All the stockings were hung on display with care . . . .  We had a wonderful time at our annual Salutations Holiday Open House last Thursday!  Everyone got into the Season of Giving spirit, as we collected some great donations for the Second Harvest Food Bank and for the Salvation Army Christmas Angel programs, and we gave away some amazing SWAG bags and lots of special holiday discounts.

Our vendors and neighboring merchants were so generous in providing us with fabulous treats for our SWAG bags.  Smock Paper providing gorgeous letterpressed holiday card & gift tag sets; Dauphine Press sent sets of wonderful letterpressed correspondence cards; Crane & Co. donated copies of their hardcover Blue Book of Stationery; Midori Ribbon sent gift boxes of green organdy ribbon; Inviting Company provided some very fun notepads; Wiley Valentine provided sets of letterpress offcuts assembled into notepads; Modern Salon and Spa provided samples and 20% off coupons; JesseBrown’s contributed $10 coupons; Kilwin’s provided “Buy One Get One Free” ice cream coupons; Her Therapy shared 20% off coupons; and I.C. London provided $10 coupons.  We love our vendors and neighboring merchants, who are so supportive of Salutations.

Have you seen the new issue of Martha Stewart Weddings™ yet?  Salutations is listed as a featured retailer in two ads in the Summer 2009 issue!  The first is by Dauphine Press, showing off their popular Peony design letterpressed in shades of purple {this season’s hot color}.  The second is by Envelopments, featuring a custom layered invitation that will make you want to hop on a plane bound for Fiji!  Let us know what you think!

Last Thursday, I attended the launch celebration of Brock Moran Home’s new wedding and gift registry.  Boy, was it fabulous!  Between the sophisticatedly elegant style sense of Brock McLendon, the meticulous attention to detail by Brock and event planner Dina Berg Blazek, the phenomenal sips and snacks catered by Chef Paul Verica from The Club at Longview, and the jaw-droppingly beautiful floral arrangements by Elements and In Bloom Ltd., the whole evening was inspirational!  And I haven’t even mentioned the expansive selection of top-notch tabletop lines now offered by Brock Moran for wedding and general gift-giving ~ lines like Arte Italica, Bernardaud, Jean Louis Coquet, Julisca, Pickard, and Reynaud.  Wow!!

We were thrilled and honored to be selected by Brock to design the invitations and gift tags for this momentous event.  We had the invitation letterpress printed by Dauphine Press on luxurious Crane Lettra stock in Espresso and Leaf inks.  We flat-printed the invitation to the exclusive preview in the store to match.  The invitation was then enclosed in a dreamy chocolate brown end-flap envelope, and hand-addressed in white ink,  topped off by a custom tulip postage stamp from Zazzle.

The gift tags for the guest gifts were also letterpress printed by Dauphine Press in espresso ink.

For a reaction to the invitation by an admiring invitee, see this blog post by designer Traci Zeller.  For photos of the event, see the post Brock Moran says ‘Welcome Home’ by the highly talented and ever-joyful Drea Cunningham of Casey Cunningham Photography.