Louie Award Winners!

The Louie Awards is an annual ceremony put on by the Greeting Card Association in honor of our fellow card producers. We have been lucky enough to be included in this fancy affair alongside our favorite designers.  Last year we were grateful to win an award in the Thanks category. This year we were claimed best in two categories, thanks & congrats, and received a final win for Card of The Year! It was a huge honor to be involved and an even bigger one to take home several awards! This left us with the obvious feeling of self-gratification and it’s all due to you guys, so thanks so much for all your support. You truly did make our day!

See all the winners here.

Tiny Dictator was named best of in the Congrats category for $3.50+

Sunny Day was named best of in the Thanks and Card of The Year categories for $3.50+

Sunny Day was named best of in the Thanks and Card of The Year categories for $3.50+

20 Reasons to Write a letter

We teamed up with Egg Press beginning April 1st for a 30 day challenge in honor of National Letter Writing Month. Everyone at Hello!Lucky and Egg Press vouched to take part in the challenge to write 30 letters in 30 days, as well as anyone else who wanted to join. We offered free starter kits containing 4 limited edition letterpress cards to anyone who signed up here. We are so amazed and thrilled by the outcome of this campaign. We have seen an overwhelming amount of participants and love the live updates on instagram and twitter. The letter writing movement is WRITE_ON target! 

Egg Press has been offering up some great ideas for who and what to write about. Here’s the first twenty tips, visit their instagram @eggpress for the next ten! 

It’s not too late to hop on board! Join us in this endeavor and share your experience at #write_on. Don't forget to tag us @helloluckycards- We will pick a few of our favorite posts to blog about! 

Hello!Lucky meets Hello Shiso!

 

Yesterday we met with our new favorite accessory designer Mimi Tsang of Hello Shiso. The company started in 2010 with Mimi assembling each product personally by hand & has since flourished! We are in love with Hello Shiso designs. These accessories serve as the perfect addition to the little ladies outfit! We couldn't resist and had to buy some for Eunice's baby Imogen who is modeling her new Hello Shiso clips below! Check out these sweet heart shaped bobby pins, just in time for Valentines Day! Visit Hello Shiso!

Hello!Lucky & Couple Giveaway!

Read below for instructions on how to enter to win two Couples tee's, a Hello!lucky card, & free app stickers! Valentines Day is one of our all time favorite Holidays because it instigates positive language & reassurance. What we love most about the app Couple is that it allows you to do this on a daily basis. Whether you’re in a long distance relationship, have conflicting schedules, or just enjoy having a common place to connect, this app makes sharing sweet nothing’s a piece of cake. It’s the ultimate share app with Couple, creating archived moments including videos, voice messages, photos with filters, and drawings. It offers facetime, shared to-do lists, an interactive calendar, and even the option to share locations. It’s all the apps you use with your honey rolled into one. Learn more about them here! We thought we would couple up with them this Valentines Day to offer their loyal customers a tangible way to say I love you, and share their approach with our fans! Contest guidelines below! 

Enter to win a Hello!lucky Valentine, two Couple tee’s, and a few Couple stickers to use on their FREE app by commenting on your favorite Hello!lucky card featured on their blog here. Then be sure to “like” Hello!lucky & Couple on facebook between February 3rd- 8th. The 5 winners will then be chosen at random. It’s easy to enter, just comment on the post found here stating your favorite featured card, and like Hello!lucky and Couple on Facebook.

*Additional contest information here.

Valentines Day

Check out our new Valentines Day collection in the shop! We are strong believers in the art of hand-written notes, and Valentines Day is the perfect opportunity! So don't forget to tell those special people in your life how much they mean to you this Valentines Day! We are offering 20% off our entire love & friendship collection until Monday the 20th with code SWEETNOTHINGS. We will also be doing a Valentines Day DIY next week so you can make your own! Check back with the blog soon! Which card below is your favorite?spread-the-love

love-cards

valentines-day-cards

love-and-friendship

valentines

Imogen's Birth Announcement

Eunice's baby girl Imogen was born on August 16th of this year. For the birth announcement, Eunice went for a hand-illustrated approach for the main, and drew inspiration from our sunshine stationery for the french/chinese insert. She used printstagram for the photo. Printstagram is an awesome service that prints your instagram photos on little squares and ships them to you within the week! We are all smitten with the outcome of this birth announcement!birth announcement

Custom Business Card and a Sneak Peek!

 

I have a super amazing nanny, Beny, who is literally the French Mary Poppins (as seen here with a couple of fairy charges) and recently whipped up a fun business card for her French immersion camp. The art was pulled from our spiffy new Kids Love Candy valentines card that will be released next year - here's a little sneak peek!  One of many exciting new valentines we have up our sleeve. Can't wait to reveal them all!

Inspired By: Wee Gallery

How clever are these Wee Gallery Dress Up animal cards? As stationers it's sometimes a challenge to come up with designs that can be suitable for both kids and adults, but these cards definitely bridge that gap. We love the simple and painterly illustrations and the thought of kids customizing these card for a friend or sibling. So sweet! The Wee Gallery definitely has a knack for kids, and their focus on making “smart art for little minds” is brilliant. Getting kids to channel their creativity at a young age is a great way to inspire new ideas and we've got to give props to Wee Gallery for contributing.

They also just released a book to go along with the clever cards! It would be a great stocking stuffer or gift for kids (oh, and did we say this is fun for adults too?!) We can probably come up with 32 ways to dress up a pig, bunny, and fox. Can you?

Since Jude, Alex, and James are all obsessed with sea creatures and animals (remember their costume sneak peek?), these Sea wall graphics would make a fantastic addition to their rooms.

Visit the Wee Gallery website for more awesome kid-spiration!

Valentine's Cards for Meals on Wheels

Our employees love to get together after hours for holiday craft nights, especially if they benefit a good cause. Meals on Wheels has been providing meals to seniors since 1940 and has evolved into an extraordinary foundation for fighting hunger. For holidays the good people like to deliver cards to the seniors as a gift of love, and this year we decided to join in. All of our cards were handmade with love for the people supported by Meals on Wheels, and to know they were going to a good home was a beautiful thought.

As stationers, paper is our primary medium, so coming up with materials was a cinch. We try to save as many scraps as we can, knowing that they could come in handy for a card-making craft night.

Our team is the best at coming up with witty one-liners. We loved this "I a door you" card.

To support the Meals on Wheels Association of America, visit their website!

Monthly Card Subscription GIVEAWAY!

Attention all card lovers! You have a chance to win the letterpress lottery. We're giving one lucky reader a monthly card subscription for one whole year! Yes that's right. Three letterpress cards, every month, for a year. You can send them as a gift or keep them for yourself. Make a new year's resolution to send more cards to your loved ones. The best part? All the cards are pre-stamped, so you can just sign, seal, and deliver. To enter to win, simply comment below telling us who would receive the first card and why. You can get bonus points by liking us on Facebook, too!

We're choosing a winner next Wednesday, January 30th, so leave your comments soon and like us on Facebook to double your chances.

Entries are no longer being accepted and a winner has been chosen. Thanks for participating!!

New! Free Printable Valentine's Day Cards

Last year we released our first free printable Valentine's Day cards on the blog and they were a huge hit! Lots of readers downloaded the cards and we were really feeling the love. This year we're vamping things up with our newer designs, just for you! Simply visit the free printable page on our website and click each product to download. There you will also have access to last year's cards, so there are plenty to choose from.

Each download is formatted to fit four cards on an 8.5 x 11" paper, so simply print on a home computer, cut, sign, and send! We recommend using a thicker card stock for a more durable card. They're great for classrooms,  coworkers, or even sending a little love to your honey.

When Valentine's Day comes you'll be well prepared to spread your love with these witty wonders. To download all cards, click here!

Best of Holiday - Top 10 designs!

In order to prepare for the 2012 holidays, we must look back on the fan favorites from years past. You may remember our launch of the Guest Designer Series last year, a mix of 16 talented designers that contributed their genius ideas to our 2011 collection. With their help, the collection was a great success and although some were more popular than others, we found there was a perfect design for everyone. We were delighted to learn that our most popular 2011 holiday design, Chevron, was actually released in 2010, and is still a top fave. With the brilliant minds of The Lab Partners, Debbie Powell, and Jacqui Lee in the top 10, we weren't surprised these made the list. You can still order any of these cards this year, but we have released a handful of fantastic new designs ready to send to your friends and family. Check out some of our newest 2012 customizable cards here.

1. Chevron, Designer: Hello!Lucky 2. Greetings from San Francisco, Designer: Lab Partners 3. Joyeux Noel (Red), Designer: Jacqui Lee 4. Good Cheer, Designer: Office of Nature 5. Crest, Designer: Morris and Essex 6. Greetings from New York, Designer: Lab Partners 7. Folk Tales, Designer: Morris and Essex 8. New York City Skyline, Designer: Hello!Lucky 9. Greetings from Chicago, Designer: Lab Partners 10. Paper Chains, Designer: Debbie Powell

Attention earlybirds: If you shop early you will receive 20% off your customizable holiday cards. Use the code EARLYHOLIDAY at checkout, expires 11/15. Shop now!

Hello!Lucky B Sides & a Giveaway

We think one of the most delightful things about our greeting cards is the fact that the design often continues to the back of the card.

It's a fun little surprise you find when you hold one of our cards in your hands. And since only the front sides of our cards are shown online people often don't get to see this fun little party on the back. So here are some rarely photographed back sides of our cards. We're sharing some brand new designs along with a couple old favorites.

Another signature Hello!Lucky card trait is anthropomorphizing food, which we're big fans of around here. We've got dancing deviled eggs, talking pancakes, and laughing champagne bottles. Tell us which food you'd like to see come to life next and we'll send one lucky commenter 3 of our new cards! We'll pick a winner this Friday, May 18th.

Cards in order of appearance: Happy New Year's Eve, Yeti Love, Animal Parade, BBQ Parade.

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!

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--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.

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: tina.jpg

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

austin.jpg

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

bauer.jpg