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!

End of Summer Sale!

We're having an enormous end of summer sale! It's time to clean house and make room for all of our wonderful new greeting cards and gifts. Lots of our favorite items are marked down up to 50% off! Now is the time to get those chalkboard word bubbles you've always wanted, or fill your home with handmade letterpress prints at half price. Click here to browse all sale items. Sale ends August 31st so shop now!

Design Evolution: Greeting Cards

We have two very different parts of our business, our greeting card line and our custom design line. It's rare that the two cross paths but occasionally they do meet and we love seeing the results. We design and release new greeting cards twice a year, and one of the most exciting parts of our job here is coming up with themes and puns for our greeting card line. But the truth is, some of our most popular designs are already out there, and they just need to be revisited. Often times we'll look at what's done well in our wedding line and we'll use those designs as inspiration for new greeting cards.  It's fun to see the variations and to be able to offer up some of our most beloved designs to people who aren't looking for wedding invites or birth announcements. We've paired up some of these design transformations below so you can check our the evolution for yourself!

Above is our Seagulls Greeting Card recently created after we felt the success of our Seagulls Wedding Invitation. The cool beachy theme fits well as a wedding thank you card, but also as a thank you for a gift or gesture. For those of us that live on the ocean, having a set of six at home is necessary!

It was easy to turn our most popular Nouveau Peonies Wedding Invitation into a greeting card. The  Nouveau Peonies Greeting Card is a feminine and classy note perfect for every occasion.

We're proud of our city. And we're proud of our other most popular wedding invitation San Francisco Skyline.  The new San Francisco Skyline Greeting Card is perfect for visitors of the city by the bay, for moving announcement cards, or just a friendly hello.

Everybody loves Big Day! There's something about the double sided Big Day rsvp card that gets people smiling. We knew the friendly illustration would lend itself well to a thank you card. Our Many Thanks Greeting Card has been around quite awhile and is definitely a favorite.

Did you know all of our Visit series save the dates are available in letterpress greeting cards? The Visit New York Greeting Card is one of the originals, and a best seller in our New York City stores. It was recently featured on Time Out New York in a roundup of NYC themed stationery and greeting cards! Woo hoo!

After our designers created the Inchworm Birth Announcement for Kelly's baby Elliot, it was an easy decision to turn the bright baby announcement into the Inchworms Thank You Card. Suitable for a boy or girl!

We'll be sure to cover more of our design evolutions in the future! If there are any wedding/baby designs you'd like to see as a letterpress greeting card, just let us know!

Babies First Birthday

Happy first birthday Soren! Here we have a few images of our friend baby Soren enjoying our delicious 1st Birthday letterpress card designed by Esther Aarts while rocking our original Darling Fawn Onesie. Soren has been a fan of Hello!Lucky since birth and is known to be quite a ladies man. His Uncle Stewey keeps him up to date on all our new designs, and this card turned out to be a real treat!

New DIY Collection!

Today we're happily announcing the release of our new DIY Wedding Collection! We know how important all the details of a wedding can be and how expensive it can all get. We're so excited to offer up some budget friendly alternatives that look beautiful and will let you put your own personal touch on your big day.

Our DIY collection includes letterpress printable cards and invitations, patterned papers, wedding craft projects, and free printable wedding signs for all your paper needs. They come in some of our most popular wedding designs like Nouveau Peonies and Heirloom Harvest, along with many others. You can shop our patterned papers and printables online but be sure to follow our blog for tutorials and inspiration for your craft projects!

Our free printable table numbers, guest book signs, and reserved seating signs can easily be printed at home on cardstock paper or mounted on a fun prop or accessory. Browse and download all wedding signs here!

These letterpress printable invitations are perfect for a small event like a rehearsal dinner or bridal shower. They are printed on 100% cotton luxe paper and will guarantee an expensive look for an affordable price. Shop all printable invitations here!

You can make your own paper details with matching patterned papers! We have great DIY templates and instructions for how to make all the best accessories like envelope liners and drink flags. All designs are customizable with 35+ ink colors to choose from. Shop patterned papers here!

We hope you're just as excited about our new DIY collection as we are. Let us know what you think and if there's anything else you'd like to see there in the future!

Real Wedding: Kendel and Brian

These wedding photos have been long awaited! Last October we created a stunning wedding suite, for just as stunning of an event. Kendel and Brian said their "I do's" under the most spectacular greenery in Cavallo Point in Sausalito. With just a peek of the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, it couldn't be any more beautiful. Their theme of modern camp ground and summer recreation carried on throughout the day with rustic accents and navy and papaya striped paper goods. Just check out that view!

To go along with their camp theme, we custom designed and letterpress printed their invitations on smooth wood veneer. The matching pieces incorporated bold patterns and color combinations, along with a custom map of their wedding events. We felt so attached to this wedding suite we decided to offer it as a standard design on our website!

The suite, called Hearts and Arrows, is available now!

With fabulous event design by our friends Alison Events, this wedding was surely a dazzling sight.

Congratulations Kendel and Brian! If you're looking for a great deal on wedding stationery, head to our website now! We're offering 20% off all wedding paper products. Use the code SummerSpecial at checkout!

Photos by Jesse Leake Photography

Hello!Lucky Open Studio

We're just loving these photos by Rikki Ward Photography taken of our open studio event on SFMade Day! She captured the day perfectly - from the letterpress printing tutorials to our furry little visitors. If you missed out on the fun, on May 12th we opened our doors on a sunny Saturday to all of our San Francisco friends and offered first hand printing techniques, discounts on our cards and gifts, and even invited super stylish Leslie Yang - owner and designer of Feistyelle - to come and sell her killer accessories. We had such a good time that we are already planning the next event!

The original Vandercook press.

Handmade accessories by Feistyelle.

The spread!

We're thankful for such an amazing turnout.

Here's James giving a lesson about letterpress printing.

Even our curious customers got a chance to crank the press and make their own birthday card!

Leslie Yang looking fabulous.

Our favorite customer! Sending a big thanks to everyone who came and supported us. If you missed out last time don't be sad - we're planning on opening our studio for days like this more often, so stay tuned for details!

Photos by Rikki Ward Photography

The Best of NSS, Part 3

There was so much good work at NSS this year that it was hard to keep it to just two posts. So here is my third and final post, but really I could have done about three more! Rose from The Great Lakes Goods always has a strong showing and this year was no exception (above and below).

Newcomer Pei Designs featured some super cute illustrations - all letterpressed (above and below)!

Our buddy Susy (from Susy Jack) really knocked it out of the park this year with her awesome recipes boxes, paperweights and calendars (above and below).

Do you recognize the feather illustration?

The always amazing Rifle Paper debuted these ridiculously adorable cocktail coasters:

Fawnsberg is run by two sisters, and features sweet illustrations on their cards and rubber stamps (above and below).

Finally, Atlanta-based Alee and Press really nailed it with their ombre style:

Whew! It was a great show and I loved checking out all the beautiful new work. Let us know in the comments if you discovered anyone new and amazing at the show this year!

The Best of NSS, Part 2

Hey peeps! It's time for more goodies from this years National Stationery Show (click here to see Part 1). First up is the amazing work from 1 Canoe 2 (above and below): 3 talented girls who draw, design and letterpress print in a barn in Missouri. Living the dream.

Making their NSS debut this year was Los Angeles based The Social Type (below). I love how the same sentiment can be interpreted in many different ways!

Another favorite of mine was Banquet Atelier & Workshop, based in Vancouver. Our mutual love of neon was obvious:

How incredible is their guest sign (below)? I'm loving their prints also.

My favorite birthday card of the show came from Anemone Letterpress (below). So clever!

Stay tuned for part 3!

The Best of NSS, Part 1

This year we didn't have a booth at the National Stationery Show but our New York satellite office (aka Design Director Shauna Leytus) was there visiting some of our favorite artists and making new friends. She'll be doing a series of posts recapping what she saw and loved. Here's her first post!

Where do I begin?! There was so much amazing work at the National Stationery Show this year from new comers and old favorites. Making her NSS debut, Left Field cards (above) showcased nine letterpressed "baseball cards" complete with mustaches, edibles and bizarre injuries. Collect them all!

One of my favorite cards of the entire show belonged to Red Camper (above and below). Need I say more?

A fellow card maker sharing a love of food-themed imagery was Fox Tail Press (above and below). When I asked when "national spaghetti day" actually was, Danielle rightly answered "everyday". Duh.

Design*Sponge declared Linda & Harriet's over-sized Quilt Calender the best thing she saw at the show and I couldn't agree more. My photos do not do it justice - this is a work of art and it is amazing.

More coverage of the show to come!

Letterpress Road Trip

Pack up the presses and hit the road! That is exactly what Kyle Durrie of Moveable Type did back in 2010 when she felt torn between her two passions - road trips and printmaking. She wasn't about to choose one or the other, so Kyle transformed a 1982 Chevy Step Van into her personal print shop. She set off onto a country-wide journey introducing moveable type to cities east and west, and it's making a big impression on all the communities she visits. When she visited The Curiosity Shoppe San Francisco last July we were amazed at the turnout, especially for such a small space!

The Moveable Type truck updates their tour dates daily, so be sure to find out if it's coming to a town near you. You can go home with hand-cranked posters, cards, and learn a little more about the print process. Visit the website here!

On Press: Overprinting

For this year's new trade releases, we are doing a whole mess of overprinting, but Max's registration is super clean. By overprinting one color smack on top of another, we can turn two colors into three, and it looks super cool. But it can be a difficult process that allows no room for error.

On Eunice's new hand-drawn "Thanks A Brunch" card, the overprinted third color outlines the images and is the color of the text. So, even the slightest shift in registration would not go unnoticed.

 Max is an exceptional printer, and they look amazing. Great Job!

Shop Local on SFMade Day

Did you know this week is SFMade Week? All week long the city will be celebrating locally made products and manufacturing with events, warehouse tours, and parties. We're joining in on the fun this Saturday, May 12th when our studios will be open from 11am until 5pm. We'll have the presses running, gifts and cards on sale, and local artist FeistyElle selling her beautiful jewelry in the studio. Tell us if you can make it here.

Our address is 977 Howard Street (btw 5th & 6th streets) in San Francisco.

Hope to see you all Saturday!

New Greeting Cards!

Our brand new letterpress greeting cards are hot off the presses and arrived just in time for spring! We've got smashing new designs by Esther Aarts, Julia Rothman, and yours truly. We've taken a new spin off our popular BBQ Parade Father's Day card and created Thanks a Brunch, and Julia's Better With Age card speaks simply the truth - we are especially fond of this card being so close to wine country!

Our wedding Skyline series is such a hit we couldn't wait to offer letterpress skyline cards for all our favorite cities! San Francisco, New York City, and London are all available now but there are more to come! Also making it's big debut is our bright and cheerful Visit Seattle card.

To view the entire collection of new letterpress greeting cards, click here!

On Press: 2012 Trade Releases

This week Max is working hard and printing all of the upcoming trade releases for 2012. Along with Eunice's and Anna's fun and beautiful new designs,  we have an armful of great new cards from our friends and favorite designers: Esther Aarts,  Lab Partners, and Julia Rothman.

On Press: Dinosaurs--Trimming and Packaging

This week On Press we show the final steps in the process of creating Hello!Lucky's birthday card, "Dinosaurs." This sweet card was designed by Julia Rothman for Hello!Lucky. Max trims them down on the guillotine and folds a few to make sure each cut is perfect. Then each card is folded by hand, packaged, and bundled in packs of six.

Real Wedding: Cari and Jason

This beautiful New York City wedding was featured in Martha Stewart's brand new Real Weddings special issue! Cari and Jason's crisp black and white theme demonstrated all the classic and traditional elements of weddings we love, along with a few personal touches. The couple chose to use our New York City Skyline  invitation suite and incorporated the icons throughout their decor. Martha Stewart's Bride's Guide gives an inside look into the event, with exclusive photos of the setup and all the delicious treats. The Statue of Liberty chocolates by Edward Marc Chocolatier really topped it off!

Two-toned black and white cookies were given to guests, sealed with custom skyline labels.

We also printed a large scale New York Skyline poster to act as a guestbook for the wedding. It's such a fun and memorable keepsake!

Congratulations to Cari and Jason! For more photos of this classic New York City celebration, click here!

Photography by Charlotte Jenks Lewis

On Press: Dinosaurs--Printing and Scoring

Finally! This week our 'On Press' video shows Max in the final stages of this three part series chronicling the making of a letterpress greeting card. Here he's at his windmill printing and scoring Julia Rothman's "Dinosaurs" birthday card design. Scoring, also called creasing, helps prevent the paper from cracking, and it also makes the cards easier to fold.

On Press: Dinosaurs--Paper Cutter.

Here is the next installment in the series of videos on the production of our “Dinosaurs” birthday card designed by Julia Rothman. Max is now cutting down large parent sheets into smaller sheets to be printed on.

On Press: Dinosaurs--Paper Cutter from Hello!Lucky on Vimeo.