Last year we had the pleasure of printing custom letterpress wedding invitations for our friends Ailbhe and Jane at Pretty as a Picture in Ireland for Jane’s own wedding. We’re so excited to share the inspiration and design process behind the gorgeous final design. First up, Jane’s inspiration board…
- Edinburgh – where they had their first few dates
- Thistle, a representation of Scotland
- The bridesmaids dresses – purple colour scheme for wedding
- The wedding car
- Summerhill House Hotel – where they were getting married
- Their house
- The church in Wicklow Town where they were getting married
- Their baby
- An engagement photo
- Golf – John Joe’s favorite hobby
- A clock to represent the time of the church
All of that inspiration, came together in this first sketch by Ailbhe, which incorporated whimsical imagery and representations of Jane and John Joe’s zodiac signs…
Later the design was finalized and streamlined…
And then we letterpress printed the design on our 2-ply bamboo paper in a custom shade of purple and taupe inks.
We loved seeing how Jane’s inspiration came to life and how Ailbhe’s amazing sketches turned into really fabulous letterpress invitations. Read more about the design process and Jane’s inspiration on Pretty as a Picture’s blog. Thank you for sharing, ladies!
{Photos by Pretty as a Picture.}
Inspired by our bright red and purple Picadilly and Flounce eco gift wrap, I created this modern party inspiration shoot for my blog, The Sweetest Occasion. I used a paper punch to create hearts from the gift wrap and then hot glued them to small dowels to form a cute DIY cake topper. Recycled cardboard heart-shaped boxes got a coat of gold spray paint and then were topped with a gift wrap heart. I chose bright purple and red anemones simply arranged in sleek white vases to pick up on the colors of the gift wrap. DIY twizzle sticks using metallic purple pom poms hot glued to bamboo sticks and a few raspberries tossed in with the champagne bring the whole look together. We love seeing how people put our pretty double-sided gift wrap to use so please share you inspired creations with us!
{Photos by Megan Dailor.}
Sent to us by Pearl Beach Paperie, the first place winner in our latest Smock Design Contest is a lovely customization of our Lashar letterpress wedding invitations. Perfectly elegant in sea mist and taupe inks, the letterpress invitations were accompanied by a separation invitation card printed on our seamist paper in taupe ink using our Plym letterpress design. This card invited guests to a low country boil the next day. The reverse of both cards features the Plym motif as a pattern for a complete set that is unabashedly elegant.
Pearl Beach Paperie proprietress Darcy shared the inspiration for this stunning customization…
“Working with the bride, Becky, on this set was such a pleasure. She had a clear vision of the invitation design, pattern selection and ink colors. I simply made a few suggestions to finish off the suite. I LOVED changing up the paper color and fusing the designs for the separate event within the overall celebration.”
A huge thank you to Pearl Beach Paperie for bringing us this lovely design and thanks again to guest judge Audrey from Urbanic Paper Boutique for selecting our winners! More winning designs to come!
These bright and elegant letterpress bat mitzvah invitations were printed for our good friends at Aileen Invitations in Miami. Featuring our Rhon design, they were printed in espresso and tangerine inks with envelopes lined in our payette pattern in tangerine. Pretty calligraphy accents and Hebrew text are the perfect finishing touch.
A while back we sent our friends at Salutations super yummy cupcake kits from Saint Cupcake as winners of our Smock Design Contest. In return, they sent us this really sweet thank you note that reminded us just how lucky we are to work with the coolest retailers the world over. If you’re on the hunt for fabulous stationery, stop in and visit one of our Smock dealers today!
We couldn’t let the holidays completely slip away without sharing the letterpress holiday cards we printed for the Amazon Conservation Association this year. ACA is one of the eco organizations we regularly partner with on special projects and pro bono printing throughout the year and these letterpress holiday cards were an especially fun project. Letterpress printed in rich green and blue inks to match their branding, we designed them greeting card style playing on one of the pretty floral motifs from our Everyday stationery collection. For more information about our eco commitment, read more about our environmental efforts and the organizations we support through donations via 1% For the Planet, pro bono printing and special projects.
Recently featured in Martha Stewart Weddings and showcased on their blog (here and here), we loved working on this stunning summer-inspired custom designed wedding suite with our friends at The Wedding Library. We chose bright and cheerful shades of red and aqua, inspired by a vintage handkerchief with a fun cherry motif. The end creation is bright, elegant and perfect for a summer wedding celebration. We designed and printed letterpress invitations, signage, table numbers, favor tags, and place cards, all perfectly coordinated for the vision of the event and showcasing our Smock Clermont calligraphy font. Another huge thank you to Claudia Hanlin for proposing this fantastic project – it was so much fun and a true honor.
We love these elegant and sweet bridal shower invitations, featuring our cute umbrella motif. Pretty and sophisticated, they are flat offset printed in azalea ink on our luxury bamboo paper.
A few weeks back we hosted a really fun open studio here at our Syracuse, New York print shop and we decked the place out in all of our Smock finery. We thought you’d like to take a look! We invited the local public, media, clients, vendors, friends, family and anyone with an interest or passion for printing and the arts to come pay us a visit. In return, we had printing demonstrations, tours, giveaways, an excess of sweets and goodies from a local bake shop and loads of letterpress fun. The Smock team came together to craft DIY paper chain garlands for the Christmas tree and we strung colorful paper bunting from the cross beams in our cool industrial office space, all of which were created from our gift wrap. For the first time ever we set up a little retail shop for Smock Everyday here at the studio and had more fun than you know introducing local friends to our greeting cards, gift wrap, gift boxes, and paper goods.
All told we had over 300 people come out to pay us a visit! It blew us away and we couldn’t be more excited to welcome everyone back again next year. Huge thanks to our friend and local wedding photographer Alice G. Patterson for capturing these special moments for us. We are honored to have the friends that we do and we look forward to making this an annual event. Stay tuned for 2011!
{Photos by Alice G. Patterson.}
We are thrilled to be featured in the Winter 2011 issue of Martha Stewart Weddings! They showcased a custom design project we worked on with our friends at The Wedding Library, drawing inspiration from a vintage handkerchief to create bright and cheerful letterpress wedding invitations, menus, favor tags, table numbers and assorted paper goods. You can also see more of this project on the Martha Stewart blog The Bride’s Guide here and here. Thank you so much to Claudia at The Wedding Library for paying us the honor of working together on such an exciting collaboration!
