In San Fransisco, we had the chance to stop by a few more Smock retailers – first up: Paperwhirl. We spoke with Kitty, one of the owners of the trendy Union Square stationery shop.

What cause do your store support?

Paperwhirl tries to support local artists whenever possible – a lot of the cards and merchandise that we keep in the store comes from local artists in the Bay area.

What about your store are you most proud of?

We’re probably one of  the only independent businesses on Union Square – it’s mostly chains, and we’re one of the few small, privately owned shops in this area. We’re also proud of the fact that we’ve been in business for almost 30 years.

If someone is visiting your store, what’s another essential stop in your neighborhood?

I love this shop called Downtown – it’s got some really edgy, organic clothing.

What’s the hottest color palette out there right now?

We’ve been seeing lots of bright, happy colors lately – oranges, corals, and pinks have been really popular for summer.

Our next stop was to Cherish – a sweet shop with lots of paper love. They had a great studio set up that’s perfect for parties – we got to see one getting started during our visit! This particular party was a birthday and scrap-booking event, and looked like so much fun! There were tons of beautiful papers to be found throughout the shop – we couldn’t get enough.

Ryan from Cherish filled us in on the shop – check out our interview with him!

What cause does your store believe in? How does this impact the store?

We give lots of donations to auctions that benefit local schools throughout the city – we tend to do a lot of gift certificates for parties and studio space usage, so we donate a lot of our services.

What about your store are you most proud of? What makes you unique?

We’ve narrowed down our store image to be more about local artists – we have a lot of items in the shop that are made locally, and some we make ourselves. It’s a win-win – we love offering a selection of local goods, and it provides an opportunity for the artists to get exposure, too.

What do you predict will be the biggest wedding or stationery trend for 2012?

I’ve noticed lately that  a lot of brides are more mindful about the environment when it comes to their wedding stationery, and I think that trend is going to grow even more in 2012. They’re scaling back, trying to waste less paper, and making their selections extra special – choosing quality over quantity.

Thanks so much to Paperwhirl and Cherish for welcoming us with open arms! Be sure to stop in to these fabulous shops if you’re in the San Francisco Bay area!

We’ve had the opportunity lately to print a lot of beautiful letterpress programs, tiny little books detailing order of events, wedding party members, and more. We love the personalized touch that letterpress programs bring to a celebration and can’t wait to print more.

This gorgeous letterpress program is our Lashar design with hand calligraphy accents printed in blind deboss and garden ink, printed for clients of our friends at Paper & Chocolate in Dallas. The inside pages are flat offset printed on our text weight bamboo paper.

A customization of our Vettore design, we printed this letterpress program cover in periwinkle and pewter inks for Paperwhirl in San Francisco.

This pocket-sized letterpress program was printed for Deborah of RSVP Today in Manhattan. The letterpress cover features the motif from our Rousseau pattern with flat offset printed pages. The cover and the pages are hole punched so they can be tied with ribbon.

This program was printed for the folks at Michelle’s Memos in Potomac, Maryland and features our Smock Spencerian calligraphy font. Both the covers and the insert pages are letterpress printed on our luxury bamboo paper for a beautiful stand-out program guests are sure not to leave behind.