Thursday, June 20th from 5 - 8pm on Old Detroit Road

Enjoy selections of red and white wines, courtesy of Libations

Participating merchant specials coming soon!

This month's Sip & Shop is sponsored by The Olive Scene

Just in time for the holidays! Join Laura Jacobs of Embellish Accessories at Paper Trails to make a custom pendant featuring your child’s initial on one side, and a genuine fingerprint on the other.

Sat. Jan. 26, 10am-1pm

Sat. Feb. 9, 10am-1pm

Your favorite people will be forever with you in the form of fine silver (.999) jewelry.  

Two pendants can be made at a time. If you require only one charm, you may split a package with a friend - or design another piece with the remaining material in your kit.

Fee: $48 for two pendants.  No reservations necessary.

In addition to great promotions, carolers will be strolling the area and Santa and the Grinch will be visiting and ready for pictures with your little ones.

Enjoy horse drawn sleigh rides, beautiful ice sculptures, live performances and more!

The Holiday Walk is free for attendees, but please register in advance for the festivities by CLICKING HERE!

The 52 Letters Project

By: JoAnna Haugen, a full-time freelance writer who never leaves home without a pen and paper.

You may recall that about a month ago, I wrote to my government representatives as part of the agreement of accepting a professional grant from the Nevada Arts Council. When I blogged about the experience of writing to my representatives, I made the assumption that writing handwritten letters would receive a response because they are a novelty. The opposite turned out to be true.

See, my husband also received a professional grant, so he was also required to write to his government officials. He did what I assume most people do: He cut and paste a fairly standard note that was sent to all of the representatives, and he did this about three weeks after I did. Imagine my surprise, then, when we got the mail the other day and he actually received a snail mail response from one of our state representatives regarding his correspondence.

So here’s how it stands: I wrote handwritten notes to my representatives well over a month ago and have received no responses. My husband emailed notes a few weeks after I did and he received a snail mail response. A couple months ago I wrote about how it can be difficult to write a letter, and that may be one of the reasons why people don’t do it very often, but when you don’t receive a response as an incentive, why would people who don’t normally write letters do so?

Keep up with JoAnna's blog - http://www.the52lettersproject.com/

Check out some of our Carlson products.

Check out Emily's site for free wording and help!  

http://www.emilyeaston.com/index.html

- Get a free greeting card when you sign up!
- Get $5 for every $50 you spend in our store ...it's like always saving 10%!
- Receive access to exclusive sales and deals

Featuring various shades of pink, whoopee pies, rock candy champagne, paper products by Paper Trails and embellished wedding cake, along with thick rose shapes in satin on the table linens, this concept shoot is packed with fresh, modern wedding ideas."

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The cheeky letterpress greeting cards created by Lakewood design firm Chartreuse hit a sweet spot with Clevelanders. They are perfect for those of us who take pride in our ethnic cuisine, endless East-West debates and beloved-but-often-beleagured sports teams.

Pretty please with a pierogi on top?

I would brave traffic on 480 to see you!

"If you date someone who lives on the other side of town, you think that's funny," says Charity D'Amato, who collaborated with business partners Michelle Zelasko and Sara Misconish to create a line of 30 different Cleveland-centric greeting cards ($6 each).

After taking a trip to Seattle for an inspirational getaway and attending a letterpress class together, the women behind Chartreuse decided it was time to launch a creative project of their own. They named the line Underground, both as a nod to the inventive space in the basement of Chartreuse's design studio and to communicate that the line is separate from the firm's daily work for others.

"We do work for our clients all day long, but we never do anything creative for ourselves," D'Amato says.

The Chartreuse crew developed its first greeting cards for the Bizarre Bazaar craft show last December. They brainstormed, writing sayings on strips of paper, and then whittled the stack down to the wittiest one-liners.

"We really worked together on the project from start to finish," D'Amato says. "A lot of times our work is more one-on-one with the client, so all three of us aren't working together like this."

The cards are currently available at Paper Trails in Rocky River, The Dredgers Union on East Fourth Street and Sweet Moses Soda Fountain & Sweet Shop in Cleveland. They are not yet available online, but the women are considering opening an Etsy shop.

Chartreuse's Underground line not only fills a gap in the market for greetings cards focused on the city, its landmarks and its inside jokes, but it does so while also offering a smart twist on the usual fare. The tone of the cards is consistently cheery, with some just celebrating the regular stuff in life (Just another Malbec Monday, Everything is better on a bicycle, Let's find a friend with a boat).

But it'll come as a surprise to no one that the biggest sellers are the city-specific cards, says D'Amato. "Clevelanders just love Cleveland stuff."

Stop in the store today to checkout their highly acclaimed Sympathy Bird card and the rest of their line or click here to check them out!

I'm just going to lay it all out on the table here. I know invitations and paper don't seem important in our digital e-vite disposable society, but they are for so many reasons. They are the first impression and statement and an important nod to formality and tradition, which is the whole point of a wedding. Even if you're not buying into the whole traditional thing, you're having a wedding, so you are participating in this important cultural tradition on some level. If you have ever come across an invitation from your parents' or grandparents' wedding, it is always a treasured family heirloom, no matter how modest. I also think there is something more important, tangible and permanent about real printed paper invitations. That being said, there are a few common misunderstandings we stationers are so often faced with. Here is my short list of the most common statements that are guaranteed to bum out any stationer.

1. "They are just going to end up in the garbage anyway". This is probably the most common offense and honestly my biggest pet peeve! I hear it weekly, if you can believe it! Every time I hear that I think to myself, can you imagine telling the caterer that their food just ends up in the toilet!?! WOW. Think about it. The truth is almost everything from your wedding ends up in the garbage. The flowers die the next day, the music ends and it's true, the bridesmaid dresses will never be worn again. The invitations and the photos are the most tangible potential heirloom your guests will receive from your wedding, perhaps with the exception of the cut crystal elephant candleholder you are giving as a favor.

2. "It's only paper, why is it so expensive?" Paper is like fabric. Many papers are made from fabric materials such as cotton, bamboo, linen, even silk. And as we all know, a valuable natural resource, whether recycled or otherwise, goes into making paper. Not surprisingly the better the materials, the better it looks and feels, and yes, the more it costs. And unfortunately (although I hope that this will change) the more "renewal and environmentally conscious" the paper, the more difficult it is to produce and the more expensive. The fact remains that there are lots of ways to save money by using less paper, such as postcard replies, single envelopes, etc.

3. "I could do that myself on my home computer and print it on Day-Glo copy paper." My first reaction to this is OK, feel free to do that. But I completely understand this knee-jerk reaction. We see many clients who have designed something themselves, not realizing, for example, the potential pit falls and expense of custom sized envelopes or that "white paper" can mean 25 different shades. Desktop design software has come leaps and bounds and many people are more proficient in graphic design than 10 years ago. That said, invitation designers are experts not only in etiquette and correct wording, but also at designing invitations specifically for print production. Invitation/font design is not as easy as it looks and is definitely worth consulting a professional for advice and direction before going ahead and printing it yourself.

4. "Can you just make me one and I can just photocopy or email a scan of it to everyone?", or a related and similar problem, "I found this art on the internet (I don't know who's it is) but I would like you to reproduce it for me." Art, like books, are intellectual property and belong to the creator. To take our art and reproduce it yourself is plagiarism, as is "taking" art off the internet or from a book and reproducing it without permission. This is a big problem particularly now with Pinterest (which I love) but it has the unfortunate affect of selecting designs that don't always bring you back to its creator. There is a great trick, though, that many stationery designers do employ, which is license free clip art and vintage images whose copyright is MORE than 50 years old. These are useable at no cost because they are in the public domain. But you really need to do your research on those! Yet another great reason to work with a professional designer whose vision you like, to help create something UNIQUELY YOURS.

5. "I know I approved the proof, but we changed the time of the wedding." We cannot express this one enough and I know we have all done it, but it breaks my heart! Stuff happens and plans change. The great thing about invites is that they can always be redone. And that is one of the things I love about my job -- it can always be corrected. Proofreading and double-checking details is so important and so easy to not do! It is way more interesting to focus on the precise trajectory of the birds on the invitation than to make sure to double-check the fine print. But the point of the invitation is the fine print and although we try as hard as we can, we do not have access to the details like the catering contract that says what time the reception needs to start so as not to be subject to an additional fee. So I know it's a lot of details to manage, but please take the time to proofread every letter backwards and forwards before you pull the trigger.

6. "But we only need eight more invitations." I know, nailing down a guest list can be very challenging and we try very hard to warn of this situation, but unless your invitation is being digitally printed on a desktop computer or hand written by a calligrapher you usually cannot have a few more invitations. Most printers have a minimum quantity. In most cases plates are made and the paper is printed in large bulk quantities on heavy machinery and it's a big undertaking. Therefore, unfortunately, we cannot simply print just two or three after the fact. I really recommend making sure you order plenty of extras.

7. "I left the invitations in the trunk of my car and then went to the car wash" or "We were drinking red wine while assembling the invitations..." Water, wine, coffee: liquid is the arch nemesis of all things paper. It's like the Wicked Witch of the West! Stationers really don't like water. Keep your invitations away from water at all costs. Once paper gets even damp, it's done. There is no salvaging your invites and it's a big, fat do-over! I even go so far as to recommend not mailing your invitations on a day it is raining just to be safe.

8. "We've addressed all our envelopes already, but I mail-merged the guest list incorrectly and all the zip codes are incorrect, what do you mean you don't check each of our guests' zip codes for us?" This one is a lot like the proofreading part. Please know that your calligrapher cannot proofread every single address for all of your guests (although l know they would love to). Yes, we can spot when you spell Florida wrong, but we do not know the zip code for Jupiter, Florida is 33477 not 33447. Honestly everyone makes mistakes on one or two envelopes, but please be careful to double-check your list before giving it to us.

9. "I sealed the envelopes and I realized I forgot to stamp the reply cards" or "We just used regular postage and dropped them in the mailbox on the street." Again, the devil is in the details. Be sure to take your time to think things through. We go over the mailing procedure with all of our clients, but if you don't have a professional to walk you through, go to the internet for advice. You and many others have put a lot of time and effort into creating these beautiful keepsake heirloom invitations that will make your guests anticipate the best wedding of the year. Please make sure they are properly stuffed and sealed. Make sure the postage is correct, don't guess.

10. "We would like to put 'monetary gift only' on the invitation." We know that is what you want... and yes your guests do, too. But I have to put this out there: the truth is, it is really considered bad form to ask for gifts on your invitation. The point of an invitation is to invite people to share with you, not for them to give you something. They are happy for you and will buy you gifts -- I PROMISE. Before we had wedding websites or could email our registry information, brides and their families communicated where the couple was registered through word of mouth. I would recommend putting your registry information on your website, but you really don't need to have it on your invite.

Each year Carlson Craft, the nation's leading wholesale printing company, presents only a few select businesses with this prestigious award for outstanding performance and exceptional sales achievements.  Thanks to all of our Brides who have made our honor possible!  Check out some of our Carlson products.

Sneak preview...

Andrea Z
Cleveland, OH
9/5

One of the last things on the wedding to-do list was the programs. The F&!@ING programs.....I'd been putting it off for weeks. You see, I'm just not art-y or design-y at all. I could picture vaguely what I wanted them to be like, but I just couldn't find anything I liked on websites, etc. Then, I found PT and everything got easier. I should have gone there straight away and not stressed myself out!

For custom work, they make an appointment and actually sit down with you to discuss what you want. They show you a ton of examples of real projects they've done in case you need inspiration. They help you pick out the paper type, size, etc. and tell you exactly how much it will cost. No surprises! They were so so great, I can't even tell you. I was at my wits end planning a wedding out of state and their calm, experienced help was just what I needed. The whole process was totally painless. They even accidentally overcharged me and I didn't even notice in the wedding craziness, but they called and told me they were refunding me. Honest!

These ladies were SO great. A small oasis of sanity and aid in the vast crazy desert that is wedding planning.  Head here for all of your custom and non-custom paper needs.

Janet V.
Bay Village, OH
7/17

I thought their selection in save the dates/invites were great. They also have great in-house printing that we used to print addresses from my invites instead of using the printing company. I also ordered their custom stationary for my wedding thank you's & loved them...I am sad to be out of them already. The staff was great and very helpful with ideas and suggestions. Everything was terrific & I still see our Save the Date magnet on our friends/family refridgerators!!!!

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