Our friends at House of Letters/La Casa de Letras in Houston, Texas submitted these adorable letterpress baby shower invitations! Our sky and spring inks look lovely in letterpress on our 1-ply white bamboo paper, and this precious design customization features our ever popular Smock Ellie motif! We think it’s the perfect design for a spring shower to celebrate an upcoming new life!
ink: sky + spring | fonts: frida and forester| paper: 1-ply white bamboo | printing: letterpress | liner: seneca in sky | invite size: S-6 |
We’re excited to be kicking off a new round of Smock Store Spotlight features with Wordshop in Denver. A unique paperie with a beautiful storefront, Wordshop is Denver’s premiere indie stationery shop, offering a wide range of eco-friendly and artisan brand stationery, letterpress and paper goods. Proprietress Jill Alyn has an English degree and an unsurpassed passion for stationery and the written word. Wordshop is, for her, a longtime dream come true.
Please share a bit about yourself and your background. What makes you tick?
I am a wordgirl. I have an English degree. I never would have gotten into business school. I’m one of you who has also collected greeting cards for years. Good, thoughtful text makes me tick. From a. favorite design to me’shell ndegeocello.
What was the inspiration behind Wordshop?
There wasn’t a proper paperie in Northwest Denver (1) and (2) I had been dreaming of doing this for a really, really long time.
What’s your favorite part about what you do?
Hands down, connecting with people. Brides, mamas of brides, hopeless romantic card buyers, people who still see the value of the written word.
What stationery trends are you currently loving?
Great pattern on pattern invites, regional assembly of text is taking the crafty look to upscale design, and the return of the reply envelope – funk the postcard reply.
For first time visitors to Denver, what are your recommendations for must-do sights and scenes?
Table 6 for seasonal and local deliciousness, H|Burger for their roasted marshmallow and Nutella shake, Highlands Square shopping district, oh and the mountains are pretty, pretty.
What are you top prized possessions?
1. my little wordshop
2. an old dresser full of cards I have received, and cards I have purchased and will never send
3. a metal sculpture of peace doves from the seventies, snagged up from my parents house
4. a black, vintage ’79 Nicole Miller dress – a total show stopper.
If you could only have three fonts on your computer, what would they be?
Smock Clermont, Lawrence and Stockton
If you were a PMS number, what would you be?
7499 – daytime I am Victorian ivory + 5753 – nighttime I am pewter.
If you could describe your personality in letterpress, what Smock design would you be?
I would be Cavall. I think I already am. (Understated, some flair, a dotted line for annunciation. ) As for color, nothing is classier to me than black and ivory.
Thanks so much, Jill! If in Denver, be sure to stop by and pay Wordshop a visit.
Recently we had the pleasure of printing these really pretty letterpress bat mitzvah invitations for Dear Emily in Winnetka, Illinois. They are printed on our 1-ply bamboo paper in our Juine design, showcasing soft and elegant sea mist and papaya inks. Sophisticated script paired with Hebrew text make for a fresh and lady-like invitation.
We’re excited today to share another honoree in our recent Smock Design Contest! It’s a custom wedding invitation design brought to us by Details in Philadelphia, letterpress printed in gold ink on our ivory bamboo paper. The motif was inspired by our Pippen pattern, which makes an appearance as a gorgeous liner printed in gold. A big thank you to our friends at Details for sending us this great design!
This incredibly cool custom letterpress wedding invitation suite came to us from byrd & bleeker in Fort Worth, Texas. Enclosed in a folio featuring a custom leaf motif in tangerine on the exterior and our sottern pattern in saffron on the interior, the invitations were printed in eggplant with a reply card printed in taupe. A double-sided events/website card was printed in tangerine and taupe inks for a beautiful fall color palette rich in pattern and texture. We love this beautiful custom design – thanks to our friends at byrd & bleecker for sending it our way!
Today we’re delighted to share another honoree in our recent Smock Design Contest, brought to us by Social Graces in Nashville. This design is a pretty customization of our Cindrel letterpress wedding invitation design, printed in pewter and cloud inks. With hand calligraphy accents, this design is as elegant as it it is beautiful. A big thank you to our friends at Social Graces for sending us this lovely customization!
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.
Today we’re excited to announce the winners of our most recent Smock Design Contest! Our friend and paper blogger extraordinaire Kristen from Paper Crave did the honor of selecting our first place winner and runner-ups from among our favorite recent customizations, sent to us by our beloved Smock dealers. Over the next few weeks we will be sharing full details and photos of all our honorees here on our blog so don’t miss it. In the meantime, a big thank you to all of our awesome Smock dealers!
FIRST PLACE WINNER – Salutations in Charlotte, North Carolina
Brought to us by Salutations in Charlotte, guest judge Kristen says, “I love that it’s feminine without being too feminine,” about our winning design, a stunning customization of our Kurai wedding invitation.
FIRST RUNNER UP – Luxe Expressions in Atlanta
Saying that “…the vibrant colors and bold pattern make this such a fun invitation” we loved Kristens’s pick for first runner up, a custom 40th birthday party invitation design for our friends at Luxe Expressions in Atlanta.
SECOND RUNNER UP – Judy Paulen Designs in Manhattan
Kristen’s choice for second runner up is a custom letterpress wedding invitation brough to us by Judy Paulen Designs at Bloomingdale’s in Manhattan. She loved it because “the fantastic color choices and patterns give it a very modern feel.”
HONORABLE MENTIONS
In addition to our three winners, we’re recognizing seven additional designs that inspired us to no end. We extend a heartfelt thank you to our friends at the following stores – we are continually awed by all you do!
Details in Philadelphia
Printing cool stationery is what we love to do. Getting to print cool stationery for cool people? Well, that just sweetens the deal for us. Brought to us by the amazing Byrd + Bleecker in Forth Worth, Texas, we had the extreme pleasure of printing these custom letterpress social notes for Condoleeza Rice. They are printed in mulberry ink and feature corner rounding and edge painting in mulberry. The envelope liner is a coordinating mulberry in our champlain pattern. We love these! They are the perfect blend of sophisticated and formal with the fun of a little unexpected color and pattern. (Our favorite kind of stationery!) Thanks to our friends at Byrd + Bleecker and Condoleeza Rice for the amazing opportunity to work together on these fabulous social notes.
At long last, we’re excited to share the winner of our Smock Design Contest, a custom letterpress and offset wedding invitation sent to us by our friends at Papery & Cakery in Boca Raton, Florida. This design features offset printing in a custom palm tree design on the front, printed in sand ink, combined with letterpress text printed in midnight ink. It’s a sophisticated combination of texture and color that is exemplified with the perfect finishing touches – corner rounding and edge painting in midnight. The envelope was lined in our payette pattern in midnight, perfectly coordinating with all of the other design elements for a look that is polished and simply beautiful.
Our special guest judge Nole Garey of Oh So Beautiful Paper selected this design as our contest winner, because she fell in love with the combination of letterpress and offset printing. She says, “I love everything about the design, from the color selections to the midnight blue edge painting to the calligraphy details. I love the way the soft palm trees almost look like delicate feathers against the ivory background.”
Thank you so much to Papery & Cakery for sending us this incredible design and to all of our design contest winners for continually inspiring us. Thanks are also due to Nole for helping us out with the difficult task of narrowing down all of the amazing designs to just a few winners. Thank you!
To learn more about Papery & Cakery, check out their recent Smock Store Spotlight.