Last weekend we kicked off the holiday season with a 2-day holiday shopping event complete with crafting and calligraphy workshops at our studio here in Syracuse, New York. In-house designer Jessica Downs (creative lead for our sister company Bella Figura) hand lettered a huge chalkboard sign complete with Bayberry inspired greenery to welcome shoppers to the event.

We had so much fun hosting NYC-based calligrapher Virginia Lucas Hart, who taught an intro to modern calligraphy course on each day of the event. Each guest received a personalized calligraphy starter kit during the course, which included two hours of instruction. We loved seeing how many people were inspired to learn this beautiful art form! 

During the event, shoppers stopped in to stock up on holiday cards, gift wrap, gift boxes and more – and many took home limited-edition calendars! The calendars feature Virginia Hart’s hand calligraphy, and pair letterpress printing with digital printing in the loveliest shades of blue. If you missed out on the event but want to snag a calendar, be sure to follow us on Instagram – we’ve got a few left, and we’ll be  hosting a giveaway soon! 

Our in-house crafting expert Jennifer DeRoberts taught wreath-making workshops throughout the weekend as well, showing attendees how to craft festive paper wreaths with upcycled, die-cut leaves made from our gift wrap and excess envelope liners from custom orders (we loved seeing foil liners sprinkled in throughout the wreath designs!).

In a few weeks we’ll be hosting our 2016 Holiday Shop! Join us on Friday, November 4th from 3-8pm and Saturday, November 5th from 10am-4pm at our Syracuse print shop for a warehouse sale and several workshops. It’s the perfect opportunity to stock up on gifts, cards, calendars, and gift wrapping essentials to prepare for the upcoming holiday season. We’re excited to be welcoming calligrapher Virginia Lucas Hart to offer calligraphy workshops on each day of the event (sign up here!) and we’ll also be bringing back our popular wreath-making workshops this year, too! Virginia is a talented calligrapher based out of New York City and we’re thrilled to be hosting her at our event. Take a peek at the photos below to see some of  Virginia’s past workshops for an idea of what to expect! 

Photography by Virginia Hart and Naomi Davis. 

We’re off to Fort Worth, Texas this week to host a Holiday Trunk Show with our BFFs at Byrd + Bleecker! Stop on in, create a work of art, order your letterpress holiday cards, or just say hello. We’d love to meet you!

It’s time to say thanks to the fantastic editors who have featured Smock’s letterpress wedding invitations, greeting cards, gift-wrap, and more in their magazines and on their blogs over the past few months. Our first feature is from Brides magazine, which showed our Palmer letterpress wedding invitations in their White Hot! section of their November edition — they were digging the die-cut shape and the fact that our invitations are eco-friendly!

Well Wed Hamptons Fall/Winter 2011 edition featured this set of stunning letterpress wedding invitation suite and one of our amazing retailers — Claudia Hanlin of The Wedding Library!

Eco Beautiful Weddings, an online magazine, recently featured Smock wedding invitations in their winter 2012 edition in “Green Is” — a section that helps brides track down eco-friendly goods for their weddings, and MODBlog also featured a variety of Smock wedding invitations this fall! (more…)

Christmas is right around the corner, and we love having an extra reason to get crafty around here! We made these festive Christmas Trees with our double-sided gift wrap for a little extra holiday cheer — they’re a fun DIY project and pretty enough to give as a gift — just be sure to make a few for yourself!

You will need: a cone/tree form (we preferred the cardboard cones, but styrofoam works, too!), paper, scissors, and a hot glue gun. Start by covering your tree form in the paper color of your choice. We used our Merry wrap for this tree. If you purchase a cardboard tree form, these typically have a point on top, but if you use a styrofoam form (like the one shown above), we recommend making a point with the wrap for a sleek look (see below).

After you’ve covered the tree form, you’ll need curls. LOTS of curls. We used our Merry wrap and our Mistletoe wrap for this part for some variety.  To make the curls, cut your paper into thin strips of varying lengths and widths — the variety will help the tree ‘fill in’ nicely. Then, begin curling the strips with scissors the way you would for curling ribbon. When you’ve compiled a decent amount of curls, begin adhering them to your tree with a hot glue gun.

Fill the entire tree form with the paper curls until you’re happy with the look. If you’d like, make a star to adhere to the top or leave it as is — and tada! A very merry (paper) Christmas tree.

There’s no better compliment than when a store asks us to print their own cards. Julie from Sweet Paper in La Jolla, CA used our Pearl design in such a clever way. I think this might be my favorite Christmas card to date! I may have to steal the idea for myself 🙂 Thanks Julie!

inks: dove + grasss + gold | fonts: percy + harrison | paper: 2-ply ivory | printing: letterpress | Christmas card |

One of our favorite letterpress holiday cards this year, this custom design was an honoree in our latest Smock Design Contest. Brought to us by our fabulous friends at Byrd & Bleecker in Fort Worth, it was printed in olive and azalea inks, a festive nontraditional color combination for the holidays. An envelope lined in azalea Seneca stripes is the perfect finishing touch. We love how these turned out! Many thanks to Libby for working with us on this truly inspired design.

Modern and a little bit quirky, we love these custom holiday cards that we worked on with our friends at Nest Paper Studio in Oxford, Mississippi. They use motifs from our Everyday collection, offset printed in pewter and red inks. They cheekily wish family and friends a holiday that is “off the chain,” a playful season’s greeting that we can’t help but love.

Don’t forget that our Smock holiday promotion ends December 1! Visit your local Smock dealer to get started today.

We continue our tale of a letterpress Christmas with these pretty photo cards printed for Anne Grace Designs in Dallas. This custom design features two cards fastened with a grommet on the upper corner. The design is printed in red and olive inks and features our bambine pattern in red on the front and back of the second card. The family is attaching a photo to the second card for a lovely, custom letterpress photo card. We love how bright and festive this design is, perfect for the holiday season.

With the holidays swiftly approaching, we were recently contacted by two of our fabulous Smock retailers about contributing some Smock goodies for holiday events being hosted at their stores. Naturally, we couldn’t resist getting in on the holiday action. At Smock, we believe in giving back at the holidays and throughout the year so we were excited for the opportunity to help our stores out this holiday season.

We sent these little bundles, featuring a few of our letterpress holiday cards and letterpress gift tags, to our friends at Salutations in North Carolina where they were hosting a holiday open house at each of their stores in Charlotte and Chapel Hill. Guests to the event had to bring non-perishable food items to donate to the local food pantry in order to gain admittance to the event. We’re delighted to have been a part of such a fabulous event!

We also happily sent some of our double-sided 100% post consumer recycled gift wrap and letterpress gift tags to Broadway Paper in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Broadway Paper’s holiday open house is being held this Saturday, November 14th – you can visit their website and the Broadway Paper blog for more details if you’re in Wisconsin and would like to attend.

What are you doing to get in the holiday spirit? We’d love to hear about the fabulous events you’re hosting or attending this holiday season!