Today we’re excited to introduce our first ever holiday promotion! Between now and December 1, 2010 all Smock custom letterpress holiday orders will receive free printing on our luxury bamboo envelopes. All you have to do is purchase blank envelopes, fill out a coupon with your local Smock dealer and we’ll do the rest at no charge. In need of a little holiday inspiration? We’ve got you covered with this custom letterpress holiday design brought to us by Salutations in Charlotte, North Carolina, one of our favorites so far this season.

Printed in red ink, these fun letterpress holiday cards feature our Lashar design from our wedding collection with festive patterned backing in our kincaid pattern in grass and showcasing our new Harrison calligraphy font. A custom letterpress gift tag is a sweet little accompaniment, perfect for wrapping holiday gifts with a personalized touch. (Shown below with our Savoy lokta paper gift bag.)

One of our awesome Smock dealers, Paper & Chocolate in Dallas, Texas worked with Amy and Aaron on their gorgeous Smock letterpress wedding invitations in our Haddington design for their upscale Las Vegas wedding. We’re so excited to be sharing a little look at their beautiful wedding with you today! (And you can read more about Paper & Chocolate from a past blog feature, too.)

When asked to describe her big day, Amy shared, “Since most of our friends and family are scattered across the country, we decided to have our wedding at our personal favorite vacation spot, Wynn Las Vegas.  We were not interested in having Elvis marry us, but instead, taking advantage of the beautiful scenery of the resort, where there was something for everyone. The theme of our wedding was old Hollywood glamor with a modern twist.

I fell in love with purple Vanda orchids and green Cymbidium orchids, which set our color palette.  Wynn Las Vegas does an amazing job with floral design, and they provided the flowers, catering, and cake.

Our Smock invitations set the tone for a fabulous black tie event. The ceremony was held on the terrace of the Margaux Ballroom, overlooking the Wynn golf course and a giant waterfall. Guests then moved into one half of the ballroom for cocktail hour, while the terrace was converted into a candlelit area for visiting.

After cocktail hour, Wynn opened draping to dramatically reveal a seated dinner with immaculate service. Harbor Lights West provided the 8-piece band, which made the dinner and dancing reception spectacular. It could not have been a more luxurious and memorable day.”

Thanks so much, Amy and Aaron, for sharing your beautiful celebration with us – this is not your average Las Vegas wedding and we just love all of the glamorous details. Congratulations from all of us here at Smock!

{Photos by BluDoor Studios.}

Brought to us by our friends at Bennett Schneider in Kansas City, Missouri, this custom letterpress wedding invitation design features a cool pairing of pewter and chartreuse inks and features the Graham motif from our Social Occasions album. The reverse side features a pretty chartreuse backing in our champlain pattern with a perfectly coordinating envelope liner in champlain in pewter. These invitations are modern and fun, and set the perfect tone for this reception at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

Our next Smock Design Contest honoree is a fabulous custom letterpress wedding invitation design from Salutations in Charlotte, North Carolina. The set features a cool #10 business-sized letterpress wedding invitation printed in navy on our 1-ply white bamboo paper with coordinating letterpress reply post cards, reception cards and petite-sized website cards. We love when a couple thinks outside the box! In this case the design is fresh and modern while still feeling traditional. Thanks to our lovely friends at Salutations for sending us such a great design!

Every once in a while you hear a story that just sticks with you. Jack’s story is one of those. Smock’s Creative Director, Amy Graham Stigler, recently helped out an event for I Back Jack, an organization dedicated to the relentless pursuit of a cure for neuroblastoma, a high-risk from of cancer that occurs in infants and children. Jack, a good friend of Amy’s son Graham, is an eight year-old 2nd grader living in Hartland, Wisconsin. Jack and his twin sister Annie were happy, healthy children until Jack was diagnosed with Stage IV, high-risk neuroblastoma in September 2005. He successfully battled through treatments that included high-dose chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, and immunotherapy, and by the following summer was effectively on the road back to a “normal” life.

Unfortunately, as most high-risk neuroblastoma patients do, Jack relapsed in May 2007. Chemotherapy and radiation once again returned Jack to stable health but despite a variety of treatment protocols aimed at keeping his disease in remission, routine scans confirmed a second relapse in December 2008 forcing Jack to continue his battle. Jack suffered subsequent relapses in October 2009 and January 2010 and remains in treatment today. The relentless pursuit for a cure leads Jack and the I Back Jack Foundation to back research, build hope and beat cancer.

At the latest I Back  Jack event, Amy helped with the handcrafted decor, including cute paper flags and strings of bunting made using our eco gift wrap in our Julep pattern. She also donated a big box of Smock paper goods and we sent along a bunch of our new jotter notebooks, which were used as a fundraiser. To learn more about supporting I Back Jack, visit the I Back Jack website.

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!

Brought to us by Perfectly Personal by Jen in Chappaqua, New York our next Smock Design Contest honoree is a fabulous custom letterpress bar mitzvah invitation. Printed on our white bamboo paper, the design is letterpress printed in blind deboss and midnight ink, corner rounded, and features an envelope lined in our sinclair pattern in taupe. A letterpress insert invites Mikey’s friends to celebrate with him at a party later in the evening. We love the look of this set – it’s masculine, youthful and sets the perfect tone for this celebration.

Like so many of you, we were stunned by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf Coast that dominated the news this spring and summer. While the spill has now been contained, the environmental impacts of the spill and the threats associated with offshore drilling persist. Oceana, an inspiring advocacy organization, has taken an active role in the movement against offshore drilling, and we want to help – this Saturday and Sunday (9/18 + 9/19), go to smockpaper.com, purchase any cards, lettersheets, or gift tags from the Isle suite and we’ll donate 100% of the Isle purchase to Oceana. Printed on bamboo paper, our Isle suite is inspired by art nouveau and (an oil free) underwater beauty, and includes our bestselling “thank you very much” whale card.

You can learn more about how to get involved and sign the petition protesting offshore drilling on Oceana’s website. And don’t forget to shop our Isle collection on Saturday and Sunday when we will be donating 100% of sales to help further Oceana’s cause.

Today is Tuesday, which during the summer and early fall months means it’s CSA day at Smock! Smock proudly subsidizes CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) memberships for all employees through a local organic farm, Grindstone Farm. Once a week, a big van full of freshly picked organic veggies shows up at our door and we always love digging through the boxes to see what we have that week. This year we’ve been eating a lot of rainbow chard, kale, bokchoy, a variety of lettuces, onions, garlic, lots of beautiful tomatoes, potatoes, and zucchini galore.

Here is a quick peek at today’s share – parsley, patty pan squash, three varieties of tomatoes, baby carrots, two varieties of radishes, lemon basil, lots of tomatillos and the first of this season’s apples.

With tomatillos greeting us week after week, we’ve all been sharing ideas on how to best use them up. The verdict is that a great roasted tomatillo salsa can’t be beat. We love this recipe from epicurious – it’s simple, quick and tasty. Does it get much better?

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

1 1/2 pounds fresh tomatillos
5 fresh serrano chiles (or sub the peppers of your choice; remove the seeds for less heat)
3 garlic cloves, unpeeled
1/2 cup fresh cilantro
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons coarse salt

Preheat broiler or grill.

Remove husks from tomatillos and rinse under warm water to remove stickiness. Broil chiles, garlic, onion and tomatillos on rack of a broiler pan 1 to 2 inches from heat (or on the grill), turning once, until tomatillos are softened and slightly charred, about 7 minutes. Peel garlic and pull off tops of chiles. Purée all ingredients in a blender.

Allow to cool to room temperature and serve with your favorite chips or Mexican fare. Enjoy!

Rounding out all of our exciting new releases, we’re happy to introduce our inspired new letterpress social stationery designs, available now at your local Smock dealer. Perfect for letterpress baby announcements, bar and bat mitzvah invitations and save the dates, our latest designs showcase fabulous colors, bold patterns, our exclusive calligraphy fonts, and can even be designed to fit a wallet size photo. Looking for truly inspired letterpress baby announcements, invitations, moving announcements, or calling cards? We’ve got you covered.