Well-Groomed Guide

We must admit, we're aware of the feminine nature of wedding and stationery blogs, but figure today is the perfect day to shine a little light on the men's style. The perfect web destination for the wedded guy? The Well-Groomed blog.

It's not only a site for endless style inspiration (and adorable eye candy) but there are gift guides for every kind of dude. What a perfect way to get inspired for grooms gifts or groomsman favors. The founder and author Darren has delivered everything we look for in a wedding blog:  sophisticated, stylish, and somewhat romantic inspiration for all its readers, man or woman.

Check out the Well-Groomed blog "The Guide to Tying the (Windsor) Knot"  here!

Embroidered Wedding Portraits

Happy Monday everyone! It's hard to believe September is over, and with exciting changes coming soon to Hello!Lucky, we're taking deep breaths as we welcome October in anticipation for the holiday season. Although our minds are wrapped around holiday festivities and winter cheer, wedding bells are still ringing and we had to share the perfect wedding gift for any time of year. These hand-embroidered canvas portraits by Michelle Rigg are completely customizable and turn any standard wedding portrait into a work of art.

We love all the meticulous details that go into each design. From the seams in the wedding dress, to the perfect outlines of the figures, it's easy to tell this artist takes extra special care.

Any why not make it personal? Love can be found in all forms, and for a couple with a shared interest, adding a little humor never hurts.

Check out more from Michelle Rigg here!

Featured: Visit Hawaii on Hapa Hale!

Ahh, to be soaking in the sweet Hawaiian sun! We wouldn't mind sipping mai tai's, or tasting crunchy macadamia nuts, surfing in warm water or hiking ancient volcanoes. But, that giant blue ocean has come between us, and we must find other ways to treasure all the glory that Hawaii has to offer. One of those ways is to visit our Visit Hawaii invitation suite. Recently Hapa|Hele, a blog devoted to island life, featured our tropical invitation, and left us dreaming about all things aloha.

Things we love about Hapa|Hele? Island hopping. From these Na Pali coast prints (above) to the Big Island's magical getaways, we're gushing with island envy!

Real Wedding: Jacob and Kristen

Talk about a good ol' time! This Indiana barn wedding featured on Style Me Pretty sums up all there is about summer goodness. From yard games to lemonade, suspenders to leather boots, the rustic and fashionable details have us gushing with joy. And it's no lie that we've seen a fair share of barn venues, but never something this pristine.

It's always fun to see images of our paper products used in weddings, but it's rare that we see our Big Day inspired paddle fans in action! These lovely ladies sure know the right way to stay cool on a hot day!

All photos by Austin Warnock Photography

New Uses for Paint Swatches

If you haven't seen them scattered around design blogs yet, check out these paint swatch boxes from How About Orange! What a perfect wedding favor box!

You can customize them to match your wedding colors! Oh, the possibilities...

Take a peek at their other tutorial projects here.

Sewn paint swatches as napkin/silverware holders from Sew Many Ways. These would make for an adorable table setting.

If you're really up for a challenge, try this Paint Swatch Wall Decoration from Design*Sponge! It's sure to impress!

Happy crafting!

The Collection E.S. gals visit Hello!Lucky!

The girls at the Collection Event Studio recently visited our SoMa studio and shared a behind the scenes glimpse into the bustling world of Hello!Lucky! We love to browse their blog for creative inspiration, and are always amazed by their stunning collection of wedding and event resources. They snapped such lovely photos of our office, here are some of our favorites:

Meet our ravishing sales team! This handsome lad and three lovely ladies are the best when it comes to planning your special day!

And how adorable are their business cards?

(Pictured: Stewey, Lia, Kristine, and Lillian)

Above: John prepares specialty ink colors as James works the Vandercook press.

Anna B., along with the help of Lillian, are carefully assembling envelope liners.

Part of the design team (missing Anna H. and Shauna!) making all the perfect adjustments on every stationery order!

You can read the original post here. Thanks again for stopping by ladies!

All photos by Kate Webber Photography

Fabulous Wedding Gift Guides

Feeling wedding gift blues? Want to give something other than kitchen platters or silverware? We feel your pain. Although wedding registry's are super helpful and a guaranteed success, there's something special about wrapping up the perfect gift for the happy couple. Refinery 29 recently came out with two brilliant gift guides that will have you feeling gift bliss. Here are a few of our favorite suggestions!

Custom Mugs by BROOKLYNrehab (above)

Custom return address stamp by Paperfinger (ideal for sending thank you cards!)

Ideal Bookshelf print by Jane Mount (for their new home together!)

Diana F+ Kirameki Lomography Camera (perfect to capture honeymoon highlights!)

More great gift ideas can be found here: The Ultimate Wedding Gift Guide and Best Host and Hostess Gift Guide

Thanks R29!

A Beautiful Mess on Style Me Pretty

If you haven't seen this amazing urban chic wedding on Style me Pretty, you simply must.  We just love it and had to share!

The author of A Beautiful Mess shared her wedding— so naturally it's amazing! Photographs by Apple and Arrow. Follow the links on Style Me Pretty for more breathtaking details.

Hello!Lucky Featured on Ruffled

A few of our favorite wedding invitations— Whimsy, Big Day and Lavender Harvest are featured on the Ruffled Blog. Beautiful photos! Check it out!

Beautiful Decals by Shanna Murray

We are huge fans of Shanna Murray and found this  post on Creature Comforts about her new decal collection.

We think a customized decal would be fantastic as decoration for a wedding, such as "The Smiths" or " Eunice & Daniel"!

Or maybe a sweet note on the wall of a baby's nursery or playroom...

How darling!

Kate Spade at Bed Bath and Beyond!

As you may have gathered by now, we are big fans of Kate Spade. So we were super thrilled to hear that Bed Bath and Beyond is featuring a new line of bedding by Kate Spade.  Picked up on it first on Family Style and we had to share.

Just love the tangy colors! Images courtesy Bed Bath and Beyond— be sure to have a look on their site as the colors are actually a little more vivid than you see here.

Or if you're more into graphic minimal, these stripes might suit splendidly.

Ooh, and these cheerful heirloom roses would surely keep a bedroom sunny! Love!

Enjoy perusing, here.

And again, a little plug, since we wouldn't want to miss you if you should happen to be in NYC:

Visit Hello!Lucky at the National Stationery Show, booth # 1536.

May 15th – 18th from 9-6

Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York City

New Julia Rothman fabrics on Design Sponge

Design Sponge just featured one of our all time fave designers, Julia Rothman, and her fab new fabrics!

Cloud9 is producing these rich, ornate and fun designs—all printed on organic cotton.

Be sure to check Design Sponge for more pics and for a link to more of Julia's work .

Did you know Hello!Lucky carries a line of Julia Rothman cards and gift-wrap as well as many gorgeous and whimsical wedding invitations?

James L. Tucker's Prints on Hall Ready

One of our esteemed printers, James, has been busy making prints on off hours at Hello!Lucky.  He recently had a solo show in Aspen and Hall Ready featured his work yesterday.

Love the historic Americana. Who doesn't love Babe the big blue ox? (titled Lumber)

If you're in San Francisco, check out his work at The Perish Trust at 728 Divisadero.

Rock on, James, and keep that cylinder rollin'!

Check out his statement and bio, and see more of his work here.

And now... an even sweeter Pingg giveaway— 150 Free Wedding Invitations!

The everlasting giveaway was just a prelude— there is an even more splendid prize to be won on Pingg!

Until May 26th you can enter to win 150 free digital wedding invitations and reply cards!  See the Pingg blog for details.

Good luck to you all!

Truly Delicious Polar Bear!

Cake and Cupboard made this absolutely edible fondant cake topper of our Delicious Polar Bear letterpress greeting card.

And here's the inspiration:

How cute is that?! We bet she could make some pretty great cakes to match our other greeting card designs... such potential!

Beautifully Embroidered Classic Book Covers

More to make us swoon today! Behold these beautiful embroidered book covers that Penguin Classics commissioned from Jillian Tamaki:

Makes us all want to curl up with cocoa and re-read these classics!

Japand-aid

Our SOMA neighbors, GAMA-GO, had a brilliant idea that we were honored to help produce!

Japand-aid! All proceeds for the sales of this limited edition letterpress print will go to the Red Cross in aid of disaster relief in Japan. Here is a link to the GAMA-GO website where you can find more info and order the poster when it goes live today at 1PM PST.

Here's GAMA GO's initial sketch

GAMA- GO implementing the inspiration in Illustrator

Max the master printer manning the Cylinder

And Eunice autographing the finished collaboration!

Hello!Lucky was thrilled to donate its expertise and elbow-grease, and GAMA-GO will donate the shipping. Each poster costs $50, so the entire sum will go to help the relief efforts! How great is that?!

Again, here's the link. And thanks so much to GAMA-GO!

Bow-tie paper clip DIY

Spotted this cute DIY over at How About Orange...such a cute and easy idea to brighten up your paper clip collection. We think this would be a super cute idea for place cards too! Just use a different color or pattern for each escort card and then use the same fabric to decorate each table - your guests can even wear the paper clips on their lapels! See the full instructions here.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Happy Mardi Gras!

Click on this link to find out how to make this beautiful king cake. The site includes nice pictures and instructions for baking and frosting.

Be sure to remember the baby!

Lucky Friday Week Two!

If you missed last week's exciting edition, we'd like to announce a new weekly feature: Lucky Fridays! Each Friday, we’ll feature one of our letterpress cards. Then 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):

KT Rachel  Katie Kaiser

Heather will contact you shortly to arrange sending your Esther Aarts Oompah Band Card!

This week's feature:

Design: Stinky Skunk

Artist: Eunice Moyle

Inspiration: Pepé Le Pew, but of course, mon amour, with a whiff of swinging sixties baroque

Send it to: Who knows? The Shadow knows!

Our favorite detail: The concentric smoke rings of skunk funk, and the innocent expression on the striped perpetrator.

Ideas we scrapped for this one: We rejected a couple of Skunk drafts that were a little too ripe.

Why letterpress? A tactile letterpress card can make even the coldest heart a little scent-imental.

Remember to post your comment and check next Friday to see if you've won!