The first runner up in our latest Smock Design Contest, as selected by guest judge Audrey from Urbanic Paper Boutique, is a gorgeous custom letterpress invitation from our friends at Paperkiss in Australia. It features lovely script printed in taupe with corner rounding and taupe edge painting for a look that is simple and sophisticated. Many thanks to Paperkiss for working with us on these stunning letterpress invitations!

It turns out, we’re suckers for a fabulous letterpress baby announcement around here and lately we’ve been printing a lot of really cool designs to help little ones make a grand entrance. They can be formal or quirky, designed to accommodate a photo (just adhere with double-stick tape) and look particularly awesome when paired with fun customizations like patterned backings, envelope liners and edge painting. Here are a few recent favorites…

Brought to us by Inscriptions on the Boulevard in Fort Worth, Texas, this custom baby announcement features our Ellie motif printed on our seamist bamboo paper in pewter and silver inks. The envelope is lined in our Seneca pattern in pewter.

The Write Image in Salt Lake City sent us this pretty customization of our Kurai design, printed in taupe and shell inks for a soft and feminine letterpress baby announcement.

This baby announcement is a custom design that also serves as a cool letterpress holiday card, printed in pewter and spring green inks. This fun design came to us from Byrd + Bleeker in Fort Worth, Texas.

From Stationer of New Orleans, this girly baby announcement showcases our Juine design in pearl ink.

Today’s Smock Design Contest honoree is a great custom folded save the date design created for our friends at Byrd & Bleecker in Fort Worth, Texas. We offset printed this design in pewter and papaya inks and used a fun seahorse motif perfect for a wedding in the Bahamas. The envelope is lined in our seneca pattern in papaya and we love the unique look and feel of this custom design. Congratulations to the folks at Byrd & Bleecker for being an honoree in our Smock Design Contest and thank you for sending us this great design!

A while back we featured Andrea and John’s penguin motif letterpress save the dates, which we printed for our friends at Union Street Papery in San Francisco and today we’re excited to share their invitations! The charming custom penguin motif is carried throughout the invitation suite, letterpress printed in grass and midnight inks. Both the invitation envelope and the cute letterpress escort cards feature envelope liners in our Seneca pattern in grass, making for a fun, preppy look. Thanks so much to the folks at Union Street Papery for working with us on such a cool design!

After showing off the honorable mentions in our recent Smock Design Contest, we’re down to the final three winners! First up is our 2nd runner up, this beautiful custom letterpress baby announcement from our friends at The Write Image in Salt Lake City. It’s printed in a soft color palette of silver and pearl inks and features our champlain pattern and one of the cartouches available in our Social Occasions album. We love everything about this pretty birth announcement, so perfect for celebrating the arrival of a new baby girl, and so did our guest judge, Nole Garey of Oh So Beautiful Paper who says, “An absolutely perfect birth announcement. Simple and sweet, with both feminine and neutral design details perfect for a baby girl.” Thanks so much to the folks at The Write Image for bringing us this beautiful design!

This letterpress save the date is the last of our honorable mention in our Smock Design Contest, featuring a pretty floral motif from our Social Occasions album and boasting our Smock Spencerian calligraphy font. Printed in navy ink paired with blind deboss, we printed this customization for our friends at Judy Paulen Designs at Bloomingdale’s in New York. It’s incredibly chic and effortlessly elegant, two qualities we happen to love in letterpress save the dates.

Stay tuned for the top place winners in our Smock Design Contest as selected by Nole Garey of Oh So Beautiful Paper!

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!

Another custom design, these letterpress save the dates from Union Street Papery in San Francisco feature a cute penguin motif that the couple is incorporating throughout their celebration. We printed these in grass and midnight inks – they were then corner rounded and edge painted in grass. For the perfect finishing touch, the envelope was lined in our modsee pattern, also in grass. From the colors to the embellishments to the cute little penguins, everything about this save the date design is fun, personalized, and a unique reflection of this couple’s upcoming Southampton wedding.