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.

The next honoree in our Smock Design Contest is this cool custom letterpress birthday party invitation brought to us by our friends at Wordshop in Denver. A play on our Bourbon letterpress thank you card, it’s printed in gold and pewter inks in honor of a very special first birthday party. We love this custom design and are honored to include it among our Smock Design contest winners.

As promised, we are so excited to share with you all of the beautiful customizations we crowned as our favorites in our recent Smock Design Contest. This incredible customization of our Kurai letterpress wedding invitation is so beautiful and unique, it’s probably pretty easy to see why we love it oh so much. Printed in rich eggplant and raspberry inks, it’s delightfully pretty and wonderfully charming.

Brought to us by Wordshop in Denver, Colorado, this customization makes the most of a unique layout where the branch design is shifted up and the text is rearranged to create a striking visual effect. It’s decidedly modern, but when paired with the richness of the tradition of letterpress, this is a look we can see becoming a new classic.

Featuring corner rounding on all of the pieces, a beautiful letterpress reply card, and a unique petite-sized letterpress website card, this suite is completely personalized with rich details and saturated colors. Thank you so much to the folks at Wordshop for bringing us this beautiful customization!

Here at Smock, we absolutely love working with our fabulous Smock dealers. We are continually and endlessly inspired by the customizations they dream up and love printing fabulous letterpress invitations, save the dates, escort cards, programs, social notes, business cards and so much more for their clients. In order to recognize the incredible adaptations of our Smock designs that we have been printing in collaboration with our stores, we recently honored ten breathtaking customizations that captured our imaginations and made us smile with glee as we printed them, packaged them up and sent them off to happy clients around the globe.

Over the next several weeks, we’ll be sharing each of the winning customizations, but we wanted to share a sneak peek of the many lovely letterpress creations that have had us oohing and ahhing for months…

A big congratulations and a heartfelt thank you to the stores we worked with to create these incredible designs…
Real Card Company in Seattle
Alphagraphics in Chicago
The Write Image in Salt Lake City
Wordshop in Denver
Arabesque in Naples, Florida
Kate’s Paperie in Manhattan
RSVP Studio in Toronto
Judy Paulen Designs at Bloomingdale’s in Manhattan
Paper Love in Brooklyn

Wordshop, one of our favorite stationery stores in Denver, was recently named one of the 20 Best New Boutiques by 5280.com (Colorado’s largest and award-winning magazine). We were thrilled to see Smock mentioned as well. Hooray! 5280.com writes that they love to visit Wordshop because of the “separate outdoor nook, complete with vintage desks and a writing bar, where we can site with a latte, our thoughts, and a pen and paper.” That sounds so addictive and lovely!

We love this tiny save the date! It’s the sweet size of reply or reception cards and, beside being elegantly adorable, it’s also less expensive than larger save the dates. Dreamed up by Wordshop & client in Denver, Colorado. Engadine design, printed in tangerine & moss inks.