There are lots of exciting events that go hand-in-hand with weddings: engagement parties, bridal showers, rehearsal dinners, welcome parties, and farewell brunches. While many couples will purchase wedding thank you notes to give thanks for gifts as a couple, we think it’s extra special for a bride to have some of her own stationery when it comes to writing bridal shower thank you notes. We rounded up a few of our favorites below — we love these for bridal shower thank you notes, but many of these cards can pull double-duty and work well as wedding thank you notes, too!

Rose gold is both feminine and romantic – and looks gorgeous next to our taupe letterpress ink. Get the look with our Leaves, Cameo, Classic Heart and Sparkling thank you notes.

Our new Papaya suite features pale blue letterpress ink with a pretty coral colored ink for a fresh, fun look. From the left: Papaya, Terrace 2 and Rainier notes.

Is yellow your color? We love seeing yellow inks paired with gold foil, but you can’t go wrong with gold foil by itself, either. From the left: Yellow Rose, Cambridge 2, Gold, and Thank You Script cards.

If purple and silver are more your style, check out our Grayling, Thank You Shine, Mineral Flowers and Platinum Thank You cards.

Can’t get enough of the color pink? Our Aztec and Kersey Note cards are ideal if you love pastel pink, or check out our Thank You Heart, Thank You Laurel, or Pink Heart cards if hot pink is your color.

Be sure to shop all of our note cards and thank you cards to find the styles that are perfect for you! All of our folded thank you cards and notes are available as singles, six packs, and thirty packs — and our thirty packs come in a small keepsake box! Visit our shop now >>

We worked with The Social Page to create these sleek custom wedding invitations for Amanda and Christopher’s country club celebration. The couple customized our Chablais invitation with silver matte foil and black ink, and used our Stella calligraphy font to emphasize key text throughout the suite. A custom map was included on the directions card to help guests find their way, and a chevron patterned envelope liner added a chic finishing touch!

letterpress ink: black |  foil: silver matte | fonts: smock plaza + harper | paper: 1-ply white | sizes: S-8sq folio + S-6sq + S-5sq | folio exterior: pearl pattern in blind deboss | folio interior: unprinted | envelope liners: van pattern in black ink | customization #:18384 | Social Page

We worked with Michael and Jessica from JCG Events to create these darling letterpress baby shower invitations for their shower! The invitation features Ruby — one of our exclusive calligraphy fonts — in taupe letterpress ink, and was edge painted in neon pink ink. The return address was also printed in neon pink ink, and the couple had the envelopes addressed in neon pink ink to match. They even purchased vintage postage to match the look of the shower (including an Audrey Hepburn stamp – for baby Audrey!). For the celebration, Jessica and Michael hosted a beautiful, Italian-inspired event at Villa Woodbine in Miami, complete with vibrant centerpieces, a DIY headband station and a gelato cart.  Head over to Style Me Pretty to see more photos and details from this beautiful baby shower!

Our Smock Dealers are always dreaming up amazing things for us to print! We usually see lots of wedding invitations, save the dates, and social stationery, but from time to time we’ll get a unique project like this one from Ipanema Press in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. Adrienne shared the inspiration for these cute accordion style stationery timeline cards – a helpful piece that she bundles up with baker’s twine (like a little present!) for her brides and grooms.

We love to offer our brides gorgeous custom designs and also keep them organized and on track! When planing a wedding there are so many projects to juggle. This pocket sized stationery timeline is a great reminder for when items should be ordered and when to mail them out. My clients love to know what projects are next on the list and are always so thrilled when every task is completed in time!

We specialize in custom illustration, so we definitely wanted to include samples of that on this special piece. We love to experiment with different colors and thought this neon peachy pink was especially gorgeous. With letterpress you are able to print these amazingly vivid shades that you just can’t achieve digitally, so we wanted to take advantage of that!

letterpress ink: (custom) pantone 912  | fonts: submitted | paper: 1-ply white | sizes: 15 x 4 custom accordion fold (3 x 4 when folded) | customization #24115 | Ipanema Press

We worked with Elizabeth at Fresh Ink to create these custom letterpress rehearsal dinner invitations. Printed in gold and mocha letterpress inks, the invitations featured our plaza calligraphy font and a custom patterned backing. The invitations tucked neatly into a Juliette style sleeve, which included a gold letterpress printed monogram and our Balsam Wreath cartouche. A separate invitation for evening cocktails was also created to coordinate with the set, and the custom pattern that was printed on the back of the rehearsal dinner invitations was repeated for the envelope liners. All of the pieces combined to make an incredibly elegant invitation set!

letterpress inks: gold + mocha + taupe + coconut blind deboss | offset back patterning: croft pattern in gold ink | fonts: smock plaza + carrington stripes + worthington | paper: 2-ply ivory | sizes: S-8 for sleeve + S-6 | corner rounding | envelope liners: metallic antique liner + custom pattern in taupe ink | sleeve:  customization #:20377 | Fresh Ink

We worked with Buchanan Ink to create this preppy take on our Emory invitation, which features our Smock Spencerian calligraphy font and gold matte foil stamping. Navy stripes in our Sherbrooke pattern help transform this deco design into a more traditional  invitation — perfect for a Southern plantation wedding.

letterpress ink: navy | foil: gold matte | fonts: smock spencerian + cooper | paper: 1-ply white | sizes: s-8 + s-5 | customization #: 21629 |  Buchanan Ink

Last year we held our first ever Sidewalk Sale, and the event was a huge success! This year, we’re planning another Sidewalk Sale with even more product offerings, more food trucks, ice cream from Gannon’s Ice Cream, letterpress printing demonstrations, and even a paper airplane golf course! Event attendees can enter to win a $100 Smock gift card, and we’ll be donating $5 to Onondaga Earth Corps for every person who completes our paper airplane course. Be sure to RSVP to the Sidewalk Sale on Facebook!

Many thanks to the following local vendors for partnering with us for the 2014 Sidewalk Sale: Street Eats, Ladybug Lunchbox, Smoke Inc., PB&J’s Lunchbox, Recess Coffee, Cafe Kubal, and Gannon’s Ice Cream!

*In the event of rain, the Sidewalk Sale will be moved inside to the Delavan Center Art Gallery – enter at the 501 entrance!

We’re looking for three letterpress paper airplane designs for attendees of our upcoming Sidewalk Sale to print. If your design is chosen you will receive a $50 gift certificate at Smock…plus a stack of letterpress printed paper airplanes ready to fold and fly. Take a look at the attached template and design something special for us to print over top.

After printing these at our Sidewalk Sale (which takes place on August 13 and 14, 2014, by the way), attendees will fly your design around a paper airplane golf course inside our printshop. We’re donating $5 to Onondaga Earth Corps for every aircraft that completes the course—so your design can also help us green the city.

That’s it! We can’t wait to see your entries. Please be in touch if you have any questions at all!

Here’s the fine print:

• Use this template as a starting point for your design. The final size will be an 8.5×11 printed sheet.
• The design should be appropriate for 1 color letterpress printing and single sided. You are designing the printing on the outside of the plane, which will print over the template artwork.
• Don’t have graphic design software? That’s ok! Just draw or print something with a single color on an 8.5×11 sheet of paper and send it to us.
• Your design must be received by Thursday, August 7 at midnight ET. Email your design to press@smockpaper.mom or mail your design to us at 509 West Fayette Street, Studio 135 Syracuse, NY 13204.

We’ll announce the winners on Monday, August 11.

We recently introduced lots of new products at the National Stationery Show, and some of our favorite new items were made with brides (and grooms!) in mind! Our new Everyday Wedding Essentials are a great supplement to our custom wedding invitations – we’re  now offering blank and numbered foil stamped table cards in silver and gold foil, as well as escort cards, coasters, congratulatory cards and wedding thank you notes. Our numbered table cards are available in sets of 1-10 and 11-20, and our blank table numbers are ideal if you’re having a very large wedding with lots of tables or if you’d prefer to have your calligrapher hand write each number to match your escort cards and place cards, invitation envelopes, and anything else you might be having calligraphed. Our blank table cards work well for menus and other wedding signage, too!

Rainier blank table cards + Rainier escort cards 

Dots blank table cards + Dots escort card

Numbered Dots table cards 

We worked with Fresh Ink to create these chic letterpress engagement party invitations for Carter and Wilson. Their die-cut invitations featured our Halifax invitation design in midnight ink, and our Plaza calligraphy font added a sophisticated touch. The couple introduced a second color and customized the invitation design by adding a marav patterned envelope liner and a croft patterned backing in our flax ink. The final result? Perfect for a fall engagement party.

letterpress ink: midnight | offset back patterning: croft pattern in flax ink | fonts: smock plaza + wallis | paper: 2-ply white | sizes: S-8SQ | die cut: belmont | envelope liner: marav pattern in flax ink | customization #: 19869 | Fresh Ink