In honor of Father’s Day I asked the dad of my children (aka my husband Zach) to share a quick list of his favorite things. Here it is…

You.
The kids.

Campfires.
Kayaking.

Running in the woods.

Boating.
Hanging out with friends.

Belgian beer.
The view at dusk over the lake.

This basically reads as an itinerary of our Father’s Day weekend traditions. Friday night campfire with me and the kids and a Belgian beer (or two). Saturday morning trail run and hop in the kayak (with kids or solo — Dad’s choice). Saturday night boat ride with family and friends and a breathtaking view of the sun setting over the lake. Sunday morning includes breakfast in bed — juice, coffee, a piece of toast with jam, a flower from the garden, hand drawn cards and lots of hugs and ‘I love yous’ and ‘you’re the best dad EVERs’. The rest of the day is step and repeat: kids, run, kayak, beer…..dusk. We always bring some of the chaos into my dad’s life. And family being his favorite thing he can’t resist. And this year Zach’s dad is joining us so we will pull up an extra chair at the campfire and the kids will make some extra cards and toast.

We love these cool letterpress party invitations we recently printed, a sophisticated pairing of midnight and taupe. The front features a modern, minimalist design while the back boasts our roxen pattern – the invitations were then edge painting in metallic silver for the perfect finishing touch. Thank you to our friends at Just Paper & Tea in Washington, DC for bringing us this wonderful design!

With Father’s Day just around the corner, we thought we’d take a moment to introduce you to our very first letterpress Father’s Day card, new for 2010. In muted masculine colors, it’s perfect for the number one father in your life. Nothing says, “I love you, Dad” quite like a great letterpress card.

These letterpress bat mitzvah invitations we printed, our Lashar design printed in verbena and pewter inks, are a fun mix of modern and traditional. We love the bold colors paired with the formal mix of script and roman fonts. The reverse of the invitations feature our inari pattern printed in black for a look that is contemporary and fresh without feeling too youthful.

Now that we’re back from the National Stationery Show, we’ve been sifting through big stacks of business cards and calling cards we collected while in New York. It got us thinking about how many fun letterpress business cards and calling cards we’ve been printing lately so we thought we’d share a handful of our recent favorites. Like a good letterpress wedding invitation, nothing leaves quite the same lasting first impression as a beautifully designed letterpress business card or personalized calling card.

Wow! It’s hard to believe it but the 2010 National Stationery Show has already come and gone – and we had an amazing time! Thank you to all of our friends, old and new, who stopped by to visit us, check out our new products and share your love of paper goods with the Smock team. Getting to spend time with people who love stationery as much as we do is undeniably our favorite part of attending the show! Luckily for us, our friend Missy (the incredibly talented namesake of Missy Photography) paid our booth a visit and shared these gorgeous photos with us so before we spend the weekend getting some much-needed rest, we wanted to share them with you. (Look closely and you’ll see lots of gorgeous new designs coming soon from Smock!) Thanks, Missy!

Our favorite Smock toddler even dropped by for a visit, definitely a highlight of the show for us…

{Photos by Missy Photography.}

We can hardly believe it, but it’s true – the 2010 National Stationery Show kicks off later this morning! For those of you attending the show, we’d love to have you come visit us in booth 2241 where we’ll be spreading our love for stylish eco letterpress stationery and paper goods. We’re excited to announce that Smock’s calligrapher, Debi Zeinert of The Blooming Quill, will once again be joining us at the show offering complimentary calligraphy for visitors to our Smock booth. You can catch her from 9am to 6pm today and again from 11am – 2pm tomorrow and 10am to 1pm on Tuesday. Be sure to stop by and say hello!

And just to get you good and excited, here’s a little sneak peek at our booth (and all of our beautiful new products we absolutely adore) from setup yesterday –

Things have been a little quiet around here in recent weeks as we’ve been busy preparing for the National Stationery Show. But don’t worry, there’s good reason. New at the show, we’re introducing our largest Everyday release yet! Letterpress notepads, notebooks, keepsake gift boxes, gift bags, sticky note squares, new gift wrap, new letterpress greeting cards, new offset cards, holiday, and more. And all of it eco, of course, featuring either our bamboo paper or our 100% post-consumer recycled paper. Our new FSC certified lokta paper gift bags are truly one of a kind, made by a really cool community-owned group in Nepal dedicated to sustainable forestry. We have so much to share with you in the coming weeks – stay tuned! While we’re away, you can follow along with all the fun here and on Twitter.

It’s hard to believe, but the 2010 National Stationery Show officially opens in just twelve days! We’ve been hard at work preparing for the show – there are so many fun new things to come from Smock this year! Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been mailing out invitations to our favorite retailers and media contacts to visit us at booth 2241 to check out all of the exciting new releases. While we can’t share everything just yet, we did want to give you a little sneak peek at the pretty letterpress printed envelopes that have been arriving in mailboxes nationwide. They feature beautiful hand calligraphy addressing from our dear friend Debi Zeinert of The Blooming Quill. For those attending the show, we’re excited to announce that Debi will once again be in the Smock booth offering hand calligraphy for visitors from 9 to 6  on Sunday, May 16th, and again from 11 to 2 on Monday, and 10 to 1 on Tuesday. We look forward to seeing you there!

New England portrait and wedding photographer Brea McDonald recently planned a baby shower for her good friend, Amber. Hosted at The Blue Elephant in Saco, Maine, she pulled together a beautiful garden-inspired event using her collection of vintage table linens and a bunch of sweet DIY touches. The coolest part? The sweet DIY paper pinwheels she crafted using Smock gift wrap that she purchased at Gus & Ruby Letterpress, one of our beloved Smock dealers. We love this idea! Our gift wraps all feature colorful double-sided patterns printed on 100% post consumer recycled paper. It’s always a treat for us to see the unique ways people put our recycled wrapping paper to work, but these paper pinwheels are definitely one of our favorites!

To read more about this pretty baby shower, visit Brea’s blog.

{Photos by Brea McDonald.}