Your Favorite Stores

Calling all paper people - and your favorite stores!

We're in the throws of all things Christmas these days over here in design land of L&H (that would be my desk), but waaaay over there on John's desk, we're making a master list of the stores we want to be in - and we're limited to what we know. So we'd love your recommendations of your favorite go-to stores for cards - whether they are all-things-paper kind of stores or boutiques with a small paper selection or online shops - whether they are in our hometown of Brooklyn or way up in Alaska. We'd love to hear where you buy your cards.

One of our newest stores is Hudson in Boston's South End. My dear friend Carrie loves this shop and suggested L&H to the owner - who has very good taste! Carrie actually got John & I the coolest glasses from Hudson for our wedding. I have been enjoying margaritas in them all summer! (Thanks, Care!) How great are these:

Learning from a Master

Yesterday, John and I had the privilege of visiting Alan in his letterpress shop in Frenchtown, NJ. What a day! Alan works in an old chicken barn - a very cool space which, in my opinion, adds to the charm and nature of this traditional printing process. Alan has been printing since he was a boy - and has collected a minagerie of presses & tools - some of which I had never seen before. Like this small press made for young boys just after the turn of the century:

I felt like little elves were going to pop out and start pressing. It's so teeny.

For most of the day, we learned a great deal about Alan and his background in letterpress as well as how many of the presses work. Alan has a wealth of information on this stuff. I highly recommend a visit if you're in the NYC/NJ/PA area and want to learn from a guy with 50-some years of experience - or if you have a machine that needs some tlc or want a book printed, he's your guy. He is clearly very passionate about what he does and loves introducing his passion to people - and is very patient with people like me, who ask all sorts of seemingly obvious questions. I was overwhelmed by all the information running around upstairs, so when 7pm rolled around, I was beat. We ended up leaving our press there until we make it back there again in about a week and a half.

Looking forward to it already!

Off to See a Letterpress Shop

John and I are off to Frenchtown, NJ today to visit a letterpress shop. Alan has been kind enough to take us newbies under his wing and show us a thing or two about our little press and all of his. I'm so excited to see his shop and get printing on my press!

For anyone interested in letterpress, I highly recommend checking out briarpress.org if you haven't already. It's where Alan found me after I had posted lots of questions and invited me to his shop. I also met Elisabeth on there who gave me lots of letterpress advice, too. Everyone is very friendly and just wants to help everyone else out - even if, ahem, they are clueless. Everyone's gotta start somewhere.

Welcome John

Today is a very big, very important and very special day. Today is the day that my husband John officially joins me as my partner at Linda & Harriett. For so long, I've been doing everything myself - which has been both wonderful (getting to make all the decisions) and very tough (having to make all the decisions). John has not only been my sounding board all this time, but he has also contributed a lot of time & energy to L&H already. In May, he took off work for three days to help me during the National Stationery Show (my official debut) and before & during which he baked over 800 cookies for me to give out to buyers. (He makes a mean chocolate chip cookie, by the way.) Ever since the show, he's been helping me in ways I couldn't imagine being without. So after giving it some serious thought, we decided to give this a try and see how it goes being a husband & wife team. I'm a little nervous but a lot excited.

For the last four and half years, John has been working as a copywriter at an ad agency in New York. While he is a very talented writer, I also know him to be quite the little businessman. Like the time he bought a whole bunch of 60 cent ponchos before a Phish concert (oh how we loved Phish!) and sold them for $5. ps - who knew phans were so concerned with drenched cords and tank tops?

So while you won't see John writing on here (that's where I draw the line) or developing any new designs (okay, maybe that's where I draw the line) - it is my hope that you will start to see a bit more of L&H. Perhaps in your next craft or holiday fair - or at your favorite stationery store.

Today is a big big day and I could not be more excited (albeit a teensy bit nervous) about what this means for L&H and having John & I working together. Let the fights, I mean fun, begin!

A New Face at Linda & Harriett

Kinglsey will always be a member of the Linda & Harriett team, so she's not our new face. Starting Wednesday though I will welcome someone very near and dear to me to join Linda & Harriett. I'd like to wait until it's officially official (ie, this person leaves her/his current job) to announce it. So stay tuned...

Lobster with a Checkered Back

Doing this Lobster Save the Date (back and front shown here) makes me want summer to last all year. That or move to Maine tomorrow - which John and I are still considering - just not tomorrow.

A Wedding Proposal Story

Okay, so this kind of sort of has nothing to do with me or what I usually post about - other than the fact that I design wedding invitations AND that I was proposed to a year and a half ago, myself AND that I love a good proposal story - but this video clip sent over to me from Eric via Bride-O-Rama (a website created to give newly engaged couples the lowdown on getting married) was too good not to post. It's 4 minutes long - and if you've got the time, I highly recommend you give it a look: