Here at Smock, we absolutely love working with our fabulous Smock dealers. We are continually and endlessly inspired by the customizations they dream up and love printing fabulous letterpress invitations, save the dates, escort cards, programs, social notes, business cards and so much more for their clients. In order to recognize the incredible adaptations of our Smock designs that we have been printing in collaboration with our stores, we recently honored ten breathtaking customizations that captured our imaginations and made us smile with glee as we printed them, packaged them up and sent them off to happy clients around the globe.

Over the next several weeks, we’ll be sharing each of the winning customizations, but we wanted to share a sneak peek of the many lovely letterpress creations that have had us oohing and ahhing for months…

A big congratulations and a heartfelt thank you to the stores we worked with to create these incredible designs…
Real Card Company in Seattle
Alphagraphics in Chicago
The Write Image in Salt Lake City
Wordshop in Denver
Arabesque in Naples, Florida
Kate’s Paperie in Manhattan
RSVP Studio in Toronto
Judy Paulen Designs at Bloomingdale’s in Manhattan
Paper Love in Brooklyn

You probably already know that here at Smock, printing gorgeous letterpress invitations makes us absolutely giddy. With that said, the opportunity to print the letterpress invitations, escort cards and menus for the recent Modern Bride Trendsetters Awards Dinner was a sincere honor and so much fun! Printing beautiful things is what makes us excited about what we do everyday, but being able to print the invitations for such a fabulous event, honoring amazing wedding professionals we truly admire, was especially exciting.

The letterpress invitation to kick off the event was our Aberdeen design in grass and black inks paired with an envelope liner in our sottern pattern in a custom hot pink ink. Ensuring no detail was forgotten, the invitations were also corner rounded and edge painted in grass ink to make for a truly show-stopping invitation. How exciting would it be to get something this fun in the mail?

The letterpress menus and letterpress escort cards were also our Aberdeen design, printed in black and the same custom hot pink color. They were edge painted in gold and all of the pieces, including the invitation, featured pattern backing in our oesa pattern. We loved working with the editors of Modern Bride to create these pieces and love the final look – perfectly sophisticated, cheerful and undeniably celebratory.

This photo by Bee Kim, founder of Weddingbee and a Trendsetter honoree, shows the beautiful table design at the awards dinner where you can even see the letterpress menus at each place setting – talk about thrilling! You can read all about the fabulous time had at the awards dinner on Weddingbee PRO and on Wedded Bits, the Modern Bride magazine blog.

We can’t think of anything that shows gratitude and appreciation more than a beautiful hand written note on a lovely letterpress thank you card printed on soft bamboo paper. We’ve printed a few lately that have left us dreaming of mailboxes full of sweet sentiments on pretty letterpress cards and could not resist sharing them.

Brought to us by Perfectly Personal by Jen in Chappaqua, New York, this Rhon thank you note is printed in saffron ink on ivory. This card is sunny and bright and sure to bring smiles to the faces of loved ones.

Printed in pearl and clover, these pretty thank you cards are our Chasseral design. Created by Paper Dolls of Saratoga in Saratoga Springs, New York, these note cards are the perfect way to thank loved ones for sharing in your celebration.

Using our Cavall design in 1-color letterpress, printed in raspberry ink, these letterpress thank you cards were brought to us by No Regrets in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. Sitting down to write thank you notes can only be considered delightful with cards as lovely as these.

Have you heard about the Brooklyn Pop Up Wedding Series? Smock is proud to be a sponsor of this unique month-long event, which will culminate with one lucky couple winning a dream wedding styled by the editors of Martha Stewart Weddings! Other organizers include our friends at The Wedding Library, one of our favorite wedding bloggers, Vané of Brooklyn Bride, and the friendly folks of 303Grand.

On Saturday, June 13, Vané will be hosting a cool party featuring a raffle with some amazing prizes, with all proceeds benefiting the I Do Foundation, an organization that helps bride arrange charitable donations with nonprofit organizations. One of those prizes will be a set of 100 one or two color letterpress save the dates with printed envelopes or personalized stationery from Smock! If you’re in Brooklyn, make sure you’re there on Saturday night – the first 25 brides to show up will score incredible gift bags, too!

Having launched at last year’s National Stationery Show, making the trip to New York City for the stationery show this year was especially fun for the Smock team! It was such an incredible opportunity to meet with the awesome stores we work with daily, to introduce ourselves to new stores and to reconnect with friends old and new in the world of paper and letterpress. Plus we were super excited to introduce all of our new designs including new Everyday letterpress cards and gift wrap, three new letterpress wedding invitation designs, and a brand new letterpress and offset Social Occasions album, full of beautifully customizable calling cards, letterhead, hang tags, correspondence cards and social occasion invitations.

Smock’s Creative Director, Amy Graham Stigler, did an amazing job ensuring Smock’s booth was absolutely beautiful – it was such a nice place to be during the show as we introduced our many visitors to Smock! It was a lot of hard work pulling the booth together at the Javitz Center, but luckily we had co-owner Harold on the team to make sure everything went smoothly. And, of course, we couldn’t leave Syracuse without making sure to bring along our #1 Smock team member, Jasper, who is always generous with his smiles and two year old charm.

Thank you so much to everyone who came to visit Smock at the National Stationery Show! For everyone who wasn’t able to be in New York, we have more photos and so many exciting new letterpress designs to share soon!

We were thrilled to learn that the Amazon Conservation Association, one of the environmental groups that Smock supports, has started encouraging couples to bypass traditional wedding favors at their receptions and go eco instead. Instead of candied almonds, personalized mix CDs or other traditional less-green “keepsakes” for your guests, why not help save the Amazon rainforests (and help slow global warming) instead? For a $5 donation per guest, you can thank your loved ones with a contribution to help protect the Amazon. Couples will receive one beautiful favor card per two guests, sustainably letterpressed on our bamboo paper, to display on tables at their reception explaining how your donation has helped create a better livelihood for local communities and to help conserve the biological diversity of the Amazon basin. Because Smock wants to support the good work that ACA is doing, we donated the design and letterpress printing of the favor cards, which are based on our Engadine letterpress wedding invitations. Smock will gladly personalize these favor cards for free for those couples who have chosen Smock for their letterpress wedding invitations.

The Amazon rainforest is home to 30% of the plant and animal species on Earth and additionally, 20% of all fresh water on the planet flows through the basin’s rivers. Recognizing the importance of the Amazon rainforest to the greater ecological systems of the world as a source of countless foods, fibers and potential new medicines, the ACA works to protect these invaluable forests as they are facing increasing threats from slash and burn agriculture, wildlife poaching, mining, illegal logging, oil prospecting, and large development projects. Rainforests are also a vital force in shaping the world’s weather and climate patterns with the UN citing that 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions are related to tropical deforestation. It is estimated that at current rates, more than half of the Amazon rainforest may be destroyed or severely damaged by 2030. ACA is working together with local communities and partner organizations throughout the region to protect these precious forests.

How does your tax deductible donation help?

Your $25 donation can:

• Help a Brazil nut harvester achieve organic certification
• Plant 50 trees in a highland Andean community

Your $50 donation can:

• Help a community build a tree nursery for reforestation projects
• Help a Brazil nut harvester get legal title to the land they manage
• Sponsor an environmental education program for Peruvian schoolchildren

Your $150 donation can:

• Help protect the habitat of the giant river otter
• Support research on sustainable forest products such as natural dyes
• Fund a field expedition to study the Bolivian pampas
• Outfit a park ranger on the front lines of Amazonian conservation

Your $500 donation can:

• Train the next generation of Amazonian scientists: sponsor a Peruvian student’s research at one of our field stations
• Support clean power for Amazonian science: buy a solar panel to boost power at the Amazon’s most active research station
• Track long-term trends in Amazonian animal communities: support a month of surveys in the Los Amigos Conservation Concession

Your $1,000 donation can:

• Protect forest habitat for jaguars
• Help an indigenous community preserve its ancestral lands
• Buy a laptop for the Amazon’s most active research station, providing a young Peruvian researcher access to the Internet and online scientific literature
• Strengthen the front lines of Amazonian conservation: provide two months of salary and benefits for a park ranger at the Los Amigos Conservation Concession

You can learn more about the ACA’s environmental partners on their website and for more information about wedding favor donations and receiving your own letterpress favor cards through the ACA and Smock, contact Gena at info@amazonconservation.org.

Here at Smock we get to work with some pretty cool people throwing some amazing parties, which we absolutely love. In fact we find it so much fun that we want to share those parties with everyone else! If you’re hosting a great brunch, baby or bridal shower, birthday party, anniversary celebration, or a fabulous spring kick-off barbecue, we want details! Email us at hello@smockpaper.com and tell us about your event and you could be featured on Smock’s blog. Parties of all shapes, sizes, and themes are welcome! In the meantime, check out this fabulous baby shower at the incredible Thoughtful Day, a blog we positively adore.

We love this use of our adorable Liony letterpress invitations featuring hand calligraphy by our favorite calligrapher, Debi Zeinert of Blooming Quill, in Whimsy for a first birthday party. It’s simple and oh so sweet, and the perfect way to set the stage for a fantastic birthday celebration.

In addition to doing pro bono printing for the environmental organizations and causes that we love, we also donate our letterpress stationery and invitations to worthy events that are working to protect the planet. We were so happy to help out the Waterkeeper Alliance for two silent eco-auctions these past few months – we donated custom letterpress stationery and helped raise over $1,000 for this great nonprofit, which works internationally to keep water clean. Enjoy the pictures (taken by Bill Marsh Photography from the Lake Louise event). Pictures of the Deer Valley event can be found here (go to gallery then photos)




Both celebrity ski events looked amazing and inspiring – so many good looking people coming together to enjoy the outdoors and help the planet (and it’s true, we had fun celebrity spotting too)! But our hearts flip-flopped when we get to see the pics from the Fairmont Lake Louise event. Lake Louise is one of the most gorgeous places on the planet to us. Harold (my husband and co-owner of Smock) and I honeymooned in the Canadian Rockies (staying at the Lake Louise hostel of course!), but we’ve returned every other year or so during the fall to hike, be inspired by the mountains there, and stalk the lobby of the beautiful Fairmont Lake Louise. We named our now 2-year-old son Jasper after Jasper National Park (a bit north of Lake Louise), and we’ve taken Jasper to Lake Louise and the surrounding mountains the last two Septembers. If you need a place to remind you of why this world is good, climb into a few mountain passes around Lake Louise.

Carrie, who coordinates the auctions, was so kind to send us write-ups about the two events.

Each December, more than two hundred celebrities and corporate leaders come together for the Waterkeeper Gala at Deer Valley Celebrity Skifest to show their support for one of the most serious environmental issue of our time: CLEAN WATER. This exciting event hosts luminaries from the worlds of film, philanthropy, business, television and Olympic sport and features Live and Silent Auctions that deliver on the latest lifestyle, fashion, home, luxury and eco-conscious living trends. This year, Smock was a featured partner in Skifest’s first-ever EcoAuction and our custom bamboo letterpress stationery set inspired a bidding war between an eco-entrepreneur and an anonymous bidder. Celebrities including Larry David, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Gavin Rossdale, Gwen Stefani, Matthew Modine, Gloria Reuben, Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt joined environmental leader and founder of Waterkeeper Alliance Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to raise over $500,000 to support Waterkeeper’s fight for everyone’s right to clean water. The entire weekend of events, including the auctions, was featured in a full hour CBS Sports presentation, which continues to air throughout the winter.

After the success of Smock’s custom bamboo letterpress stationery lot at Deer Valley Celebrity Skifest, Waterkeeper invited Smock to participate in their Canadian Ski Fundraiser – the Fairmont Lake Louise Celebrity Sports Invitational. This hotly-anticipated event draws together more than 600 celebrities, sports stars, philanthropists and corporate leaders to enjoy a wintersports weekend in the Canadian Rockies benefiting Waterkeeper Alliance. Smock was once again featured in the Silent Auction at a gala that played host to celebrities including Alec Baldwin, Peter Fonda, John McEnroe, Marcia Gay Harden, Joe Pantoliano, Melissa Rivers, Alan Thicke and Jonathan Silverman.

Smock’s designer Amy Graham Stigler is guest blogging on Design Mom this week about how to host kid-friendly dinner parties. Lots of smart, practical inspiration and advice. Check out some general tips, how to set the stage, the food, and the food and drinks. Also check out a a sweet post Design Mom did on Smock a few months ago, featuring some of our letterpress social stationery and letterpress fill-in invitations too. Enjoy! And then go out and host a dinner party of your own!

We just released 21 new letterpress greeting cards, all letterpressed sustainably on bamboo paper, and each with sweetly patterned lined envelopes. They’re the first greeting cards to be letterpressed on eco-friendly bamboo paper (hooray!), and the collection includes happy birthday cards, valentine’s day love cards, sympathy cards, congratulations cards (perfect for baby or engagements or weddings), and mother’s day cards. See the whole letterpress greeting collection – and buy your favorites! – at www.smockpaper.com. Here are a few of our favorites. Enjoy!