For the second year in a row, Minnesota Monthly magazine has included Lunalux in its annual Best of the Cities feature. We’ve been tapped for Best Paper Goods, and the write-up on page 75 makes us blush just a little… OK a lot! Praise for our Stationery Saturday series is followed by this: “The shop’s top reputation for custom-designed, letterpress-printed invitations, stationery, calling cards, announcements and more continues to grow.” Aw, shucks! We’re tickled and honored and grateful to be included. Congratulations also go to our neighbors who are mentioned in this feature – Nick and Eddie chef Derik Moran made the list of best chefs (they call him the Rising Star), and Cafe Lurcat has been flagged for Best French Fries. Are we the most decorated block in the metro area or what?
You can read part of the Best of the Cities feature on the Minnesota Monthly website, but to see the whole feature (including the bit about us) you’ll have to get your paws on a hard copy. Which shouldn’t be hard, because the September 2010 issue just hit news stands a few days ago.
We’ve just unveiled the designs for our September Stationery Saturday event, and we need to personalize some of each to use as samples. What should we print on these samples? You decide! Enter our contest for your chance to win one of four sets of personal stationery. Winners will receive 15 buckslip flats, imprinted in red ink with the name or phrase of their choice (one line of text below the image, up to 30 characters and spaces), featuring one of four designs: Minnesota silhouette, three stars, Minneapolis stamp or St. Paul stamp. The hefty natural white felt-finish notes will be paired with blank #10 envelopes.
To enter the contest, visit www.lunalux.com/saturday to read about Stationery Saturday and review the four design choices for September; then tell us about your favorite by writing on the Lunalux Facebook wall. Your post must mention a) which of the four buckslip designs you like best, b) what you want printed on the card, and c) how you will use them. We’ll pick four winners, one for each design, and post the results at facebook.com/lunalux
Entries must be live on our wall by Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 3:00p.m. CST. You can post an entry for more than one design. The winners’ personalized cards will be used to promote Stationery Saturday – we’ll put pictures of them on the web, and display them in our Minneapolis shop. We’ll ship the cards to you (or to a friend, if it’s a gift) after the September 11 event.
Way back in June we finished these colorful invitations for Margot and John’s destination wedding. I still pull it out regularly to show to a client or a friend – I love the finished piece, and I loved the process of making it too. The bride-to-be came to us with folksy hand-drawn artwork for the invitation itself, which we knew instantly would translate well to letterpress. It was a pleasure to help her flesh out her idea, develop a plan for the full invitation suite, and explore color schemes and paper options. She also wanted lined envelopes, a fun detail that we haven’t had tons of experience with in the past. But once we assembled the prototype of a plush cotton envelope lined with smooth sunshiney yellow paper, there was no going back to plain old envelopes. The invitation and RSVP card are printed in lime green and aqua blue inks on bright white cotton Lettra cover. The envelopes, also imprinted with Margot’s handwriting, are embellished with horseshoes – a detail from the invitation artwork, and a nod to the ranch where the nuptials will take place. The hand-drawn illustrations make for such a personal invitation, and the assembled package feels so special and substantial in your hands. We’re slightly jealous of the invitees who got to experience the surprise of opening this colorful piece of mail. And because we so loved the envelopes, we’ve started retro-fitting older invitation samples with liners of their own (we’ll add those to our website sometime soon). We hope more couples fall in love with this finishing touch.
If you want to learn more about our wedding invitations, check the custom page on our website for general information, or browse our blog archives for more examples of our favorite invitation options.
