Studio Snapshot: The Collection + A Roadtrip

We're thrilled to be teaming up with The Collection Event Studio a gorgeous design studio, retail shop and meeting space in downtown Sonoma.  Always up for a mini road trip, we jumped into the car, iced coffee in-hand and took off for wine country!

The girls at The Collection have curated a wonderful assortment of products and vendors and showcase them so beautifully in their space.  Its like a one-stop shop for planning the most perfect rustic chic wedding!

We couldn't leave Sonoma without a quick peek into the Church Mouse Thrift Shop where we gazed with envy upon shelf after shelf of vintage china and stemware.  Lillian found a perfect silver cocktail shaker!

How great is the pattern on these cups and saucers?  Inspiration is everywhere!

James & Alex's Cardboard Box Birthday!

Sabrina's twin sons James and Alex's cardboard-box themed 1st birthday party was this past Saturday - it was a huge success!

It all started one night with some hilarious antics involving a Huggies box...

...which made Sabrina think that cardboard boxes would be the perfect theme for their party! It also worked perfectly with a happy graphic style inspired by Paul & Ann Rand's Sparkle & Spin, a favorite since childhood!

The invitations were printed on kraft board with box-inspired envelopes. The party was billed as B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Box)!

We transformed cardboard boxes into all kinds of vehicles for the party -- a car...

...a prop jet...

...and a castle guarded by Ugly Dolls, ducks, and piggies...

...and a fierce / playful dragon!

Monsieur Hugo, a party-goer, aboard a cardboard bus...

Fun custom balloons were a graphic accent...

...along with mini-box favors (instructions can be found in our book, Handmade Weddings)...

...and paper hats!

Cardboard flowers in yarn-wrapped bottles (instructions are also in Handmade Weddings), sodas and stripe-y straws...

Eunice & Sabrina with cousins Jude and Alex eyeing each other...

Happy 1st birthday, James & Alex!

Special thanks to our friend Jillian Northrup of Because We Can for the amazing photos - check out her photo stream here. And props to Noe Valley Bakery for making the delicious cake based on our design! And finally, high-fives to Craft Night for your cardboard creativity (you know who you are!)!

Alternative Wedding Invitations

R.S.V.P.H.R.H is an exhibit of re-designed wedding invitations for the royal wedding at the Rag Factory in London. What a dream project!

Read more about the exhibit here.

Typecase Jewelry Displays

Aren't these pretty?  They're jewelry displays made of reclaimed letterpress lead type drawers.

As letterpress printers, we must mention we feel a bit of ambivalence about them. Type drawers are getting harder to find and more expensive, not just because they are beautifully crafted and painstakingly constructed, but they are increasingly popular Ebay fodder. Their demand has grown on Etsy, so prices for them are going up for the humble typesetter.

We wonder a little if it's a great idea to re-purpose objects that were used to hold hundreds of little pieces of lead— for decades. When they're cleaned and painted that makes them pretty safe, but word to the wise is to use precaution, particularly with children. Most printer's type is an alloy of lead, tin, antimony and other metals, making it much more stable than pure lead, but certain acidic environmental conditions conditions can cause corrosion and oxidation, and make the lead more hazardous.  For more info, visit Briar Press's discussion of lead type handling safety. (Basically, the idea is just to wash your hands, and not put them in your mouth, hence the concern with kids.)

Pardon our little letterpress printing lecture. Just lookin' out for you guys!

Lucky Friday Week #7!

Now onto the seventh edition of our 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):

Brittany Burton, Leah and Michael!

Heather will contact you early next week to arrange sending your Sick Octo card.

Onto this week’s offering:

Design: Ukulele Monkey

Artist: Eunice Moyle

Inspiration: From A Thousand Clowns, 1964, one of the best ukulele moments on film, pardon the poor quality:

Who to send it to: Your Hawaiian honey, your eccentric ukulele loving uncle, your cute cuatro-playing friend from Caracas, or anyone who’d love a plucky hand-puppet wearing plumeria.

Our favorite detail: Frankly, the frangipani flower is so poi-fectly Polynesian.

Ideas we scrapped in favor of this one: We considered a Christmas card that said Mele Kaliki-monkey, but we didn’t want to get that song stuck in everybody’s head (*wink*)

Why Letterpress? All primates go ape over letterpress + sock simians have never been so stylish!

Don't forget to add your comment and check back next week to see if you've won!

Hot of the Presses: Visit the Riviera

What could be romantic than a wedding in the Riviera?! Our most recent collaboration with Lab Partners features bougainvillea, yachts, postcards and suntans! See the whole suite here.

Studio Snapshot: Trunk Show + Bridal Tour

What a busy weekend we've had!  On Saturday Hello!Lucky played host to two of Portland's finest clothing designers - Duchess, a company that crafts retro inspired bespoke suits (grooms, take note!) and Elizabeth Dye who seemed to float into our space with clouds of vintage silk and lace - her wedding dresses are to die for! Then on Sunday we opened our doors to the Dream A Little Dream bridal tour and met a fabulous group of new brides-to-be!

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!

Styled!

We are ooing and ahhing over this eye-feast, a new mag—Styled— on A Subtle Reverie. Gorgeous! Here's a pinkie-taste of the deliciousness:

Find fab inspiration on all styles of entertaining, from Easter egg embellishment to lemonade stands. Decadent photography and Delectable DIYs. Love it! Again, the link.

Enjoy!

Foodie Registry

Foodie Registry lets you register for restaurant gift certificates - best registry ever!! It's currently available in four cites - San Francisco, Denver, NYC and Chicago. Yum!

Hot off the Presses: Visit Boston!

Brides in Beantown will be so happy! We've added Lab Partners' beautiful Visit Boston wedding invitations and save the dates to our collection. Get a closer look here, and stay tuned for more to come!

Studio Snapshot: Rain, Rain, Rain!

San Francisco has been drenched in buckets of rain this past week and our cool exposed beam warehouse-style roof has sprung a leak!  Secretly we liked the romantic "ping-ping" of water catching in this tin pail, but a company that specializes in paper certainly needs a more long term solution.  Enter James, our intrepid press-man and sailor extraordinaire (note the yellow rain pants) who with Stewey's bucket-lifting assistance, is brave enough to climb up on the roof and fix the leak!

Ahoy there!

The rest of stayed cozy and dry under the roof and chose instead to snack on soul-warming Pho and grilled pork sandwiches from Tin, the ridiculously delicious Vietnamese restaurant that just so happens to be our neighbor.  Love them so much!

Lucky Friday Week Six!

Now onto the sixth edition of our 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):

Christina Y., Luz B. and Cheryl V.!

Heather will contact you early next week to arrange sending your Going Strong card.

Onto this week's offering:

Design: Sick Octo

Artist: Eunice Moyle

Inspiration: Surreal dreams about the Octopus’s Garden after slightly suspicious Tako sushi takeout.

Who to send it to: Your favorite immune-compromised “Manic Monday” multi-taskers, moms, managers or minions (or any of the above). Or cheer up someone who feels a little clammy, over his head, underwater, or washed up.

Ideas we scrapped in favor of this one:  We decided to make a gender-neutral octopus to avoid absolutely any association with “Octomom.”

Our favorite detail: We wonder how to make hot tea under the sea?

Why Letterpress? We’re suckers for textured tentacles. And wouldn’t it be handy to hire an octopus typesetter?! And think how much we’d save on ink!

Don’t forget to post your comment on the blog and check next Friday to see if you’ve won!

Hot off the presses: Visit Miami!

It may be cold and rainy here in San Francisco, but it's bright and warm in Miami! We are thrilled to showcase our newest collaboration with our friends at Lab Partners - Visit Miami. See the whole suite here.

Stay tuned for more destinations!

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!

Studio Snapshot: A Soolip Wedding!

We were so excited to be part of A Soolip Wedding at the gorgeous Bentley Reserve this weekend - and what fun it was! Not one to toot our own horn *wink wink* but our booth was adorable.  And what better way to appreciate the amazing texture of letterpress wedding invitations than to see and touch them in person?

We spotted this lush frame holding business cards and imagined it as a display for escort cards at a garden wedding!

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.

Happy Spring!

Did you balance an egg?

Or did you see one of these?

Wishing you a splendid new season!

Lucky Friday, ermm... Saturday! Week #5

Now onto the fifth edition of our weekly feature: Lucky Fridays! Each Friday (or Saturday, just for this week) 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):

Heather S., Claire and Addie!

Heather will contact you early next week to arrange sending your Lionheart card.

Onto this week's offering:

Design: Going Strong

Artist: Eunice Moyle

Inspiration: The Beatles' “Carry that Weight,” feats of strength, the family circus.

Who to send it to: Your brawny beau; your leading lady; your favorite matrimonial marathon medalists.

Ideas we scrapped in favor of this one:  A pair of circus tightrope walkers, with the heading  “Because you’re mine…” seemed a little tenuous. The sword swallower couple seemed inappropriate, and we all agreed that clowns are a no-no.

Our favorite details: The marcel curls of the Missus and the Monsieur’s manly ‘stache.

Why Letterpress? We bet that strongman could bench press our presses, so we printed the card to be especially impressive.

Don't forget to post your comment on the blog and check next Friday to see if you've won!

Strictly No Elephants

Just 'cuz.