Hello!Lucky & Egg Press Pen Pal Giveaway

Remember how good it feels to write and receive letters.To make new friends at summer camp and stay pen pals through out the year? Nothing beats the feeling of finding a handwritten letter in the mailbox. To celebrate our new partnership with Egg Press and remind everyone how awesome it is to send and receive mail we decided to throw a fun little giveaway that revolves around one of our favorite things ---  snail mail! We've been sending letters back and forth all summer with Egg Press and it has been such a treat to find sweet packages alongside our bills and junk mail.

Here's how it works! To enter to win simply comment on this blog post or Egg Press's blog post about this contest and tell us your dream pen pal. It can be anyone, living or dead. Jack Kérouac, your Grandma, a Buddhist monk. For an additional entry, post a mail-themed photo on Instagram tagging us at @helloluckycards and @eggpress and using hashtag #LetterpressMailLove.

We'll have three lucky winners for this giveaway, below is what they'll receive.

Grand Prize: Hello!Lucky and Egg Press will be your pen pal for a year. You'll receive fun mail every other month which might include things like cards (big surprise, right?), recipes, chocolates, pens, seeds and more! There’s no obligation to write back, but we would love to get to know you better.

Second Prize: A years worth of cards from Egg Press and Hello!Lucky, 24 cards total!

Third Prize: 4-5 of our founder's favorite pens. And believe me, these ladies know pens!

You have until August 29th to enter to win, we'll announce all the winners on our blog. Happy letter writing!

Refinery29 Siblings Feature

Last week Refinery29 came by our new studio and took some photos of Eunice and Sabrina for a feature on San Francisco siblings. They were thrilled to be included along side some of the city's coolest siblings. The piece includes a pretty fun q&a with Eunice and Sabrina about each other -- including Eunice's favorite memory of the two of them growing up. You can check out the full Refinery29 feature right here.

 Thanks for including us Refinery29!

Unicorn Card Winner!

You have no idea how much we enjoyed reading your comments and suggestions for this card. You all are a witty, clever group of people. Thank you SO much for your feedback, it really helps us in this process when we are stuck on a design. In the end we settled on Are You For Real? And the final version is above. But that doesn't mean we didn't mock up a bunch of versions with your genius ideas before we settled on the final. Below are versions of the card with your words. They are all great, but we liked the silliness of Are You For Real? And thought the message could be interpreted more broadly.

We promised one lucky commenter a years worth of cards (totaling 12 letterpress cards). The winner of our caption contest is..... Tracy! Thanks for so many great suggestions Tracy, look out for an email from us so we can get your address and ship those cards to you.

Thanks to everyone else as well -- that was fun!

Card Caption Help and a Giveaway

We need your help! We're in the process of designing some new cards and we can't settle on a caption for this one. We're planning to release it for Valentine's Day so we're looking for something with a sweet sentiment.

Ideas we had include: Are You for Real?, You Amaze Me, You Dazzle Me. Would you vote for one of those or do you have a brilliant suggestion that would pair perfectly with this design?

If we chose your words for the card we'll send you a years worth of cards (12 total). If we don't chose any new suggestions we'll pick one winner at random who will win 12 letterpress cards from us.

So have at it and tell us what you think! We'll pick a winner this Friday 7/19.

We're Moving!

We have some big news! In May we're moving our letterpress studio to Portland, Oregon. Everything you know and love about Hello!Lucky will remain the same, but starting this summer all of the printing, production, and distribution of our letterpress cards will be overseen by one of our favorite letterpress card companies, Egg Press. All of our products, including our wedding invitations, greeting cards, and personal stationery, will still be available on the Hello!Lucky website where you can order and customize as you've always been able to.

We'll still be regularly adding new product to our site, posting things we love here on our blog, and updating you with what we're up to through social media. And, soon you'll be able to purchase Egg Press custom products on our site, too! Eunice and Sabrina will continue to design new cards and invitations, brainstorm new products, and manage Hello!Lucky from our new design studio in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury neighborhood.

One of our printers, Jon, will be moving to Portland to continue to print our cards out of the Egg Press studio, and this past weekend he drove most of our stock up there.

We're thrilled to release fifty new cards for one of our biggest releases yet this May. And we'll be at the National Stationery Show debuting our new line. If you'll be there come visit us and say hello at booth #1759!

Here's to another great decade and all that's yet to come!

And the winner is....

You all are amazing! Thanks for all the comments and kind words about our newest vintage circus cards. It was so much fun reading through your comments and we love hearing which designs you like best. We can't wait to add these to the site and make them available to everyone.

The person who will be winning all five cards is.... Tasha!

We love doing giveaways so be sure to check here often and follow us on Facebook and Twitter! Thanks again for playing everyone.

 

Hot off the press: Circus Cards!

We're gearing up for the National Stationery Show in May which means our printer is busy at work cranking out all of our new letterpress card designs. We'll be launching around 50 new cards this May and we haven't been this excited for a new release in a long time. One of the things that makes this release so special is the fact that we're now able to incorporate gold foil in our cards. We can't wait for that sparkly release.

This year we also expanded some of our favorite existing lines. Expect to finally see more sock monkeys! Another line we've been itching to grow is our vintage circus series. You can see the first card hand drawn by Eunice here.

We're adding 5 more cards to the circus series and you're the very first to see all 5 of the new designs. One of the things that makes these cards so special is that each one is hand drawn by our founder and creative director Eunice Moyle. We had so much fun coming up with the ideas you see illustrated on these cards. And our printer did an amazing job letterpressing these beauties.

We hope they're as well received in the rest of the world as they are in our studio.

Do you have a favorite? Leave a comment telling us which one and one lucky commenter will win all 5 - before anyone else can get their hands on them!

Look for these cards in stores and on our site in mid-May.  

Winner picked and announced here! 

New Letterpress Card Designs & A Giveaway!

We are so very excited to launch our new greeting card line and have loved sharing glimpses of what it looks like with you here on the blog, on Facebook and instagram. Well today one lucky commenter will receive one of our brand new cards, long before it's available in stores or anywhere else!

To enter to win just leave a comment and tell us who you would send this 'Thanks A Ton' card to. We'll pick a winner today and announce it here!

Update! We were so thrilled with the awesome response from you all that we picked 5 winners! Congratulations to Tasha, Tammy, Rebecca, Natasha, & Mary! You'll be receiving emails from us shortly so be on the look out! 

Eunice's Sketchbook

One of the most fun things we do around the studio is brain storm ideas for new cards. We usually have a meeting, throw out all of our silly ideas, and then whittle the list down to something manageable since Eunice usually ends up designing the bulk of our greeting cards. One of the most lively conversations we tend to have is when we come up with card ideas that center around anthropomorphic food. The idea for a 'Wokin' Birthday' card came from a dinner Eunice and Sabrina had at a Chinese restaurant.

As you can see Eunice is still in the midst of sketching but we had to share these shots of her sketch book from this morning. She said it's not easy conveying veggies and pieces of tofu dancing so she tries to imagine Wil.i.am as a piece of tofu. These veggies definitely look like they are getting down so her method seems to be working. We can't wait to see the final design for this hysterical birthday card and will be sure to show you as soon as it's on press.

In the mean time have a Wokin' Thursday!

Studio Shots

It's been a while since we've shared some snapshots of what's been going on in the studio on the blog. As you can see we are having a lot of fun watching our printers mix ink and we're printing many new designs in preparation for the National Stationery Show in May. If you're on Instagram be sure to follow us there for daily shots of what's happening around the studio!

Inspired by the success of our Going Strong card Eunice is hard at work drawing new designs for an entire series of circus themed greeting cards. This is the start of one of five new circus designs.

Almost as fun as the colors are the names that our printers give some of the inks in our studio.

Another brand new design on press. Jon just finished printing one color here so the full design isn't revealed. Can you tell what it is?

We're so excited about our new gold foil collection and we love seeing the shiny samples laying around the studio.

A pretty blue press.

 

Hello!Lucky Loves Love

We love celebrating all holidays around the studio, but Valentine's Day is the one we get most excited about. This year we decided to do a 'secret valentine' exchange, we all drew names and brought in a sweet little something for the co-worker we picked. Of course the creative packaging, original presentations, and handmade gifts were so very Hello!Lucky. Did you see how all out we went for Christmas? Here are some scenes from Valentine's Day around the studio. Enjoy!

Lia brought in chocolate covered strawberries for everyone.

Lillian gifted Holly with this amazing package of candy. Holly is the biggest candy lover among us and is the go to person when we need a little sugar fix, she's always holding.

How adorable is this hand stitched bag Lia made Stewey and filled with a seed bomb?

Heather's amazing package to Shayna. What was in there? Girl Scout cookies!!

Lyndsey gave Christina this sweet little rose bush in a heart container and some delicious chocolate.

The note from Heather's package to Shayna. And Shayna looking adorable holding her cookie from Stewey - who, like the sweet little cupid he is, brought in his famous 'Stewey's Chewies' for everyone in the studio.

We hope you had a sweet Valentine's Day! xoxox

Studio Visit from Happy Morning

We very much enjoyed the recent studio visit by the lovely Sandra of Happy Morning. She toured our studio, met the crew, and took some beautiful photos of our space. We love to see photos of our studio taken through the eyes of someone else. She captured all the colors and [somewhat] organized paper products in our pressroom.

This is our ever deep and never ending shelf of custom order envelopes. Thank goodness for color-coding!

On the day of her visit Jon was working on Julia Rothman's design Tres Chic, which is always a fan favorite.

Not even our office spaces were forgotten! Magic happens at the desks of our designers, and there are always inspirational materials laying around.

Our Visit Series save the dates are a huge hit among our future brides and grooms. We love to display them all together.

Thanks Sandra for coming to our studio and for sharing all the lovely photos! For more and to read a Q & A with Eunice, click here!

Employee Spotlight: Lillian

Lillian joined the Hello!Lucky team in 2010 and since then has proven her graciousness, patience, and positivity throughout every role she takes on. She's helped brides discover their wedding style, helped web developers update new products, and helped customers on a daily basis. A native of Vermont, her calm personality always brings joy to our studio, and so do the mouthwatering treats she shares with our staff. We always go to her for recipe ideas, and where to find all things stripes. Here's a little more about Lillian...

My role at Hello!Lucky is... Website improvement! Overseeing new website updates, providing tech support, and product managing--we wear a lot of hats here!

I can't get through the day without... coffee and leftovers from last nights dinner (and of course cooking when I get home)

My ideal weekend activities include... taking a day trip up to Sonoma or down the coast for some fresh air; usually accompanied by a stop at a winery or microbrewery

Favorite Hello!Lucky design... I love the Tuscany suite, and Heirloom Harvest reminds me of my home state of Vermont

Secret insider info you might not know about Hello!Lucky... call us, live chat us, email us... and you'll probably get the same four people every time (myself included)!

Open Studio Event & Holiday Sale

This past weekend we opened our doors on a sunny Sunday for our Open Studio Event and Holiday Sale! We had a terrific turnout and want to say thank you to everyone who came by. Our guests experienced hands-on letterpress tutorials by our temporary printer, Lillian! She graciously showed visitors simple letterpress techniques and those who gave it a go went home with their own hand-cranked holiday cards (pictured below). The spectacular Lisa Congdon paid us a visit, and also got to experience the letterpress magic. She just designed a brand new collection of cards exclusive for Hello!Lucky - soon to be released in early 2013!

These are the limited edition prints we created just for the occasion. We'll be putting them on our site and on Etsy soon! Below Eunice and Sabrina are busy mingling with all the visitors. You can see pressman Jon back there running the windmill press. It was quite the production but with all the helping hands it was a great success!

Just a snapshot of some of the holiday cards we had on sale. What a deal! We still have some left over so be sure to visit our studio from Monday-Friday, 9:00 - 5:00 for excellent deals on holiday cards.

Thanks again for everyone who visited the studio! We are definitely planning more events in the future so stay tuned, and be sure to order your holiday cards today!

Holiday Sale & Open House! This Sunday!

Just a reminder that this Sunday is our big open house and holiday sale! We have so many fun things going on including letterpress demos - where people can crank their own holiday card, a huge sale on holiday cards and gifts, and three limited edition letterpress prints we designed just for the occasion! We're just showing you these two - you'll need to come see us to check out the third print!

We're so excited about these prints, hand drawn by Eunice and masterfully letterpressed with split fountain by James. We only printed 50 of each so be sure to come early and buy one!

Visit us at 977 Howard Street (btw 5th & 6th) in San Francisco. Our doors will be open from 11:30am - 2pm. Email info@hellolucky.com with questions.

Open House & Holiday Sale

Mark your calendars! We're opening up our studio and pressroom to the public once again. Sunday, November 4th our doors will be open from 11:30am - 2pm. Our presses will be running, and just like last time you can try your hand at letterpress and crank one of your very own holiday cards. We'll also have some great deals on cards, gifts, prints and wrapping paper. So if you're in the Bay Area come visit us and see the inner workings of our studio!

This is a free event and all are welcome! Bring your friends! And help spread the word by sharing our Facebook event page here.

Address: 977 Howard street between 5th & 6th, San Francisco. Our doors will be open from 11:30am - 2pm on Sunday, November 4th.

Studio Craft Night!

We try to use our stock pile of crafting supplies as often as we can around here. And we love it when our employees stay after work to get some crafting done.

This week designers Shayna and Kelly made some amazing paper crafts to decorate our white walls. We're especially loving these paper pinwheels. Our team hot glued buttons to the centers for an extra pop of color. Cute! Want to try your own? Smock has a handy tutorial for making paper pinwheels with patterned paper. They make great table decor or aisle markers at a wedding, too. Match the patterned papers to your invites and you'll have a dream decor.

 

Hello!Lucky loves Italy

We received a super sweet email from Italian couple Lorenzo and Camilla asking if they could come visit the Hello!Lucky studio and learn a bit about letterpress printing. Little did we know they were huge fans of ours and both graphic designers. They came to the US and San Francisco for their honeymoon and they couldn't have been more gracious. We had a blast showing them around our space, and James provided an informative explanation of letterpress printing which they said is hard to come by in Italy. Thanks Camilla and Lorenzo for coming to see us! And congratulations on your new marriage!

Featured: Wedding Row California

This week Wedding Row California wrote a wonderful post about letterpress printing at Hello!Lucky. With specific details about the creative process and gorgeous photography by Josh Gruetzmacher. We feel touched when people show such interest in the age-old printmaking method of letterpress, especially when they spend a whole afternoon learning the ins-and-outs.

Printmaker James is a fabulous tour guide, and showed Abigail (the author) and Josh the steps of creating a New York City Skyline letterpress wedding invitation from beginning to end.

To read the entire feature and to view more amazing photos, click here!