San Francisco Wedding Fair

Last week we had the pleasure participating in the annual San Francisco Wedding Fair. It was a fabulous event, with delicious food catered by the Four Seasons and a wonderful group of wedding vendors. Above, some of our favorite people: Stacy McCain of Stacy McCain Event Planning, Lisa Neighbors of Blonde Tulip Photography, and Stephanie Watanabe of Atelier Joya.

Good friend and fellow designer Stacy Pancake and her assistant Nicole debuted Stacy's beautiful new, minimalist and gorgeous letterpress wedding invitation collection.

The effervescent Mary Jo Bowling, Editor-in-Chief of the new San Francisco Bride's magazine was there celebrating their inaugural issue!

Floramor Studios  create a series of over-the-top floral displays representing different decades in history (this one is from the 1900's). Love the ostrich feathers!

Event planner Kathy Goodman of Well Rehearsed created a sunny display featuring a yellow parasol and edible cupcake pops!

Showcasing their ultra-modern style was Hartmann Studios furniture rental.

Friend and collaborator Michele Papineau displayed had her impeccable handwriting on display!

And of course, we were there showcasing our wedding invitations, including new designs by Joel Dewberry and EIEIO (stay tuned for more details!).  It was a fun day, and a great resource for Bay Area brides! See everyone again next year!

2009 Preview Party!

We recently held our 2009 Stationery Preview party and are thrilled to report that it was a huge success!  We collaborated with some of the most amazing wedding vendors in the Bay Area to transform our working letterpress studio into a beautiful event space complete with red carpet!  Above, the fab Morgan Doan, event planner extraordinaire and mastermind behind this event, and Sabrina chatting by the welcome table.  Our sponsor booklet featured our new Sparrow design by Joel Dewberry.

Guests arriving...it was a fantastic crowd - some of the best and brightest in weddings...

The studio on its way to being transformed. Got Light? did an amazing job with the lighting and draping - we were truly blown away by the difference a little "pipe and drape" made.  The back-lit bar was provided by Blueprint Studio Collection and Wildflower Linens provided the lovely table clothes. DJ John Jow turned the place into a mini-nightclub with his expert music mixing.

Jane Hammond Events provided the seriously delicious hors d'oeuvres, including bite-sized crab cakes, empinadas, and mushroom tartlets and the most amazing brownies of all time.  Andronico's Market provided the excellent wine (selected by the talented Jeffrey Porter).

We made these little buffet signs - the holder was just a standard restaurant sign holder that we spray-painted a matte pink and the orchid pattern on the sign is from one of our new collaborations with Joel Dewberry.

One of the things we were celebrating was the launch of our latest invitation collections including a collaborations with EIEIO, Joel Dewberry, Julia Rothman, and the always amazing Lab Partners.  They did a destination series featuring New York, San Francisco, Hawaii and London (London and New York pictured above).  We've already gotten such and incredible response, we're already thinking about adding some new destinations to the line!

Sharla Flock designed the gorgeous floral arrangments - we love her subtle use of color and texture.

She used pieces from our large collection of flea market found vases and bowls to create an eclectic look.

One of our talented printers, James, did demonstrations of the letterpress printing technique.

We were also celebrating the launch of our new website which we are SO excited about.  The dapper Mr. Daniel James of Three Rings and brilliant event planner, Lisa Feldman, check out the new look.

We had a whole selection of our work on display - this was a variation on our popular Cherry Blossom design - including fan programs, and round menus designed to fit into the dinner plates.  We were also introducing our new digital printing option - an excellent (and fast!) alternative to letterpress (or a budget-friendly way to augment beautiful letterpress invitations).

Gorgeous photography by Allure West.

Thank you so much to all our incredible partners in this event and to everyone who came out for the party!

Real Wedding: Danielle Spinetta & Greg Piché

We recently did fabulous invitations and day-of paper for our friend and fellow card maker, Danielle Spinetta of Tallulah.  She and her husband, Greg Piché, were married at Foreign Cinema in San Francisco, and had a fun vintage movie theme - Foreign Cinema has a giant wall for projecting movies (so cool!) - they showed Grease and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid during the reception. Love it!

Photography by Beth Hurley and Deb Mindel of Greg Piché Photography.

Danielle had her save-the-dates printed at the amazing Hatch Show Print and asked us to do the rest of the pieces in a similar show poster style (an aesthetic we happen to love, so needless to say it was a great pleasure to work on). Here's the menu (above)...

The place cards were inspired by vintage movie ticket stubs...

We designed these great custom cocktail napkins from For Your Party - such an adorable detail - served alongside these delicious looking glasses of huckleberry lemonade.

Love these Hooray! flags made by So Inviting (she also made the flag for the cake)...

The truffle cake was made by  I Dream of Cake

Love the earthy modern look of Foreign Cinema.  The giant letters in the background were made by Madeline Edwards. Congratulations, Danielle & Greg!

The Handmade Hellos Crafting Party!

The crafting party last night was a smash hit!

All of our demo stations were full of ambitious crafters–Hello!Lucky's snowy variation on Petra Boase’s Owl-y Friend yielded many colorful results! You can download the template here to try it out for yourself!

Our Handmade Hellos contributors demonstrated various craft projects. François Vigneault instructed guests on how to make postcards composed of found maps, a fun and easy project for anyone with a crafty eye.

Sarah Adler's magical banner project used dainty little boxes to enclose a quirky greeting one letter at a time!

Stacy and Nicole (above) from Pancake & Franks had a station devoted to their accordion card, which uses durable board ends to make up a booklet.

Jody Warshaw, Christina Loff, Kate Woodrow from Chronicle Books showing off their projects!

Happy crafters!

Jeffrey McGrew from Because We Can fashioned his card into part of his ensemble!

Nancy Deane from Chronicle Books shows off her owl.

Sarah Adler watches as one of her students displays her very own magical banner.

The Hello!Lucky staff were, of course, busy at work! Pictured above, Max Koch and Shauna Leytus were the studio bartenders while, below, James Tucker and Alex Ewers greeted incoming crafters!

Aaron Cohick, our lead pressman, was kind enough to demonstrate the ins-and-outs of our vintage Heidelberg presses throughout the evening.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Topsy Turvy's Fabulous Hats!

We always love an excuse to don a smart hat (don't you wish someone would bring back that trend? We do!).   The charming, vintage-inspired chapeaux from Oakland-based Topsy Turvy make us wish that hats were a de rigeur fashion accessory!

This Oh-So-Flirty Cocktail Hat was modeled after a vintage headpiece found at the flea market dating from the 1950's.

We love this sassy, burlesquey number...

Kim Brown-Dye, the sometime costumier & full-time milliner behind Topsy-Turvy makes a wide range of beautiful hats, with nods to a wide variety of eras and suitable for everything from a swank evening out to an outrageous costume party.  She builds each one from scratch using buckram & wire construction which is then covered & trimmed using the finest materials & hand finishing.

The Evelyn - Victorian Top Hat...makes us want to don our riding habits, slap on the side-saddle and ride off into the sunset!

Who wouldn't want to have an excuse to channel Marie Antoinette?

Leopard print pillbox!  So rock-a-billy fabulous!

Leather Bell Hop!

Rhinestone Mini Top Hat! Glittery!

Ah, glittery AND feathered...who can resist?  We are positively swooning - if only we could have one of each!

Check out a video on Kim's studio and her hat-making here!

Bazaar Bizarre!

This weekend we were peddling our wares over at Bazaar Bizarre, a fabulous (and busy!) art & craft fair sponsored by Craft Magazine.  There were over 100 vendors selling all sorts of handmade goods from the lovely to the hilarious.

Piperoid was at the next table over with their fantastic DIY paper robot.  They come flat packed in these ingenious little kits that require only a pair of scissors!

More robotic goodness...

I Heart Guts was there - they always amuse with their adorable plush innards, hilarious t-shirts and other gut-related goodies.  One of our favorite items was the "When Urine in Love" t-shirt sporting two perky kidneys mooning over each other.  Silliness is always so satisfying!

Eunice got this awesome crab necklace from our next door neighbor, The Brown Banana -  Gabriel Colaluca, proprietor of the Brown Banana makes all kinds of fabulous-one-of-kind jewelery from recycled materials such as watch faces, silverware, Scrabble pieces and more.

Another member of the banana family, BananaSaurus Rex, had adorable reversable bibs, gorgeous totes, wine wraps and more, all made from vintage tablecloths and the like and were handing out free lavender sachets with purchase, to boot!

The always inspiring Mara and Anna from Dutch Door Press had a wide array of beautiful things for sale - our favorite was their new series of prints of birds and flora from all 50 states (this is a new release and so far only California, Illinois and New York are available here, but we can't wait to see them all!)

Being knitting junkies, we couldn't resist purchasing some hand-dyed yarn from A Verb for Keeping Warm (despite our ever growing collection of unfinished projects and piles of yarn yet to be used!) The colors were so enticing, the voice of reason was immediately stamped out in favor of a couple of skeins of "Pink Octopus". If you're in the Bay Area, they are opening their new shop in Berkeley on December 6th!

Jocelyn Nguyen of Nous Savons had (as usual) a fabulous selection of jewelery, hair pieces, and clothing.  The Nous Savons aestheic can be summed up with these words: Like wandering in your crazy great-aunt's attic. Fabulous.

We also stopped by to visit the talented Sarah Adler of Hearts & Anchors.  Her whimsical, victorian-inspired notes (available here) are always a favorite of ours!  She is also one of the contributors to our new book, Handmade Hellos!  We were thrilled to see that the books were selling like hotcakes!

The Nest meets Hello!Lucky

  It feels totally crazy and surreal, but Sabrina's house is featured in this month's Nest magazine. (Sabrina is 1/2 of Hello!Lucky's founding team, the other half of which is sis Eunice!).

Shooting the article was so much fun - we had incredible team of creative folks to work with, including stylist Anthony Albertus, writer Riann Smith, photographer David A. Land and stylists Yael Gitai and Racine Christensen along with The Nest's wonderful creative director Lisa Aelion.

Above, our lounge/TV room, bar, and built-in dining nook.

Our bedroom and garden, which was designed by Pete Vafiades, the most awesome gardener ever (he worked with the previous owners of our house to turn the garden from a sad patch of dirt to an urban oasis!).

Videographer Kathi Watson filmed Sabrina giving a tour of her house, pointing out highlights including a magnificent and, let's face it, weird piece of 70s textile art!

Finally we included shout-outs to some of our favorite Bay Area haunts, including Tail of the Yak, Bi-Rite Creamery and  Blue Bottle café. So there you have it, 5 minutes of fame! Hurrah!

Photo shoot props

We just wrapped up a photo shoot of our brand new wedding invitation series with brilliantly talented Sara Remington, and we couldn't help but get excited about all the neat props that some of our staff brought in to liven things up!

Before shooting, we lined all the items up, and there were some fabulous flea market finds in the mix!

We've got to say, though, that some of the best items were brought in by Alex, our new sales associate, including this vintage book on how to snag a man! Pretty hilarious stuff.

Also in the mix is this retro book on the wonders of San Francisco, which matches perfectly with our new destination wedding invitation series coming out!

Now we can't wait to see how all the photos came out!

Inspired Cake!

French Deco is one of our favorite wedding invitation designs.   Inspired by a vintage French perfume label, it reminds us of the Great Gatsby and a sparkling '20's charm and elegance.  We think that the invitation really sets the tone for any event (ok, so perhaps we're a little biased, but still!), and love the idea of drawing inspiration from the invitations for all kinds of event details.  So when we came across this cake designed by the talented Shinmin of I Dream of Cake for one of our brides, we couldn't help but emit a little yip of pleasure! We're sure it was as delicious as it is stylish.

Visit I Dream of Cake to see more elegant cake designs.

Anna Kuperberg

How beautiful is the work of San Francisco photographer Anna Kuperberg? We've been huge fans of Anna's for awhile now and are consistently impressed with the quality of her work. Her ethereal portraits are simply stunning.

Anna also keeps a fantastic blog of her ongoing projects!

Scrap

We took a quick field trip to Scrap last week - another fantastic reason to live in the Bay Area. Scrap (Scroungers Center for Reusable Art Parts) is a haven for crafters. All their material is donated, so you never know what you are going to find. The idea is to provide art materials at a low cost both to encourage creativity and to prevent our overcrowded landfills from becoming even worse. There are piles of fabric, yarn, paper, household items, and building materials available.

The inventory changes constantly, so it's a new treasure hunt every time! Some of our discoveries included tiny vases, fabric and decorative metal ornaments.

Our favorite finds were needlepoint holders, perfect for displaying vintage fabric scraps, lace or a cute print.

Scrap

834 Toland Street

San Francisco, CA 94124

415.647.1746

Hours: Tuesday through Saturday 9-5

September Flea Market

Although it was one of the warmest Alameda Flea Market's to date, the hunt for treasures was still just as fun. There were adorable vintage clothing and furniture, as well as housewares. One of our favorite finds were the presidential pencil sharpeners - who wouldn't want to sharpen a pencil with Lincoln's head!

Modern Met Studio Visit

We had the pleasure of meeting Alice Yoo, founder of My Modern Metropolis, a new social networking site, on Friday.  She and her husband Sam stopped by the studio and we had fun giving them a tour and chatting about what it's like to be an entrepreneur (read about their visit here).  Fellow designers often approach us for advice on starting a small business, and we're always happy to share experience, so herewith, a couple of our top tips:

1. With great autonomy comes great responsibility. Being entrepreneur is liberating and creative, but comes with sleepless nights and big ups and downs.  You have to have guts of steel and be ready to work long hours. And you have to be humble - there is no job that is too low when you're starting out (including cleaning toilets, licking stamps, and answering phones!)

2. Choose your partners well. Be sure everyone's ready to roll up their sleeves and put in their fair share of work, cash, sweat, grey hairs, sleepless nights, etc. One of our biggest criteria in selecting employees is whether or not they have "Hello!Lucky in their hearts" (to quote one of our hilarious and beloved veteran staffers!). If everyone's passionate and loves what they do, success will be more likely to follow.

3. Develop great products. Be true to your vision, but listen to the market and refine accordingly. And make sure the economics of creating, selling, and distributing the product are workable (discount your projections by at least 10% - entrepreneurs tend to be a wee bit optimistic - they have to in order to handle the risk!). If you can't find funding for your business, whether it's from friends and family or investors, it's probably not viable.

4. Cut your losses. If something isn't working, change course. Everyone makes mistakes; it's how you respond to them that determines the final outcome.

5. Stay objective. Every entrepreneur has moments when they wonder whether it's worth it to go on; sometimes this happens with uncanny frequency!  It's also easy to take ups and downs (especially the downs!) personally and lose confidence. While you need to be realistic, it's also vital to step back from the setback of the moment and look at the positive, whether it's press mentions, customer testimonials, or sales. If things are trending in the right direction, then keep it up and don't take the setbacks personally!

P.S. Happy Labor Day!

Featured Retailer: Bell Jar

Do you ever visit a store and wish that you could move in immediately, Anthropologie style? That's exactly how we feel about Bell Jar, a relatively new boutique in the ever-cooler Mission District here in San Francisco. Owner Sasha Wingate fills her airy space with vintage finds, fashionable wears, and fabulous letterpress greeting cards. Everything is displayed in such a beautiful and thoughtful presentation - it's hard to resist! There is even a gallery space in the back with changing exhibits.

Bell Jar

3187 16th Street

San Francisco, CA 94103

415.626.1749

www.belljarsf.com

The best of New York gift, part 2

Although we are slightly obsessive about all things vintage, we also have a strong affection for modern design. Especially modern design from Publique Living, a local San Francisco studio. Although everything that Publique Living creates is truly well designed and beautifully crafted, some of our favorite pieces include these limited edition posters, which feature a typeset airport code over a graphic interpretation of a landmark of that particular city:

They also produce stunning gift wrap, as well as luxurious alpaca throws, which we are coveting something fierce!

But our all time favorite item are the laser cut placements - don't they just make you want to have a dinner party tonight?!

Jude Miller & Crepe Paper Flowers

We love making crepe paper flowers, but artist Jude Miller takes our breath away with her delicate and intricately detailed work (via Oh Joy!).

The incredible realism and the delicate colors and details are simply stunning. So inspiring...

Her headpieces are to die for...and imagine having her fashion a gorgeous bridal bouquet that you could keep long past your wedding day!

If you're in the Bay Area and would like to learn how to make your very own crepe paper flowers, Castle in the Air in Berkeley offers a great class and carries beautiful duplex crepe paper that they import from Germany that's an absolute dream to work with, as well as all the supplies you might need to create a veritable garden of delightful paper flora.

It's a wonderful way to add floral details to your wedding design - they make great boutonnieres, table setting decor (think place cards holders, a little blossom tucked into a napkin...), hair pieces...the possibilities are endless!

Hello!Lucky featured on CraftZine blog

We were honored to be selected by Craft Magazine to be interviewed for their blog. Witness our ascend to stardom here:

See Natalie's original post here and view her flickr photos of the studio here.

Thanks Natalie and Craft!

Scenes from a Gift Show

We just finished a busy week at the San Francisco International Gift Show. In addition to catching up with some of our favorite boutiques, stores and places to buy fabulous things, we made friends with a number of new and great vendors. We were huge fans of our neighbor, Tina, and her eclectic jewelry:

We also enjoyed visiting with fellow letterpress card designer Kim Austin, from Austin Press:

We have a soft spot for early California pottery. The new styles based on vintage designs from Bauer really caught our eye:

San Francisco International Gift Fair

We're thrilled to be participating in the San Francisco International Gift Fair. We started with a blank slate - white walls, which we painted a taupe stone color. Then, we installed shelving, as well as our fabulous new sign from Because We Can (thanks Jillian and Toast!):

We then went to work on the lighting and decor (including bright fuchsia cherry blossoms!):

And before you knew it (or, two days later) a fantastic booth appeared!

We are especially fond of our Jonathan Adler vase and fuchsia and taupe aprons:

If you are at the gift fair, be sure to stop by! We are in booth 6010 in the North Hall.

San Francisco Gift Fair, Moscone Center, San Francisco Remaining show dates: July 28 - 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.; July 29 - 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. Open to the Trade only.

Le Grand Pig

We recently had a lot of fun designing a mailer for Fork & Spoon, one of our favorite local gourmet caterers. Le Grand Pig is a fabulous menu of pig-based fare such as crepinette of fresh sausage "sliders" served with house-made bisquits and summer stone-fruit mostarda. The menu serves 15 people for $1000 and, knowing Fork & Spoon, every bite will be mouth-watering!