This stunning letterpress wedding invitation was submitted to us by our friends at Pretty as a Picture in Co. Wicklow, Ireland.  Jane and Ailbhe love to create custom designs that are intricate but still work very well on letterpress.  The simple Black ink on 2-ply bamboo ivory paper helps the focus remain on the detailed artwork which is what we think makes this invitation beautiful.  We’re also very excited for our Irish friends to come visit Smock in a couple weeks!

ink: black | fonts: cameron| paper: 2-ply ivory | printing: letterpress | invite size: s-8 |

by Nathan Fleming, Client Coordinator.

As promised, more photos from the Summer Social! The talented husband-and-wife duo over at The Why We Love provided us with some amazing images of the event. We teamed up with Bash Please, who helped set up the scene with some gorgeous decor, Sweet Lucie’s, who provided incredible organic ice cream, and Mrs. Lilien, who poured delicious lemonade cocktails throughout the night. Attendees included some stylish L.A. bloggers, letterpress lovers, summer enthusiasts, some sweet kids & some kids at heart. We had so much fun getting to chat with everyone who stopped by – it turned out to be one great party!  Even more fabulous photos from the event can be found over on 100 Layer cake – check it out! By the end of the night, attendees made over 275 Smock pinwheels out of our cheery eco gift wrap! A big thanks to Audrey at Urbanic for hosting – we had a blast!

We are so happy to see that our friends at  Haute Papier were featured in Southern Living magazine! The post also included a gorgeous customization of our letterpress Helani wedding invitation design that Haute Papier submitted! Thanks Haute Papier and Southern Living!

Our friends at Haute Papier in Leesburg, Virginia recently featured our Smock Everyday Flounce Wrap on their blog- Haute Papier!

We love the Kusudama origami flower they created! For how-to directions please visit: Haute Papier!

(Our double-sided gift wrap, by the way, is made from 100% post-consumer recycled, FSC-certified paper, and is printed via wind power).

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 cannot wait to venture out to the West coast this week to host a trunk show event with our friends at Union Street Papery in San Francisco! The event will be held on Sunday, June 12 from 2pm-4pm, and we are so excited to show off all the fabulous letterpress invitation designs from the amazing new Smock wedding album.  In addition to some fantastic promotions (we’re offering 25 free letterpress invitation sets when you buy 75 or more!), you’ll get the chance to chat with Smock design experts to dream up the most gorgeous wedding invitations for your big day.  So come join us — we’d really love to meet you!

At long last, we’re so excited to tell you about the upcoming Summer Social that we’re hosting with Urbanic on June 9th in Venice, CA. Special friends Bash, Please, Mrs. Lilien, 100 Layer Cake, and photographers The Why We Love will be there and Sweet Lucie’s is sure to steal the show with their amazing gourmet ice cream. We’ll be crafting, sipping lemonade, mingling and celebrating summer with sundresses and good company. Hope to see you there!

Long before leaving town and setting up temporary residence in the Javits Center for the 2011 National Stationery Show, our design team was hard at work creating the perfect letterpress invitation to wow would-be visitors. Printed in vibrant hot pink and papaya inks, the invitation features highlights from our new letterpress wedding album including inspired new fonts, our show-stopping letterpress sleeve, and a great die-cut invitation shape. (Yes! We now offer letterpress sleeves and die-cuts in two awesome shapes!) Our latest designs (which we’ll share more of here soon) are all about inspired typography, bold and cheerful color, perfect patterns and an abundance of embellishment options. Letterpress sleeves, new letterpress printed belly bands, die-cuts, hand bordering, custom postage stamps and more! Albums ship in just a few weeks so visit your local Smock retailer for all of the goods!

We’re so excited to show off our National Stationery Show booth now that we’re home and recovering from the excitement of the show. Conceptualizing our booth and thinking about how we can best show off all of our exciting new products is always a long process, so seeing it come together is really rewarding. Here’s a little look at setup day and the finished booth design… Here’s what the booth looked like when we showed up. Our 10′ by 30′ space is consumed by our two large shipping crates and an oversized boom lift that decided that our booth looked like a cozy place to hang out for a bit. 20 minutes later, the space is cleared out and we’re ready for set up! A little while later, our flooring is down and the walls of our booth are being constructed… …it doesn’t take long before co-owner Harold is feeling a little loopy from playing with bolts and nuts and framing. (He actually loves setup, don’t let him fool you.) A bit later, the walls go up! After our wall framing is up, it’s time for the canvas panels that form the walls of our booth. Then, the shelving goes up and we start merchandising product. (Making time for a little lunch and a little fun along the way.) And just like that (or, really, several hours later) here’s what we had… So there you have it! Stay tuned next week for more highlights from the show, including a fun tutorial on how to make the paper flowers we used all over the booth. (We made more than 100 of them from our double-sided recycled wrapping papers!) They were such a hit we promised to share the how-to so everyone can make their own. Happy weekend!

A quick sneak peek at our National Stationery Show booth this year. Stay tuned for a complete behind the scenes look later in the week!