Lucky List for the Bookworm

1. iPhone Case

The ultimate phone accessory! An iPhone case can say a lot about a person, and this one speaks adorable.

2. Penguin Books Travel Pouch

You can never have enough bags. Bags for groceries, bags for traveling, bags for anything! This bag is great for the book lover because of its classic Penguin book cover. It's just one of many Penguin classic cover accessories, so check them out here!

3. Hello!Lucky Journal

We couldn't help but sneak in a genius gift of our own! This year Hello!Lucky released three brand new two-sided journals, and the Love It or Hate It journal is perfect for readers. Jot down your thoughts on all those books you've finished, or make a list of books to read in 2012!

4. Cross Gold Rolled Ballpoint Pen

Ever find that one pen that you just can't write without? Well we have. Cross pens are the finest of all pens. They have a super sleek shape, are available in all colors and varieties, and above all, they come with a lifetime warranty. So that one pen you just can't write without is guaranteed to stick by your side, forever! It's the perfect gift for the doodler, the writer, or the note taker. You can even get them engraved!

5. Book Hook

This sculptural side table piece takes the bookmark to a whole new level. It's a stylish resting place for your novels. It's a sophisticated page protector. It preserves the book boundary, and looks good while doing it. It's amazing!

6. Wooden Book Pendant Necklace

Now your loved ones can keep their books even closer to their hearts. Handmade by an artist in the UK, these pendant necklaces (available in all colors!) are totally unique and make a lovely gift for the holidays.

7. Ideal Bookshelf Print

Jane Mount hit a home run with her Ideal Bookshelf project. She's been illustrating peoples ideal bookshelves for years, and gathered prints for sale along the way. There are prints of cookbooks, baby books, travel books, and pretty much any books you like. If you want to give an extra thoughtful gift this year - order a custom ideal bookshelf painting here. He or she will love you!

8. Cork Planter Bookends

Talk about a tidy shelf! Not only are these bookends practical and attractive, they can be used for notes, to hold pens/utensils, and even be home to your mini plants! A multi-magical gift for any collection!

9. The Maltese Falcon

This classic detective novel will have readers channeling their inner Sam Spade in no time. We love this book because of it's San Francisco backdrop, and are captivated by the thrill of the chase. It's a great addition to any personal library!

10. Wooden Elk Bookmark

If you're anything like us, your books are marked with old receipts, candy wrappers, or even the dreaded "dog ear." Well, it's time to be kind to our paper entertainment, and treat our pages with respect! This mini elk bookmark would be perfect for a stocking stuffer, or even slipped inside a new bestseller and wrapped up nicely with a bow.

Lucky Friday # 40, Esther Aarts Christmastime

Hello all you lucky folks out there! This is the 40th 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 three winners from last week are (drum roll, please): Margaret, Scarlett and Linda! We’ll contact you next week to arrange sending your Woodland Cheer card!

Now for this week’s wintry edition:

Design: Christmastime Artist: Esther Aarts Inspiration: Everything old, new, red, white, icy blue and beautiful about Christmas. Who to send it to: Anyone— everyone on your list! Ideas we scrapped in favor of this one: The festivus version's feats of strength were funny, but it was a little tricky to illustrate the airing of grievances. Favorite detail: The sinuous snow covered branch on which the sparrows sit. Why letterpress: The color on the little birds heads are pressed with 2 translucent inks, creating a 3rd color. Nifty, huh?

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

We Support Small Business Saturday

It's that time again! Department store catalogs, commercials, fliers, and billboards are popping up all over, and Black Friday is just around the corner. We love the idea of one-stop-shopping, but are always prone to browsing local businesses and shops for unique gifts. That's why we are proud supporters of Small Business Saturday. To celebrate its second anniversary, we encourage all of you to hit the town and support the businesses that make our communities shine!

Tour with Printeresting

Be sure to head over to Printeresting today where they feature a studio tour of Hello!Lucky! Our printer James showed the crew around and introduced them to the pressroom and shop. We love having visitors come to the studio so feel free to come say hello any time!

Hello!Holidays! Lucky List for the Chef

1. Kitchen Magic Twisty Whisk

Icy blue is a hot color for spring. We've seen it on clothing, in print, and in tons of displays. We were super excited to see Anthropologie came out with an uber cute (and trendy) kitchen whisk! Its twisted prongs and silicone grips make whisking a breeze. We'd love to see it peeking out of our stockings!

2. Slate Chalkboard Cheese Board

Chalkboards are taking over! We love the fact that this slate cheese board can be washed and reused for labeling cheeses, desserts, or any of your favorite hor d'oeuvres. The kitchen can't do without it!

3. Cheese Markers

It's hard to ignore these adorable cheese markers. Each one is backed with a glazed pattern that takes adorable one step farther. And the best part? The artist is a San Francisco neighbor! Fresh cheese is always stocked in our fridge and making appearances at Hello!Lucky gatherings, so we'll definitely be wishing for a set of these this year.

4. KitchenAid Satin Copper Stand Mixer

Need we say more? Perhaps the KitchenAid stand mixer is the ultimate gift for anyone who uses a kitchen, but in satin copper? Yes please!

5. Bluebottle Coffee subscription here

Fortunately for us, a Bluebottle Coffee shop resides only one short block away from the Hello!Lucky SF office, and we can't count how many New Orleans Style iced coffees were consumed by our staff this summer. A perfect gift to give any caffeine lover is a subscription to Bluebottle's blends! There are various options at various prices, so sign up your friends/family now!

6. Pure & Good Hand Soap

Simply stated, it's pure and good. Having pretty soap in the kitchen not only makes the space look cleaner (our secret trick!) but this product is totally reliable. Anthropologie strikes again with the icy blue accents, and why not protect the fragile hands of our loved ones and cooks? That's why we'd love to find this bottle wrapped up under our tree!

7. Herbs de Provence in Pottery Crock

It's a nice touch to have an organized (and attractive) collection of herbs and spices. Herbes de Provence (the French mix of choice), adds provincial flavor to any dish. We sprinkle this sophisticated blend of savory, fennel, basil, thyme and lavender on almost everything. To have our favorite herbs stored in a perfect little pot is just the right touch!

8. Pressed Glass Mixing Bowls

This set of three pressed glass mixing bowls would love a home in any kitchen. They're durable, stackable, and downright adorable! Either in jadeite or milk white, you can't do without 'em.

9. Tartine Cookbook

His/her croissants or morning buns may not turn out as scrumptious as the real thing, or maybe they will, but it's no shock that we all swear by this cookbook. Tartine, San Francisco's treasured cafe and bakery, earned it's constant line of hungry folks out the door. Yes, we are drooling while thinking about it! Better prepare your ovens, because baking just launched to another level!

10. Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook

A few of us had the pleasure of meeting Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse, earlier this year. We were shaken with inspiration and delight as she greeted us with the warmth and kindness of a real friend. This cookbook not only reflects the qualities of the historically successful restaurant, but it brings the goodness home. Yes, we still may never get a reservation, but who said we can't pretend the kitchen is the real place?!

Lucky Friday # 39, Woodland Cheer!

Hello all you lucky folks out there! This is the 39th 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 three winners from last week are (drum roll, please):

Jessica, Liz and Ruth Whispell!

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

Now for this week’s edition:

Design: Woodland Cheer Artist: Eunice Moyle Inspiration: Furry and feathered friends found in folk art. Who to send it to: Fine craft aficionados who squirreled away fun Etsy finds and generously sent them your way for the holiday. Ideas we scrapped in favor of this one: A bunch of naïve, outsider art renderings of folk instruments reading "Close enough for folk music!" Another with a just big acorn, reading "Wanna hear acorny joke?" Favorite detail: We heart the squirrel love. Why Letterpress? Dingbats/Typographic ornaments are sometimes called "printer's flowers." Wonder if there are any printer's acorns?

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

Thanks for your patience!

It's been a little over 2 weeks since we launched our brand new website and, as can be expected, there have been some hiccups along the way! We just wanted to thank everyone for your patience and let you know we're working around the clock to fix issues as they come up. One of the biggest challenges has been getting our new customization tool to work seamlessly in all web browsers, especially Safari.

Here are some quick tips if you're having trouble:

- Try opening the site in Firefox or Chrome - Download the most recent version of Adobe Flash Player - Clear your browser cache or browsing history (often under preferences) and refresh the page

Still having problems? We'd LOVE to hear from you and help you place your order via phone (888) 552-3724 (US) and 020 7378 9740 (UK) or e-mail info@hellolucky.com.

The more we know, the faster we can get things all fixed up. Please note that we are also still working on getting some of our products up on the site, so if you can't find what you're looking for, give us a shout!

Thanks in advance for your support and feedback!

2011 Holiday Catalog!

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Now you can browse through all of our 2011 Holiday designs in one place! Thanks to Edyta Szyszlo for her amazing photography!

Featuring Lab Partners and Giveaway!

We couldn't have more love and admiration for our featured designer Lab Partners! Sarah and Ryan are the husband and wife team behind the super successful design studio based in Piedmont, CA. Prior to establishing Lab Partners, Sarah was part of the Hello!Lucky team working as an illustrator and designer. It's no wonder we're obsessed with their designs! They are the geniuses who created our Visit Series and we cannot wait to continue working with them in the future. Check out their cards in the 2011 Holiday Collection here!

What inspired your design for the holiday collection?

The candy bowl filled with sweets we always have out during the holidays. We also are big fans of the Christmas stocking so we had to do one of those.

What are you currently working on?

Right now we're working on a couple of projects with Chronicle Books that we're super excited about. We're also working with the Seattle Children's hospital on a project with one of our favorite artists, Amy Ruppel. It's probably the largest endeavor we've ever taken on and it's been such a great challenge and amazing experience so far.

What influences your style the most?

Color, textiles, animals, science and animation.

What's your favorite holiday tradition?

Definitely the day we bring the tree home. We always cook a fancy meal and watch The Sound of Music while decorating the tree. It's a great way to kick off the season.

Best holiday memory?

Sarah: Driving around with my family to find the houses with the super crazy lights.

Ryan: Visiting Austria at Christmastime, everything was so picturesque.

To enter to win 2 sets of limited edition letterpress cards designed by Lab Partners, head over to their blog here for the giveaway! Good luck!

(boxed sets include 6 cards and envelopes)

SFMade Pop-Up Shop

We had a lovely time at the opening reception of SFMade's Pop-Up shop at Banana Republic last Thursday! If you haven't seen the images on our Facebook page, you can enjoy them here!

From now until December 26th the Banana Republic flagship store is home to the products of a few of SFMade's local members.  You can find bags from Rickshaw, coffee from Ritual, and holiday cards from yours truly. There's plenty more to see so head over to Banana Republic on 256 Grant Avenue in San Francisco today!

Featuring Hammerpress!

Today we're thrilled to bring you our friends from Hammerpress! Hammerpress is a design studio and letterpress company based out of Kansas City, Missouri. You may remember our delightful tour of the Hammerpress studio earlier this year. The crew was enormously kind and showed us a fabulous time. We love their mix of vintage and modern and their cozy, woodsy designs. They offer tons of cool cards and paper goods in their shop, perfect for any holiday gift! Keep up with their blog here for updates on new products!

What inspired your design for the holiday collection?

Our inspiration for this project was, with all of our work, to create a collection that we like and feel good about. The unique thing about this project was not being quite so limited with color since it was not being produced in house. All of our work is letterpress so we typically don't have as much freedom with the amount of colors. Also, there are some things that just would not work on press here at the shop that we can do digitally. Also, working with Hello!Lucky wasn't too hard to swallow either.

What are you currently working on?

We are fortunate to have many different kinds of projects going at all times. We are currently working on some identity work for a new soda fountain / coffee shop project here in Kansas
City.  We've been involved in the project in a very hands on way ( i.e. demolition and finding materials, etc.) so it's a great a joy to work on the back end of the project as well. Currently we've got a lot of return customers for holiday mailers which is great. Some of them we have been working with for years. We just finished a large project with Boulevard Brewing Company here in Kansas City.  Boulevard is a highly respected brewery and has continued to grow since there impetus in 1989. We have had a lot of their beer so it's an honor to work with such a great company. As usual, we are also constantly working on new card ideas and larger print work as well.

What influences your style the most?

I think we have a lot of influences here at the shop, we all look at different things. Primarily our ideas stem from ephemera and design work from the past. Anything from postage stamps and matchbox labels ( we just bought a huge collection of 300 or so Indian matchbox labels ) to broadsides, rodeo posters, ticket stubs, old faded signs, found photos, you name it. We have a lot of stuff laying around.

What's your favorite holiday tradition?

Spending time with family and friends. We usually have a Hammerpress dinner party and I really like that.

Best holiday memory?

My best holiday memory would have to be when i was 8 or so. I woke up and ran upstairs to the tree ( why our tree was upstairs I don't know ) and found not only the Hot Wheels mountain race track set but also the giant Godzilla action figure with the handle that made what I think was a plastic flame come out of his mouth. That was just too much to handle.

To see the entire Hammerpress holiday collection for Hello!Lucky head here!

Featuring Tom Frost!

Tom Frost is our featured designer living in the UK! Currently based in Bristol, Tom incorporates screen printing, painting, drawing, and even 3D design in his art. We love his vintage poster-like designs and that he hand-prints his funky 3D sculptures and toys. Be sure to check out Tom's blog here and online shop here!

What inspired your design for the holiday collection?

These three designs are a continuation of a recent series of stamp screen prints I did that featured birds, pond life and mammals of the British Isles.

What are you currently working on?

I have just finished a commission that involved me painting a large wooden rocket, which makes my job the best job in the world! There will also be a number of new screen prints, a new T-shirt very soon and a range of cider bottles that I am really excited about. And within the next few days, the best early Christmas present ever, the birth of our first child.

What influences your style the most?

A number of things from tin toys, vintage match boxes, folk art, mid century design, old meccano and childrens books. The list though, in theory, is endless.

What's your favorite holiday tradition?

It has to be on Christmas eve, helping out my mum in the kitchen preparing homemade stuffings and breadsauce, with a large vat of mulled wine gentle warming on the stove. That and just sitting in front of the fire, with family.

Best holiday memory?

When I was a lot younger, we use to spend Christmas at my Grandparents farm. One night, sat infront of the roaring fire I witnessed a Great Dane sneeze on a sleeping Scotty dog. Not the best Christmas memory, but one that has stayed firmly embedded in my memory bank!

Visit the collection by Tom Frost for Hello!Lucky here!

Free Shipping on Holiday Orders!

Attention early birds - It's that time again! Time to snap your best family photos and bust out those dusty address books. We're offering an exclusive discount for those of you ready (and excited!) to get your holiday cards ordered early this year! From now until November 24th use the code earlybird at checkout to receive free shipping on all holiday orders. Check out our festive assortment, from photo to letterpress, here. Happy shopping!

Featuring Pie Bird Press!

This morning we're delighted to feature Hannah Berman of Pie Bird Press! Hannah is another designer neighbor living in Albany, California. She's had some fantastic experiences with letterpress printing and has come to create quite an accomplished company of her own. We are so excited to feature her in our collection this year because her designs are the brightest and boldest, and we love that they stand out. Make sure to visit her shop here!

What inspired your design for the holiday collection?

I am always inspired by nostalgia and the special moments that we remember from our childhoods. There's nothing quite like seeing a perfectly wrapped gift with a big bow on it to stir up excitement on any holiday!

What are you currently working on?

I'm currently working on Pie Bird Press' 2012 spring collection of stationery, due out in May. Keep an eye out for lots of fun, new designs!

What influences your style the most?

I am influenced primarily by color, and again by nostalgia. I find most of my inspiration at vintage stores, county fairs, and other all-American events that evoke a certain sentimentality.

What's your favorite holiday tradition?

My family has a latke party every year, complete with my father's non-traditional potato pancakes. It's always a treat to sit around the table with our loved ones and see how many latkes we can take down.

Best holiday memory?

My birthday falls during the holiday season, and one year when I was a child we took a trip up to Mendocino for the occasion. There were record setting lows that year, and we found icicles hanging on the beach. For a California native, that was really something special!

Check out the Pie Bird Press collection for Hello!Lucky here!

Lucky Friday # 38, Good Luck, 11-11-11

Hello all you lucky folks out there! This is the 38th 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 three winners from last week are (drum roll, please):

Margaret, Lisa and Nikki!

We’ll contact you next week to arrange sending your Holiday Delivery card!

Now for this week’s lucky selection:

Design: Good Luck Artist: Eunice Moyle Inspiration: We thought we'd share a little luck on 11-11-11! Make a wish! Who to send it to: Anyone with a name like Sailor Jerry, Big Mike or Charlie. Ideas we scrapped in favor of this one: "Luck, Be a Lady" with a Sailor Jerry style hula girl wearing a rubber dice bikini was a little too much. Favorite detail: The heart die is to die for. Why letterpress? Pressmen also like to get all inked up.

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

Featuring EIEIO and Giveaway!

Today we're delighted to feature the adorable Jean Orlebeke of eieio papers! We love Jean's designs because she has a totally unique style, and her collection stands out with it's embellished and geometric flare. Not only did eieio come up with these awesome designs for our holiday collection this year, but she also designed a few of our most popular wedding invitations! Check out her shop of prints here and scroll down for a holiday giveaway!

What inspired your design for the holiday collection?

To get in the holiday mood I put the sound track for Charlie Brown's Christmas on and chose a few eieio 'classic' wraps to translate into cards. Usually I try to design wraps that are more embellished or festive than the rest of the eieio designs. I typically don't use classic holiday color palettes, as my customers are small shops, and want the wrap to work in January as well. Instead I add a metallic ink, a gloss varnish or draw a motif that is ornate. I had so much fun re-coloring some of my favorite designs into classic holiday colors.

What are you currently working on?

My work is around 70% branding and identity. Right now I am working on two new identity projects: a perfume label and a film festival. I'm also working on some textile designs and the interface for an educational Earth Sciences product.

What influences your style the most?

Modern sculpture, natural forms, fiber art.

What's your favorite holiday tradition?

My family's Christmas Eve casual dinner. My mother always made a big buffet, which included everyone's favorites. We would make up our plates (several times) and eat sitting around the fireplace. Before we went to bed we had a funny ritual that my dad would tape each year: each of us would enter the room doing silly improv dances and make a grandiose presentation of hanging our stockings up on the fireplace. My mom's was always the most dramatic performance. She would hang up a thigh-hi stocking -- which in our family was a punchline that never got old.

Best holiday memory?

I always wanted a cat when I was growing up and on one Christmas Eve (I was 13), as I walked through the kitchen I saw a tiny gray paw reaching out from under the basement door. My parents were planning to give her to me on Christmas morning, but there was no way that little kitty was going to spend the night in the cold basement alone!

To enter to win a 2 boxes of Hello!Lucky letterpress holiday cards, leave a comment below telling us your favorite foods to eat during the holidays. We will choose a winner on Monday November 14th at 12:00pm. Good luck!

**A winner has been chosen! Thanks for participating!**

Featuring Office of Nature and Giveaway!

Katherine Patton is the powerhouse behind the design studio Office of Nature. Like Katherine, we're constantly inspired by vintage type and design, and when she agreed to be a part of our 2011 Holiday collection we were certain she would come up with something out of this world. Well, we were right! Her type-tastic designs have us gushing with excitement. Now living in Toronto with her family, she works for Zync as well as maintaining a freelance design practice.  Check out her shop here!

What inspired your design for the holiday collection?

I've always been inspired by historical typography. Anything from store signage, illuminated manuscripts, antique packaging, subway signs, anything really. I love how a typeface can have the power to represent an entire era or city or industry. They each have their own personality and I've always loved trying to pair them together. For the Christmas cards, I really wanted them to have that optimistic nostalgic feeling. Like if you rooted through your grandma's old photo boxes you might find one of these cards she saved.

What are you currently working on?

I'm always working on new prints for kids in my Etsy shop. Right now, I'm finishing up some alphabet prints. One is all hand-drawn, based on vintage type, and the other is sort of a super-modern geometric alphabet. I'm also a professional graphic designer so I actually spend a lot time doing less illustrative work. I love the variety of being able to rebrand a huge global company one day and then design a poster for a taco truck the next.

What influences your style the most?

I'm always looking to Mary Blair for the way she uses texture and shadow. She's amazing in so many ways. I also have a ton of typographic reference books that I'm always leafing through when I start a project, and I'm so thankful to be married to another super-talented designer who helps art direct my work when I need it. Also, Pinterest is my best friend.

What's your favorite holiday tradition?

Ever since I was a little girl I always made sugar cookies and spent hours and hours decorating them. I'd make 6 or 8 different colours of icing and every year I'd try to make the colours brighter and brighter. As food colouring technology evolved, this got easier. This Halloween....I finally made black!

Best holiday memory?

The one Christmas I spent in NY with my soon-to-be husband. We made a turkey in our tiny oven that we'd never used before and made all the fixings. We strung up some sad little lights in our empty loft and played the Charlie Brown soundtrack on repeat. My parents visited and ventured all the way out to Bushwick on the subway to have Christmas dinner with us.

To enter to win 2 boxes of limited edition Good Cheer letterpress cards designed by Office of Nature, head over to her Facebook page here where she will be hosting the giveaway!

(boxed sets include 6 cards and envelopes)

**A winner has been chosen! Thanks for participating!**

Featuring Susy Jack* and Giveaway!

Today we're thrilled to feature the magnificent Susy Jack*! Susan Connor is the magic force behind the name, and works as a triple threat as designer, artist, and author/editor of the blog Hey Susy. Currently living and working in New York City, her inspiration comes from textiles, fashion, art, and sometimes from the hardware store. If you browse through her shop, you will be stunned at her collection of beautiful patterned pieces and office accessories. We love that she can turn her talent from product design into crazy cool holiday cards! Check out her collection here!

What inspired your design for the holiday collection?

My designs were inspired by the sweetness and wit of making up your own holiday traditions. Around here, our holidays are never very cookie-cutter, but they have a lot of heart. I started with the "Make Merry" mittens design, and the "Do You See What I See" glasses cards...which I thought expressed the idea of holiday DIY in a really fun way, and the other ideas grew from there.

What are you currently working on?

Right now, I'm taking a big step with my line, and launching into some new categories, which my customers have been asking about for a while. It's exciting. Not only am I really happy with the way the new product development is coming along, I'm also looking forward to a website relaunch, which will offer a better shopping experience, and an expanded view into my creative work, for my customers. These are a couple of big upgrades that I've been dreaming about for a long time, and it feels like the right time to put them out there.

What influences your style the most?

My style is most influenced by the idea of combining everyday iconic elements we all recognize - like a bow, or a clothespin - with motifs and ideas that are a little unexpected, a little luxurious. I love an item that has wit, fun, and style all at once - that, for me, is a winning combination.

What's your favorite holiday tradition?

Well, it's probably the Holiday Walk. We live in the middle of Manhattan, and it's very loud most of the year. The winter holidays are always strangely calm, and people seem to slow down and get dreamy. I love being stuffed full from a great holiday meal, putting on my mittens and giant puffer coat, pocketing a flask of eggnog, and venturing out to walk Central Park with my boy. We will often stop for Chinese on the way back. The cold air on my cheeks, the quiet joy in the air, and the spirit of another year gone by, and a new one on it's way always put me in a thoughtful, serene, and happy state of mind that is quite unique to the holidays.

Best holiday memory?

I have been blessed with a lot of happy holiday memories...too many to pick a true favorite. But, I will say the one thing that stands out is a tradition in my family. We would always get spindly trees -- probably because we weren't moneyed, but my mom and dad would tell me it was so the ornaments showed up better. We had a LOT of ornaments. Our ornaments were mainly vintage - typical Woolworth's 1940's glass - from my Mom's family in Schenectady - it is a miracle many of them survive. Each year, it was a joy to unwrap them and take them from their old cardboard boxes, and ancient cotton batting....and put them up on the tree one by one. Each one was like an old friend, and we would always discuss which ones were our favorites and why. My mom would always save one for the very end - a tiny silver glass elephant rearing up on his hind legs, trunk curling up. And he would go right under the star - at the tip top of the tree. He was special. I think about those glass ornaments - the lights playing off them, the faint smell of pine, and our little tree, completely weighted down with shimmery ornaments, in our creaky, drafty, weird wooden house. It was storybook in a strange way - and truly a memory that I cherish.

To enter to win a $100 gift certificate to Hello!Lucky (which you could use to order SusyJack* holiday cards!) head over to Susan’s blog here where she’ll be hosting a giveaway. And to get a free download of gift tags inspired by SusyJack*s designs, head over to How About Orange to print! Good luck!

**A winner has been chosen! Thanks for participating!**

Studio Snapshot: New Valentine's Day Cards!

Here's a little sneak peek of some new letterpress Valentine's Day cards on the press as we speak! This is just one of many new card designs making their big debut soon, so stay tuned!

Featuring: Darling Clementine & Giveaway!

Today we're featuring the lovely and charming duo behind Darling Clementine! Ingrid Reithaug and Tonje Holand are too cute for words, and have a mod style that we are crazy about. In addition to graphic design and illustration, these ladies make beautiful stationery. You can order their adorable and customizable digital holiday cards here, but as a special offer, the DC ladies are giving away 2 boxes of the limited edition letterpress cards! We want them all for ourselves, but know you will love them just as much! Darling Clementine has its own shop in Norway, but if you can’t get there you can purchase their illustrations, trays, cushions and other stationery products online here. Enjoy!

What inspired your design for the holiday collection?

The inspiration for Darling Clementine's cards for Hello!Lucky is a combination of objects that have a traditional Scandinavian Christmas feel and objects from our modern ways of celebrating the holiday. We wanted to express the expectations we have for the holiday by indicating present shopping, Christmas decorating and finding traditional objects from the loft.

What are you currently working on?

We are both on our maternity leaves at the moment, so currently we are both spending the days looking into the beautiful faces of our newborn babies; our proudest creations so far!

What influences you the most?

Our Scandinavian design heritage combined with our modern color palette.

What's your favorite holiday tradition?

We love taking part in a Christmas fair for designers that is hosted in Oslo every first weekend in December, having a chocolate gift box workshop with red wine and dark chocolate overload, as well as putting up favorite baubles in our windows!

Best holiday memory?

Christmas present shopping in London and the wonderful smell in childhood homes Christmas morning!

To enter to win 2 boxes of limited edition letterpress cards designed by Darling Clementine, comment below and tell us your best holiday memory! The winner will be selected Friday, November 11th at 12:00pm. Good luck!

**Thanks to everyone for participating! The winner of the Darling Clementine giveaway has been chosen. Stay tuned on our blog for more fabulous holiday giveaways to come!**