Sunday in Color

I love, love, love beautiful children's design, especially lovely French things, so needless to say I was super excited for the launch of my super fabulous friend Sonia's new shop, Sunday in Color.

The site features collections of her favorite gorgeous toys, decor, and stationery from different countries - France, Thailand, Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands...how adorable are these Japanese globefish paper balloons?

and this adorable little mouse in a box by the Danish lifestyle design company, Maileg? So sweet.

Or this basket by Petit Pan, one of my favorite shops in Paris - so excited to be able to buy some of their things here!

We're super excited to be able to offer our lovely readers a 15% discount on everything in the shop until October 31st.  Just use the coupon code "hellolucky" at checkout.

Featured: Pregnancy & Newborn

Hooray! Our Inchworm birth announcement is featured in the latest issue of Pregnancy and Newborn Magazine! With so many adorable announcements readily available, we're honored they chose our playful new card. The design was so popular we decided to transform it into a folded thank you note! It comes in single cards or packs of six so if you have a bunch of thank-you's to write, we've got you covered.

Lucky Friday # 71, 1st Birthday

Hello all you lucky folks out there! This is the 71st edition of our Lucky Friday Giveaway.  Each Friday we feature one of our letterpress greeting cards. We’ll choose THREE LUCKY WINNERS to get a free card.  Post a comment by 12 p.m. PST the following Thursday, and we’ll announce the winners on the following Friday!

The winners from last week are (drum roll, please): Derek Rigby, Nicky, and Sierra Catherine! We’ll contact you next week to arrange sending your Hipster Party card.

Design: 1st Birthday Artist: Esther Aarts Inspiration: We had a little block about this one— our train of thought didn't have rails, but then we got on the ball and it ended up being a real bunny of a design. Who to send it to: We can think of some one, one for whom it's perfect, the one and only, the sweetest one of all! Ideas we scrapped in favor of this one: The text "One Is the Loneliest Number" didn't suit the occasion— not one bit. Favorite detail: Ooh, that's a tough one... Why letterpress: We can give you one good reason... it's one-derful.

Don’t forget to post your comment and tune in next week, same time, different stationery, to see if you’ve won!

New birth announcements!

Our brand new birth announcements are now available! For all you happy parents to be, you won't want to miss out on these fresh new designs. The best part is that they are completely customizable, so if pink or blue isn't your style, try a sage green or sunshine yellow to change things up. Toy Train (pictured above) is modern but still playful with it's youthful illustrations. The possibilities are endless with this card - just customize the wording to make a fantastic toy train kids party invitation!

You'll be welcoming your bundle of joy in fashion with this Bundle of Joy announcement. And with all those lively rooftops, this card is perfect for city-dwelling parents.

Our Butterflies announcement also looks fabulous customized in any color, and the retro butterflies suit both genders.

To view all of our photo birth announcements, click here!

Photos by Edyta Szyszlo Photography

...introducing Elliot!

There's a new babe in town! Elliot is the newest baby to join the growing H!L family and we are thrilled! Almost as adorable as Elliot's button nose is his letterpress printed birth announcement designed by our very own Anna Hurley. How cute are the worms and mushrooms?!

Welcome Elliot and congratulations Kelly & Erich!

Lucky Friday # 22 Bundle of Joy, Baby Congratulations!

Hello all you lucky folks out there! This is the twenty-second edition of our Lucky Friday Giveaway! Each Friday we feature one of our letterpress cards. We’ll choose THREE LUCKY WINNERS to get a free card.  Post a comment by 12 p.m. PST the following Thursday, and we’ll announce the winners on the following Friday!

The three winners from last week are (drum roll, please):

Mary, Marjolein, and Alyssa!

We’ll contact you early next week to arrange sending your Good Luck card.

Now for this week’s edition:

Design: Bundle of Joy

Artist: Anna Hurley

Inspiration: We don’t quite know how it happened—  something in the water, or a glimmer in the eye— it felt like the idea just fell out of the sky.

Who to send it to: A couple whose wish was granted—that the stork has landed.

Ideas we scrapped in favor of this one: We had a version of the card with a weary looking stork carrying triplets, reading: “Stork Up and Save!”

Favorite detail: We like how the skyline could be most anywhere, but it has a mix of San Francisco urban and Scandinavian flair.

Why Letterpress? You’d be stork raving mad not to send or stock such striking stationery!

Don’t forget to post your comment, and tune in next week, same time, different stationery, to see if you’ve won!

Hello!Lucky's Everlasting Giveaway on Pingg!

We wanted to let y'all in on one of our best kept secrets! Many of our most darling birth announcements and kids' party designs are available on Pingg! If you don't already know about Pingg, it's a fab site that allows you to create adorable E-invites, for free!

Hello!Lucky has seventeen different designs to choose from, a couple that you won't find anywhere else. How sweet is that?

Click on the image of our Roller Coaster design to see it on Pingg!

Or, how about a Tea Party shower invite? Can we come too?

Pingg is super user friendly, fast, and it's easy to sign up through your Facebook account, or just through e-mail.

It'll be a great party! Wish we could come!

Jude's Big Top Birthday!

Saturday was Jude's first birthday party, and what a fun little fête it was!

We served fresh popcorn in vintage style popcorn boxes, sugar cookies frosted with royal icing (so fun to paint!)  and delicious cupcakes with chocolate frosting with little flags made from ribbon and satay sticks - classic birthday treats!

The cake was a yellow cake with buttercream frosting, with a cute little banner (it's been a hot trend this year, and I couldn't help myself - so perfect for the circus theme!) And how perfect were these napkins?  I found them (as well as stripey straws, paper fringe and more) at a super adorable little shop called Shop Sweet Lulu!

We provided clown noses, for those who didn't happen to have any appropriate circus attire on hand...

...or who just happen to look ridiculously cute in one...

We made these charming birthday hats out of pom poms, ruffly paper trim, stickers and poster board - so fun!

One of Jude's birthday presents was this amazing Schylling baby piano that Sabrina picked up at the super marvelous shop  Paxton Gate's Curiosities for Kids which was a big hit at the party - she brought over hers too so we could have dueling pianos...

Jude, striking a pose...

One of Jude's friends, the ever charming Miss Eva, arrived dressed as a tiger!  How apropos, given the presence of this Ring 'o' Fire - hilarious!

We painted an upside down flower pot to look like a circus pedestal - a perfect place to pose this vintage Dumbo doll and his strong man friend...and I made simple striped slip covers for our ottomans to transform our living room into an instant big top!

Now, a great party is all about enthusiastic guests:  Sabrina's son James, seemingly unperturbed by his amusing head wear and sporting a natty suit!  Quite the sartorial splendor!

Darling Hugo, who's half French, looking very adorable as a tiny French clown!

Our friends Jillian and Toast of Because We Can, came in hilarious cowboy attire...(props to Jillian for staying up 'til the wee hours the night before decorating cookies!)

The whole family, getting our circus on...

Alas, the birthday boy was a little less than enthusiastic about sporting a birthday hat!

Sabrina and her son Alex, having a jolly time! (How could you not, while double fisting kazoos??)

The party reached it's peak with an all kazoo birthday salute!

Happy Birthday, Jude!

We'll be posting tutorials for the Ring of Fire, Pennants, Circus Sugar Cookies, the cake topper and more, all week, so stay tuned!

Photos by Jillian!

Pikku Ribbon

We are huge fans of Pikku (check out our collaborations with them here), so we were delighted to discover their new line of ribbons from Angela Liguori!

Gorgeous, right?

via Paper Crave with images from Angela Liguori

Paid Survey: Calling all Bay Area brides and moms-to-be!

Hello!Lucky is seeking brides-to-be and new moms-to-be to participate in a fun and interesting study in an effort to improve our online experience. The sessions will last approximately one hour and will be held one-on-one, in-person in San Francisco on December 3, 4, 5 and 10, 11, 12.

To be considered for participation, please answer all of the questions in this short survey: http://bit.ly/de45g8

Don't worry—we won't share your personal information.

If you are selected to participate, we will give you a ring in the next few days to schedule the interview. If selected, you will receive $75 as an honorarium for your time and opinions.

Thank you kindly!

Zulily Promotional

Have you heard of Zulily?

Zulily is a fab, beautifully curated listing of brands that specialize in kids and moms, be it clothing, decor, ephemera or stationery of course!

They have weekly and daily coupons and promos.  It's simple and painless to join the list (we love avoiding spam, too)— just provide your name and e-mail and you're set. They even have some deals for non-moms... and it's good inspiration for mom-wannabes.

Hello!Lucky has a current promo, through 11/9/2010, that's good for our birth announcements and great for holiday cards too.

Peruse the cuteness!

Some of our favorite stores for kids' stuff are their favorites too. They represent blabla, HABA, Zid Zid, Urban Smalls, Kiwi Industries and many more!

Pingg!

Check us out on Pingg!  We  have a brand spankin' new collection of online kids' invitations and announcements that you can e-mail to friends & family using Pingg's super easy interface!

You can check out printed versions of our new custom birth announcements (no party invites yet - patience, friends!) on our website!

pikku for Hello!Lucky baby

As part of our new baby collection, we're thrilled to announce our collaboration with Pikku! We're huge fans of Valerie's adorable gift wrap, pillows and calendars and are super excited about these birth announcements! See all the designs here.

oh, baby!

We do have BIG NEWS!! We've recently relaunched our baby collection and they are now available online - yippee! Each card is digitally printed on premium, FSC-certified 100% recycled cardstock. Click here to see them all!

Moody Birds

On a recent trip to Copenhagen, these wooden birds (aptly named "Bird") designed by architect and furniture designer Kristian Vedel quickly became an obsession even though we've seen them before.  It is pretty remarkable for any one thing to consistently stand out among all the wonderfully inspiring Danish furniture, crafts, architecture...not to mention the remarkably attractive inhabitants of this lovely city.  In adorable shop after adorable shop, their removable heads beckoned us until, at last, we succumbed to the temptation and picked up a few.

Designed and produced in the 50s to great success, the birds have recently been reintroduced in all 3 sizes - parent, grandparent and child (awww) and 2 finishes.  You can tilt the head any which way you please (a nice way to express your ever-changing mood) and can flip the body to be either male or female.  A great addition to any mantle, bookshelf, child's room, place setting....the possibilities are endless!

Wouldn't this type of circle arrangement be adorable as a centerpiece?   They are readily available for purchase online in the US here among other places.  Learn more about Bird and see more photos here.

Hilary Lang, Nursery Cuteness and more...

We were so thrilled to spot our baby's first year journal and photo album making an appearance in this adorable nursery!

The nursery belongs Phoebe, the daughter of the very talented Hilary Lang.  How cool is this vintage mobile?

Love the cross stitch and these teeny (and very comfy looking) booties!

Aside from having a fabulous nursery, Hilary Lang makes many, many, super cute things - such as this hilarious overall-wearin' rabbit...

The patterns for hand-sewn projects such as this charming little turtle are available in her shop...

Um, hilarious.

You can also see pictures of her many projects here...

Hello!Babies

We are thrilled to announce the arrival of two new Hello!Lucky babies, both miraculously born on September 26 (which also happened to be Sabrina's wedding anniversary)!

The darling and lovely Miss Olivia O'Donnell (and her adorable birth announcement)...

and the cute-as-a-button Mr. Lucas Tan...

And congratulations to Jennifer and Ryan and Celine and Tang, the proud parents! Hello, lucky babies!!