Play Ball!

Seventy degrees this afternoon and breezy in Northwest DC. Signs of spring remind me that baseball season is just around the corner. With hubby on the couch next to me pouring over stats and drafting his fantasy baseball team (Go Numerators!) I'm thinking of kinds of baseball cards - cute ones from Pancake and Franks.

We've blogged about how great P&F's boxed sets of notecards are before. But these fabulous sporting scenes are available for individual purchase online.

Guest Blogger: Joan Green

One of the best and most affordable options for letterpress these days is Designer's Fine Press. This tiny Ohio-based printer has a big commitment to sustainable paper. All of their invitations are printed on Crane's Lettra paper that's 100% cotton (i.e. tree-free), salvaged from the textile industry.

And because DFP licenses their designs from four fabulously creative designers the choices are endless! Cat Seto, Margot Madison, Emily Gallardo and Alice Jacobs each of their own style but DFP blends bold prints and soft colors to create a cohesive look.

Not in the market for wedding invitations? Be sure to check out their great birth announcements and party invites, too. Bar Mitzvah line to come.....stay tuned. I carry the complete Designers Fine Press line online and in store.

Pack it in

It's not paper, but we couldn't help ourselves! How great are these lunch bags, complete with fork, knife, spoon and napkin, from Down Home Amy? Makes us want to brown bag it.

Be sure to check out Amy's silk screened card collection, too.

Office Style

Desk jobs can be so blah. Thank goodness for pretty office products to glam up our otherwise drab, veneer-filled offices.


Who do we turn to for office upgrades? Korean paper purveyor O Check Design Graphics.


Their vision, according to their website:

"Sometimes an everyday product which does not have a great meaning to it, can happen to evoke high feelings of emotion or nostalgia. In a small way it becomes a means of expressing ourselves.

We strive to design products which capture these feelings and can be a present for someone,
a memory to another or give pleasure to another."

Tracking these beauties down in stores can be difficult. Kate's Paperie in New York carries a small selection of O Check's stationery line in stores only. Australian paper store NoteMaker offers a more complete lineup. And O Check seems to have an online store of its own, though it's not the easiest site to navigate. Know where we can score O Check stateside? Let us know!

Javits Center, Here We Come!

Booked our hotel for the National Stationery Show at the Javits Center in New York May 16-19! Best trip of the year, as far as we're concerned.

Some of our favorite designers, like Albertine Press and Screech Owl Design, are slated to attend, along with some of the show's mainstays - Crane & Co., Chatsworth, and Arzberger Buening. Let the countdown to serious show shopping begin!

Spring chickens

'Nuff said. This is about the sweetest birth announcement we have ever seen. Give us more, Kata Golda!
Based in Port Townsend, Washington, this oh-sew-adorable stationier has loads of locations on the West Coast, but a smaller presence here in in the D.C.-area. Thank goodness there are lots of great online shops who carries Kata's wares.
Kata's birth announcements are hand-stitched with wool felt designs,mounted on soft white, acid-free Italian paper made of 100% cotton. Choose from nine precious designs.

Lovely Lettering

Kudos to our friend Kelly, for keeping us in the know about the hottest graphic designers around these days, like Brooklyn artist Jessica Hiche. These beautiful decorative letters are part of Hiche's Daily Drop Cap project, which she started in September 2009.


According to the Drop Cap site:

"Each day (or at least each WORK day), a new hand-crafted decorative initial cap will be posted for your enjoyment and for the beautification of blog posts everywhere."

Copies of Hiche's letterpress letters can also be purchased on her site - perfect for decorating your kiddies bedroom? Better yet? Check out her "Mommy Dearest, Daddy Darling Prints" here.

A typographer and illustrator, Hiche studied at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University. Her work has been picked up by magazines including GQ and New York magazine, and in some of our favorite stores, like Target. THANK YOU, Jessica, for offering us these lovely letters, and a special thanks to Kelly for sending this site our way!

Hot or Not: Engraved Wood Invitatations?

Readers, we'd love your thoughts on these laser-engraved wooden invites from Bullfrog Laserworks. We appreciate the packaging and their creative take on invites, but we're not sure we can get behind wood working-as-wedding announcement? Comments, please!

Japan Calling

Thanks, Jane, our gal on the ground in Cambridge, Mass., for passing along word of these beautiful calling cards from Winged Wheel Stationery. Based in Tokyo, Winged Wheel makes traditional cotton paper from Japanese mulberry trees, and adorns it with modern representations of classic Japanese motifs.

Letterpress calling cards are the newest offerings from Winged Wheel.


These graceful designs are inspired by Meiji era (1868-1912) woodblock pictures and are printed on handmade cotton paper produced by a Japanese washi paper craftsman. Design Sponge had a great write up about the company and their letterpress process earlier this month.

Looking to treat yourself? Check out Winged Wheel's Bespoke Stationery of the Month Club. Sign up and they'll send you twelve month's worth of personalized paper.


Pick what you want from their fabulous website one month in advance. You can even scoop up their limited item of the month. This March they're featuring an assorted set of 50 translucent cards featuring six different candy-colored, spring-inspired designs.

Changing Postal Service

Last week my mom called say she got my postcard from our trip to St. Lucia......in December 2008. Where was that postcard hanging out for the last 15 months?

St. Lucia's post offices are no match for the the U.S. Postal Service, which delivers more than half of the world's mail, and is the lowest-cost post in the world. A pretty amazing system.

So it's really disheartening to hear just how badly the postal service is hurting in the digital age. In 2006 the postal service delivered 213 billion pieces of mail. By 2009, that number had dropped to 177 billion pieces of mail. And the agency expects mail delivery to drop to below 170 mail.

Last night Andy Rooney capped off CBS's 60 Minutes with a five minute rant about the possible reorganization of the U.S. Postal Service - a move that would shut down 10% of post offices nationwide and curtail mail service from six days to five. It's a funny thing when our beliefs coincide with Mr. Rooney's, but we happen to agree with him on this one. Curmudgeonly Andy is obviously anti-email, and he misses the days of mailboxes full of "real" mail - letters from loved ones, rather than Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons.

Not a fan of Andy (we know it's tough love), check out Kojo Nnamdi's interview with the Postmaster General from last week. Postmaster Jack Potter gives some great details about how the Postal Service is working to salvage itself and the steps they've taken to get to where they are - including hiring consulting powerhouse McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group to help them gauge the future of the mail system. Bottom line? Support your local letter carrier! Write more, text less. And get the message out - people love pen pals. If you write a real letter, you can expect one back.

First Cut!

This is a tradition that started with my grandmother. Whenever she got a new box of stationery, she would send the first slice to my mother - first cut. My mom and I continue this tradition. It's always such a delight to put pen to new paper for the first time - who better to share it with than each other?

Today, when I got home from my first day of work, I was treated to a new box of lovely letterpress courtesy of Joan Green's Pretty Print. Mom gets the first cut, but I had to share the goods with you, too!

Designed by Chatsworth, we chose the Frost informal card with violet ink. Love the script and the beautiful serifs on the "R."

Reader Raves: Mirado Black Warrior

Our friend Bethany passed along a hot tip - the Mirado Black Warrior. Fad diet? No. Crazy undergarment contraption? Definitely not.

The Black Warrior is her favorite pencil.

What makes it so luxe? Sleek, sturdy, made of California incense cedar, the Black Warrior is a round pencil with a glossy black finish. Inside, pencil graphite is blended with wax to create a smooth, writing experience. And at $2.49 for a dozen, these pencils are a steal. One reviewer on Amazon explains the Warrior this way:

"Chances are, you can't afford a Rolls Royce automobile, a Patek Philippe watch or a mansion in the Hamptons. But for less than a quarter apiece, you can write with the best wooden pencil in the world: the Black Warrior. Who says rich people have all the fun?"


Word is, these pencils are hard to come by these days, so if you see them, snatch them up. Says Bethany:

"I'm down to mainly stubs now.... I was at Staples over the weekend and was going to buy some but sadly they didn't have any. I bought the next closest thing, the Dixon Ticonderoga 'Black' which tauted itself as the world's best pencil. I sadly have to disagree."

Baltimore Beauties

Last week we were on a job interview that had absolutely nothing to do with stationery, when the conversation turned, naturally, to....paper. Didn't get the job, but we did learn about some great independent letterpress producers in Baltimore, our friendly neighbor to the north. Totally worth it.

The folks over at Typecast Press in Baltimore's Charles Village, couple antique printing presses with modern designs to create beautifully original invitations and calling cards.

Hunting down antique printing presses and printing dyes has become something of a mission for Typecast proprietor Mary Mashburn. She writes:

"We love the history behind these beautiful machines and the stories of the men and (yes) women who operated them. We are using today's technology not to replace that craftsmanship but to keep the art of letterpress alive. "

Sign Up for Post Updates!

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And if you spot eye-catching paper ideas in stores or online, don't be shy - send the details our way we'll be sure to share them with the group. We'll also be sure to give credit where credit is due - to you!

Wee Gallery on One Kings Lane

Hop on One Kings Lane this morning at 11 to snag some super cute designs fromWee Gallery. Goodies this morning include boxed sets of note cards, and colorful canvases perfect for dressing up your kiddies' bedrooms.
Wee Gallery Creator Dave Pinto explains how he and his wife started creating these masterpieces:

"When our son was born we read everything. We read about how to interpret babies' cries and change their diapers.... We learned that newborns can only see 12 to 15 inches away and they are most taken with their parent's faces and black and white geometric figures. Experimenting with the latter idea, Wee Gallery was born.

So why couldn't we just get away with drawing black lines with a marker on a piece of paper? Well, as Siddu got older the lines became very boring. The animals, on the other hand, continued to entertain. As his motor-skills developed he would grab the cards and look at them. When we told him stories for each animal he would listen and look, turn the card and turn it again. As he approached one he would carry them around and give them to us, asking for a story. He could even point out each animal as we named them.

Siddu is now 6 and he has a sister, Anya, who is 3. Wee Gallery is a decidedly family affair. We work together to figure out new sets of art cards, choosing animals and their design. Surya and Siddu paint lots of versions and we all choose the best ones. "
We love the story of how this family came together to create such beautiful and rich cards. The notecards are so pretty you may want to come up with creative ways to hang them, too.

Stamp Champ

We've mentioned this before - we're always on the move. New jobs, new cities, new apartments. All that bouncing around gives us ample reason to send letters and updates to friends and family. But it can be hard on our stationery supply. Why are we still lugging around a half-used box of notecards and envelopes with our address from Chicago?

So for now we stick to custom calligraphy stamps, like these great options from Love to Create Stamps on Etsy.


For the budget-conscious bride, hand-crafted wooden handle stamps are a must have. Think of all the options! Return addresses for save the dates, invitations and thank you notes - you could even stamp the envelopes of your response cards - all for $25. Happy stamping!

Pop Art

Kudos to our incredibly talented friend, Dana Welti, who between a super busy work schedule and raising two adorable children, finds creative and cost-conscious ways to make art at home.

Last week, using pop-up books that the kiddies had begun to shred, Dana salvaged the remaining pages, mounted the pop-ups as art, and, Voila! created a beautiful room for baby Anna.

A peek at the finished product:

Orla keily on Gilt

We're a little late to the party here, but Orla Keily's fabulous paper line (did we even know she had a paper line?) is available through tomorrow on Gilt.

Offerings include notebooks - lined and unlined - and correspondence cards, in many of her signature prints. The best part? Everything's under $20!

Green Cards

Wolfie and the Sneak has been our our radar for a while now. We have a copy of their pod poster hanging in our kitchen.

Next on our Wolfie wishlist? Fresher and Farmers' Market cards, adorned with some our favorite seasonal veggies. On this dreary March not-quite-spring day, we're hurting for a little more green.

Here's a closeup of the cards:

And these notes are good for so much more than just a brightly-colored pick-me-up. Designer Renee Garner announced plans to do good in 2010 through Wolfie and the Sneak's environmental initiative. Some highlights:

• a carbon offset commitment through NC Green Power
• biodegradable, plant-based cellophane shipping sleeves for online orders
• recycled shipping boxes, print backings, and more
  

Status Symbol

The last three status updates posted to our Facebook wall:

1. "At the airport. Flight to LAX delayed..."
2. "Hey Mr. Pilot Bachelor - what were you thinking picking Vienna??!"
3. "Picked up my dry cleaning this morning and left before discovering they lost my favorite sweater. Ugh!"

"Ugh!" is right. Sorry, friends, but Facebook status updates can be, well, a bit of a bore. We can't all be witty all the time. Enter Status, Vol. 1, the book that carefully curates the funniest, most inspiring, tweet-worthy status messages jostling around the internet today.




Maybe this book will inspire savvy status seekers to post updates worth publishing?

Big Fish

In a sea of creative paper, these sea creature cards from Sub Studio Designers stand out. Each boxed stationery set comes with four silk-screened notecards and envelopes printed on recycled paper. We love the delicate line drawings coupled with the bold primary colors.


Sub-studio was formed in 2006 by Anna Corpron and Sean Auyeung, graduates of Cornell University's Architecture program. Together they draw inspiration from the flora and fauna, urban spaces, and......the Revolutionary War?


In addition to notecards and other small paper goods, these two also create large-scale poster prints. Their Revolution! Series draws from historic events of the pre-Revolutionary War period, like the the rebellion of the Stamp Act and the Boston Tea Party.


For their series, Sub Studio re-imagined what it would be like if a modern style were applied to rally the historic call-to-arms of the citizens and colonies leading to the American Revolutionary War. Not sure how Sam Adams would have felt about these, but they definitely made us put down our teacups....