When thinking up fun ways to use our eco gift wrap this holiday season, we dug deep into our craft drawers at home to find cute bows, ribbon and tulle. We used the wrap to stuff gift bags, crafted it into ribbon and curly bows and played with the double-sided patterns to create pretty stacks of presents all tied up with cute embellishments. At Smock, we’re the type of folks who adore a pretty package anytime of the year, but it’s especially fun at the holidays to gussy up packages for giving to loved ones. All of our gift wraps feature double-sided patterns printed on 100% post consumer recycled paper and come in over-sized sheets that are 24″ x 36″ – each roll comes with two sheets.

Smock’s Market wrap topped with a big yellow bow.

Smock’s pretty pink Plume wrap and Chiffon wrap tied up in a cute stack with iridescent ribbon.

Smock’s Liony blue and green gift wrap paired with salvaged fabric ribbon we had lying around from an old craft project.

Smock’s Julep gift wrap with a tuft of bright blue tulle on top.

This package is all wrapped up in pretty recycled kraft paper and features Smock’s Liony gift wrap as both ribbon and curly bow.

For those gifts better off rolled, we used our Savoy gift wrap to form a pretty patterned tube and then finished it off with white tulle.

No time to wrap? Here we used our Savoy and Ceylon gift wraps as stuffing for gift bags.

Smock’s Tissot gift wrap tied up with pretty purple and lavender ribbons in a basket weave pattern.

Our philosophy at Smock is that gifts don’t have to be lavish to be extraordinary. Even the simplest of gifts can leave a lasting impression when you get creative with great gift wrap and the perfect little letterpress card or gift tag. Still on the hunt for great gift ideas? We’ll be rounding up a few of our favorites next week for those of you who – like us – still have a long list of gifts to buy. Don’t miss it!

With the holiday season in full swing, we can’t help but picture cute little packages tied up with bows and paired with the cutest of letterpress gift tags. And all of that talk about pretty holiday packages got us thinking about creative ways to put our double-sided eco gift wrap, printed on 100% post consumer recycled paper, to work this holiday season. We’ve been busy coming up with ideas and crafting up great holiday gift wrapping ideas so make sure to check back next week when we’ll be sharing lots of ideas on how to make your packages unique and beautiful. In the meantime, have a happy weekend and we’ll be back next week with tons of holiday inspiration!

With the holidays soon to be upon us, we’ve been feeling the holiday cheer here at Smock for a while now as we print lots of pretty custom letterpress holiday cards. We’re pretty firm believers that nothing says “happy holidays!” quite like beautiful letterpress cards. We think you’ll agree!

This letterpress holiday card, designed to accommodate a holiday photo, is a customization of our Cindrel letterpress wedding invitation printed for the folks of By Invitation Only in Little Rock, Arkansas. It is printed in red ink and blind deboss, featuring corner rounding and custom hand calligraphy accents.

Another customization of one of our letterpress wedding invitations, this holiday card is our Vettore design printed in red ink.  The envelope liner is our seneca pattern, printed in pewter ink and the design again features that special extra touch of beautiful hand calligraphy. This customization was brought to us by Ecru Modern Stationer in Portland, Oregon.

Another letterpress card designed to include a photo, this darling letterpress holiday card is a custom creation from our friends at Cotton Idea Studio in Newport Beach, California, featuring red ink and a cute little border pulled from a design in our Everyday letterpress collection.

We adore this unique letterpress card, which serves double duty as both a charming holiday greeting and a moving announcement. Such a fabulous idea! Brought to us by Kelley at Houston Invitation Service, it’s printed in red ink on our citron green bamboo paper from our new Social Occasions album.

As the holidays draw near, the team here at Smock is feeling our holiday spirit grow by the day. How are you saying “happy holidays” this holiday season? We’d love to know what you do to make the season merry and bright!

In celebration of the holidays and the earth, here at Smock we are officially renaming this Friday Green Friday. On Friday, November 27th, for one day only, we’ll be donating 50% of all proceeds of sales on smockpaper.mom to the Amazon Conservation Association! As one of our Smock eco partners, the Amazon Conservation Association works to conserve the vitality of the Amazon – an ecosystem that is vital to keeping the planet alive and well. The Amazon is one of the world’s most important carbon banks and is home to 20% of the planet’s animal and planet species; it plays an integral part in helping slow global warming; and it’s an area threatened by deforestation.

What does that mean for you? You can nab up all of your favorite Smock goodies from our Everyday collection and in turn, we’ll do our part to help out the earth. With the holidays swiftly approaching, now is your opportunity to stock up on our festive double-sided gift wrap printed on 100% post consumer recycled paper and adorable letterpress gift tags, letterpress holiday cards and more, all sustainably printed on our bamboo paper. Help us help the planet this holiday season!

One of the places right at the top of our list of destinations to visit when we make it to the west coast is Urbanic Paper Boutique, a truly inspired shop dedicated to all things pretty and all things paper, a store we’re honored to call a Smock retailer. Before opening Urbanic, owner Audrey Woollen worked in the fashion industry for many years. She fell in love with the evolution of style and the dynamic nature of the fashion world and that, combined with her lifelong love for paper, led to the opening of Urbanic. She began designing stationery and invitations for friends and eventually was inspired to create a boutique in her neighborhood stocked with a carefully considered array of the best in hard-to-find paper goods. Audrey shares, “I wanted to fill a niche for style-minded brides who wanted something completely original.  I discovered so many great lines (like Smock) that filled this niche perfectly and was bursting with excitement to share these finds with Los Angeles.”

Today, Urbanic is a boutique recognized nation-wide for carrying an incredible variety of paper and letterpress goods geared toward fashionable people looking for something a bit special and a touch unusual. When choosing products and planning events for the store, Audrey is inspired by design of all kinds – architecture, furniture, fashion, graphic and interior design. For her, filling the shop with beautiful things is a true joy. Items are hand-picked with a keen attention to detail, keeping the store well-edited and cohesive so it’s inviting as soon as you walk in the door. When asked about what she loves most about her job, Audrey shares, “I enjoy coming into work because our existence is based around all the good things in life! Weddings, babies, birthdays, gift giving, thoughtfulness…there is a constant flow of creativity around here. Whether we are making paper vines for an event, building a paper pom pom window install, helping customers coordinate their wedding stationery, or doing an over the top gift-wrapping job, there is always something amazing being produced!”

Being such a trendsetter herself, we had to ask Audrey about her favorite trends in paper and stationery and her predictions for upcoming trends…
One thing I am loving (that you at Smock are brilliant for) is the mixing and matching of patterns and colors! Patterned backings, patterned envelope liners, and even folios. I adore the trend of mixing things up without being “matchy-matchy.” There is a way to do this to add a stylized touch, without losing the simplicity and elegance of a clean modern design. As far as the next big thing, I think blind deboss and edge painting will be getting a lot more attention next year as well as unexpected accents…details such as scalloped edges, glassine wraps, and hand accent details like stitching or hand stamping.

If you were invited to the White House for dinner, what would you wear?
Good question – this could change weekly! Right now at this moment I am feeling like I would want to go tailored and classic with a hint of forward style. I envision a mid-length dress with a deep v, and an unexpected asymmetrical detail. Fabric covered buttons down the back and for color, it would have to be an interesting solid neutral like a taupey gold or black plum. I just kind of made this up in my head, so I’m not sure where I could find my imaginary dress, but I am thinking it could be a cross between Juliette Hogan and Milly. To finish off the look I would go with peep toe pumps and pretty, simple jewelry.

What are your top pick destinations for first time visitors to Venice?
I think all visitors should check out the Venice Canals. The city is called Venice because it was built on the canals to resemble Venice Italy in the early 1900’s. It was a resort town and termed “The Coney Island of the Pacific”. Today the canals are full of beautiful homes and modern garden landscaping. There are little boats everywhere; it is charming and a mini escape from the city. Must do’s would include, walk Abbot Kinney Blvd and go bike-riding down the bike path along the ocean. Abbot Kinney Blvd is the upscale and eclectic shopping street in Venice where Urbanic is located. I love our block. It is full of shops, restaurants, art galleries and design firms. The street has a reputation for being forward, creative and alternative. The bike path is just good old fashioned fun.

Where are your favorite places to shop?
Mostly I love exploring new areas in different cities with boutique streets kind of like ours. I love the experience of walking into a shop or bakery when you can feel that proprietor poured their heart and soul into the business. The little details are everything!  Going into Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters is always a treat for obvious reasons. I am completely blown away by how talented their design and merchandising team is. When I am in NYC, I love peeking into the store windows and trekking around all the different parts of the city. ABC Carpet is one of my faves!

Thank you, Audrey, for sharing with us – we can’t wait to come visit when we make it to California!

At Smock, it truly never ceases to be incredibly exciting for us to be featured in some of our favorite publications. So you can imagine how thrilled we were to be featured in a recent issue of Inside Weddings, one of our favorite wedding magazines. Our Haddington letterpress wedding invitations were featured, showcasing our love for calligraphy and fabulous patterned envelope liners.

Natural Home featured some of our letterpress greeting cards, which are sustainably printed on our bamboo paper and paired with cute patterned envelopes.

The Wall Street Journal recently wrote an article about cool papers including Smock’s bamboo paper and showcased one of our letterpress birthday cards.

Smock was also mentioned in a cute piece in Victoria Magazine featuring great business cards and calling cards. Our Smock letterpress business cards were featured alongside some other fabulous calling card designs.

Thank you to our friends at Inside Weddings, Natural Home, Victoria Magazine and The Wall Street Journal for mentioning Smock! It’s an honor to be included.

Working with incredible retailers across the country and internationally is, hands down, the best part about what we do at Smock. They keep us inspired and energized and looking forward to creating imaginative, sustainably printed letterpress for customers worldwide. One store in particular that continues to amaze us is Urbanic Paper Boutique and their fabulous blog Parcel Post, where owner Audrey Woollen routinely feature a glimpse into life at Urbanic and the great paper products they carry. We’re always delighted when Smock products pop up in their weekly Friday at the Shop feature and have found ourselves continually loving the great photos they’ve taken of our 100% post consumer recycled gift wrap.

All of our gift wraps are double-sided, printed with bright festive patterns that coordinate with many of our letterpress greeting cards and letterpress gift tags. Later this week, we’ll be featuring Urbanic in our Smock Store Spotlight feature so be sure to stop back for all the behind the scenes details of one of our favorite paper shops!

{Photos by Urbanic for Parcel Post.}

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!

When Smock’s Master Calligraphy, Debi Zeinert of The Blooming Quill, welcomed a new granddaughter this summer, we were positively thrilled for her and her family. It was a true honor and a pleasure for us to print these beautiful custom letterpress baby announcements to welcome baby Natalia into the world. Perfect for welcoming a little baby girl, this customization was based on our pink Lamby greeting card and features lovely hand calligraphy on the inside from Debi herself. The baby lamb motif featured on this card is available through our new Social Occasions album, released earlier this year, so you can mix and match motifs, colors, patterns, and fonts to create the perfect baby announcement or social stationery to celebrate any occasion. This letterpress baby announcement was such a joy to print – we look forward to printing many more!

When we print letterpress dinner menus, we can’t help but marvel over the great food we know guests are going to deilght in enjoying – cinnamon and port wine poached anjou pear? Sounds declicious! Brought to us by Aileen’s Invitations in Miami, this letterpress menu is our Kurai design printed in rich raspberry ink. The vertical orientation, in combination with the border around the edges, makes this customization quite different from the original design. This customization is the definition of sophisticated elegance.

A big thank you to our lovely friends at Aileen’s Invitations for allowing us the pleasure of printing these great letterpress menus!