people find the right invitation and making the experience fun instead of stressful. My store has a warm, unique and cozy atmosphere that makes people feel comfortable and excited to take part in planning their event. I love stationery and enjoy looking through my books with my customers.

Smock was recently featured in two of our favorite trade magazines. Greetings Etc. did a lovely article featuring our website. They talked about the design and functionality of our site and also covered a bit about our company history, sharing insight from co-owners Debbie Urbanski and Harold Kyle.

Giftware News interviewed us about our company history, our love for letterpress and our eco initiatives. They also featured a photo of our Lamby letterpress greeting card. Thanks to both Giftware News and Greetings Etc. for featuring Smock – it’s such a pleasure to be recognized by our favorite publications!