This is one of my favorite cards we ever created here at Lunalux. It’s a few years old, but it’s still really close to my heart. I wrote that text, don’t steal it, OK? Happy New Year! See you in 2009.

Tick tock tick tock… that’s the sound of 2009 approaching. You know what that means? Time for new calendars and datebooks! We told you last month about all the Moleskine datebooks we have in stock, but have we mentioned the calendars yet? No, we haven’t. So let’s take care of that right quick. Consider these beauties Hammerpress. Big artful prints are letterpress-printed on earthy chipboard, with a small calendar mounted on the bottom. Three designs are available, including this green and black balloon (which is also featured today on design*sponge, so it must be hot).
Also in the impressive letterpress department, we have limited-edition calendars by local artist Richard Stephens, featuring linoleum prints of sights from St. Louis Park. Each one is signed and numbered by the artist. Either of these calendars make a lovely gift for the letterpress fanatic in your life – gives them a treat to look at for at least 365 days, plus they’re suitalble for framing when the year is through. Seems like every stationery company in the world (uh, except for us) made a calendar this year, and it was hard for us to decide which ones to get. We loved (and have already sold out of) Page Stationery’s very simple little calendar. But we still have a couple of the giant Snow and Graham wall calendars left, which incorporate their signature graphics and makes a beautiful accessory to any home or office. If you’re interested in a table-top model, we’ve got Night Owl Paper Goods’ wooden calendar, and a couple of funky Japanese calendars.

Stationery Saturday has been fun. But I was thinking, what it’s lacking is… drinks. Drinks would make it perfect. That’s where Emily from eat.shop guides comes in. She’s co-hosting this weekend’s Stationery Saturday. While I print note-cards, she’ll be pouring champagne and selling all the eat.shop guides (click here to read about the Twin Cities edition, or visit www.eatshopguides.com for a full list of their publications). We’ll also have coffee and sweets, and Christmas carols on the radio, so we hope you’ll stop by to enjoy the festivities and do a little last-minute shopping (and don’t forget holiday cards and ’09 datebooks and calendars, we have those too!). We’re excited about the cards we’ll be creating this weekend, they’re pre-printed with a mod pattern and ready to be personalized with the first-and-last-name of your choice! 10 cards letterpress-printed while you wait for $29, what a deal! We’ll be celebrating in the store from 11a.m. to 6p.m., check out our Stationery Saturday page for complete details.

Lots of people seem to be trimming their holiday gift lists this year. With fewer packages under the tree, it’s all the more reason to send out holiday cards to your friends and relatives. The gift of beautiful card in a hand-addressed envelope will brighten the recipients’ trip the the mailbox, and it’s a good opportunity to tell the important people in our lives just how much they mean to us. In the Lunalux studio store, there are lots to choose from. We have over a dozen holiday card designs that were printed right here in our Minneapolis studio (including new designs that we mentioned here in the blog on October 7, October 31 and November 19), plus beautiful cards created by some of our favorite stationery companies. For letterpress hounds, we have photo cards from Snow and Graham and little 4-bard holiday greetings from Night Owl Paper Goods (click on the above picture for a larger view – we think the die-cut “photo-corner” card is brilliant!).

Other options include selections from Crib Notes, Paper Ink Studio and Driscoll Designs. One of our favorites is this hand-glittered hot air balloon card from Driscoll Designs. We worked hard to find cards that are festive and wintery without being knock-you-over-the-head Christmas-y. Most of our cards don’t even mention Christmas, so if you don’t be them in the mail until December 27, it’s no problem!

Do you love the tradition of book plates as much as we do? If so, consider marking your biblio-territory with a personalized sticker. We’ve created a few recently and are excited to share them here. These bookplates (click on the image to the left for a larger view) were created for a friend who was recuperating from an operation – she’s part birder, part princess, so the pink birdie was a perfect fit. They’re letterpress-printed on 25% cotton wove-finish peel-and-stick labels, and trimmed to just 2 inches square.

Like everything that we create at Lunalux, bookplates can be customized in many ways. We have a vast library of images and typefaces to choose from, and can mix virtually any color ink. While Emily’s bookplate is girly and modern, Nick got something a more goofy and old-timey for his birthday. And while Emily’s were created specifically for her growing personal library, Nick’s bookplates are a little more open-ended in nature, so they can be placed not just in books but also on records or frisbees or anything else that might need to find its way back home.