Father’s Day is June 17, and we’ve got some great new letterpress cards available just for the occasion! Tell dad just how much he means to you with one of these pretty cards – both read “Happy Father’s Day” on the inside and come with lined envelopes. Be sure to check out all of our man-friendly stationery for stylish paper gifts, too! 

We received this Kurai letterpress wedding invitation from our friends at Magnificent Milestones. The wood-grain pattern on the invitation is a great addition to this already wonderful design.

inks: taupe + inkless blind deboss + shell | fonts: etienne + worthington | paper: 2-ply white | printing: letterpress | invite size: S8

Take a splash into summer with a cool and colorful Helani letterpress wedding suite submitted by our friends at Kate’s Paperie – SoHo in New York City.  Our smock spencerian calligraphy font is always a winner and is used for the couple’s name and wedding venue lines – which adds to the whimsical feel.  Playful type and our robin’s egg ink really create the excitement for the wedding on the island of Turks + Caicos.  What really has us pepped is the sensational wash of robin’s egg on the envelope liner – we can close our eyes and see the sparkling and inviting crystal waters.  We think this invitation suite is spot on – and a perfect match to what we expect was a fabulous and unforgettable wedding celebration!

inks: robin’s egg + silver| fonts: graham + smock spencerian + engravers | paper: 2-ply white | printing: letterpress | corner rounding | liner: the sinclair pattern in robin’s egg| invite size: S8

Does it get any cuter than this?  Take a look at these absolutely stunning save the dates submitted to us by our wonderful friends at Union Street Papery in San Francisco, California.  Hole drilled with beautiful silver grommets attached so as the save the date swivels, you can read up about accommodations for the wedding weekend!  Our Robson design looks chic letterpressed in our spring and midnight inks.  We know we don’t have to tell you that these days everyone has busy schedules!  So this is all the more reason to send save the dates as soon as you’ve set the date!   Save the dates are a great way to give your guests advance notice of the wedding date so you can be sure they’ll be in attendance for the big day!  We’re over the moon for these because the surprise accommodations card truly allows your guests to begin their own planning.  This couple’s wedding is during Memorial Day weekend – which is all the more reason to make sure to catch people before they’ve already made plans of their own!

inks: spring + midnight| fonts: ida + percy | paper: 2-ply white bamboo | printing: letterpress | size:S5SQ | hole drilling + silver grommets

We’re so excited to introduce our newest card in the “Change the World” letterpress card series, where we donate 100% of profits to a critical environmental issue. The second card in our series is called Fracking, and will benefit Earthworks. The cards also come with an anti-fracking tattoo!

Here’s the problem:  In the U.S., we’re drilling around 2,000 new oil and gas wells per month. 90% of these new wells use a process called “hydraulic fracturing”, also known as fracking. To get the natural gas out of the ground, fracking requires 3-15 million gallons of water plus a lot of chemicals. Rarely do we know what these chemicals are; the oil and gas industry is exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Superfund law. A large percentage of this chemical laced water remains in the crevices of the earth, soaking into the ground, and threatening our clean water supply.

Is there a realistic solution? Fracking is scary, but it’s only part of the problem – change needs to happen. Earthworks’ Oil & Gas Accountability Project is working to reform the entire oil and gas industry. Earthworks believes that corporations should be allowed to extract and process mineral fuels only if they can do so without harming human health or contaminating the air, water, and soil, with an eye on impacts at all levels: local, regional, and global. This means achieving the following goals:

1. No water pollution: protect public health, the environment, and the climate from toxic, hazardous, and carcinogenic chemicals used in the extraction of fossil fuel energy resources;
2. Low emissions: protect public health, the environment, and the climate from pollutants emitted during the drilling and ongoing production of energy resources;
3. No-Go Zones: protect sacred areas, fragile ecosystems, neighborhoods, drinking watersheds and densely populated areas targeted for energy development;
4. Landowner or Community Consent: continue to develop and then implement laws and policies ensuring that landowners have essential co-equal rights to negotiate with, and to say ‘no’ to, energy development.

Take action now:

• Contact your legislators and ask them to protect our clean air and clean water from fracking by supporting the FRAC Act. The FRAC Act would close the “Halliburton loophole” in the Safe Drinking Water Act that allows drillers to inject hazardous materials — unchecked — directly into underground drinking water supplies.
• Get informed: learn more at Earthworks.
• Make a contribution: help Earthworks continue the good fight by making a donation. If you follow this link, you can get your very own “Gas and Water Don’t Mix” temporary tattoos (created & designed by Smock!) when you make a contribution to Earthworks (while supplies last). 
• Join the conversation on our tumblr blog: In collaboration with Earthworks, we’ve created a tumblr blog called Gas and Water Don’t Mix (gas-and-water-dont-mix.tumblr.com), a place where those who care about fracking can build a communal voice around the issue. Concerned citizens can go on and add a photo of themselves in a place they love, and include a few sentences about why they are freaked out by fracking. We’re encouraging everyone to don the Gas and Water Don’t Mix temporary tattoo in solidarity of the issue on the blog.

We’ve been hard at work here at Smock dreaming up beautiful new letterpress stationery goods for our biggest release of the year, and we can’t wait for you to see everything that’s new! We’ve got lots of notebooks (including classy new spiral notebooks!), calendars, new man-friendly stationery, double-sided gift wrap, fabulous keepsake boxes, shiny foil stamped occasion cards, handy notepads, and lots, lots more. Hurry over & see all the gorgeous new stuff today!

This beautiful, and hardly “simple” custom design paired with a custom neon pink ink made one of the more dynamic letterpress sleeves we’ve seen yet. This was one of those letterpress invitation sets that got passed around from hand to hand, met by a series of “oohs” and “aahs.” Thanks so much to Simply Put by Ashley Woodman for all their hard work!

ink: navy + custom neon | fonts: custom submitted | paper: 2-ply white | printing: letterpress | letterpress sleeve, custom artwork | invitation size: s-7 seeve |

Dawson has proven to be one of our most popular letterpress wedding suites and with just the right nudge from Paper on the Avenue, the inks and patterns selected made this invitation set really sharp! Standing out is a beautiful lime folio with a custom monogram incorporated on the cover. Great work by Megan; we look forward to seeing what comes next!

inks: lime + taupe | fonts: carrington + cecilia | paper: 1-ply white | printing: letterpress + offset | | offset folio with monogram custom pattern folio |

It’s official: foil stamping has arrived at Smock! Today we’re sharing a special sneak peek of the letterpress invitations we printed for the 2012 National Stationery Show, and we think you’ll love the new additions we’re bringing to the line. We’re adding two gorgeous new fonts to our collection of exclusive Smock calligraphy fonts, and these invitations feature both of those new fonts! Plaza is an elegant, formal script based on Sarah Hanna‘s calligraphy, and Stella (based on a Kelle McCarter hand) has a more playful, whimsical feel. The invitations are just a hint at what’s new: besides foil stamping and new calligraphy fonts, we’re also introducing four inspired new wedding suites, 12 dazzling colors for foil stamping, 100% recycled coasters, and lots of cool new products for our Everyday line (including 6 new styles of double-sided gift wrap, new notebook styles, more man-friendly stationery, and much, much more!).  A special thanks to master calligrapher Debi Zeinert from The Blooming Quill for addressing the invitation envelopes – aren’t they gorgeous!? Foil stamping will be available at Smock dealers in early June, so stay tuned!

Mother’s Day is May 13 and quickly approaching, so make sure you’re ready with a nice letterpress card and a sweet gift for mom! Cheery stationery goods in bright colors and patterns are sure to be a hit, but she’ll be even more impressed when you wrap it up beautifully with some of our eco-friendly, double-sided gift wrap (here’s a hint: you can use one side to wrap the gift and use the other like ribbon)!  We’ve picked out a few of our favorite gifts for mom, but be sure to take a look at all of our new letterpress stationery goods to find the perfect gift today!  And if your mom has a green thumb, be sure to check out our sustainable Sunflower cards (pictured below) — 100% of profits help the Pesticide Action Network, and the cards come with organic sunflower seeds that can be planted in her garden!

1. Botanical Thanks boxed letterpress cards $14 for 6 | 2. Mother’s Day Flower Burst letterpress card $4 | 3. Ness notebook $9 | 4. Pearl Jotters $6 for 2 | 5. Queen for a Day letterpress card $4 | 6. Flower Burst letterpress scratchpad $7 | 7. Pearl boxes: small $6; medium $12; large $18 | 8. Park boxed offset notes $12 for 8 | 9. Picadilly notebook $9 | 10. Carri attachments sticky note cube $18 | 11. Mom & Trust letterpress card $4 | 12. Sunflower boxed letterpress cards $14 (100% of profits help save the honey bees!)