We think one of the most delightful things about our greeting cards is the fact that the design often continues to the back of the card.

It’s a fun little surprise you find when you hold one of our cards in your hands. And since only the front sides of our cards are shown online people often don’t get to see this fun little party on the back. So here are some rarely photographed back sides of our cards. We’re sharing some brand new designs along with a couple old favorites.

Another signature Hello!Lucky card trait is anthropomorphizing food, which we’re big fans of around here. We’ve got dancing deviled eggs, talking pancakes, and laughing champagne bottles. Tell us which food you’d like to see come to life next and we’ll send one lucky commenter 3 of our new cards! We’ll pick a winner this Friday, May 18th.

Cards in order of appearance: Happy New Year’s Eve, Yeti Love, Animal Parade, BBQ Parade.

Hello all you lucky folks out there! This is the 64th edition of our Lucky Friday Giveaway.  Each Friday we feature one of our letterpress greeting cards. We’ll choose THREE LUCKY WINNERS to get a free card.  Post a comment by 12 p.m. PST the following Thursday, and we’ll announce the winners on the following Friday!

The three winners from last week are (drum roll, please): Phoebe, Finch and “am12pm”! We’ll contact you next week to arrange sending your Go Wild card.

Design: I Melt for You
Artist: Eunice Moyle
Inspiration: Many of us melt at the mere mention of lolling in Dolores Park with a cone of Bi-Rite’s Salted Caramel. (SF folks— you know.)
Who to send it to: The cream in your coffee, the sugar on your cone, the cherry on top— or the coolest, sweetest, yummiest one of all.
Ideas we scrapped in favor of this one: The chocolate bar idea was a mess, and the M&Ms were prudishly impervious to our warmth and charm.
Favorite detail: Love the icy & caramel hues and the sunset shadows of cool and warm colors overlapping.
Why letterpress? Smooth, rich paper and sweet color combos— the cream always rises to the top.

Don’t forget to post your comment and tune in next week, same time, different stationery, to see if you’ve won!

For this year’s new trade releases, we are doing a whole mess of overprinting, but Max’s registration is super clean. By overprinting one color smack on top of another, we can turn two colors into three, and it looks super cool. But it can be a difficult process that allows no room for error.

On Eunice’s new hand-drawn “Thanks A Brunch” card, the overprinted third color outlines the images and is the color of the text. So, even the slightest shift in registration would not go unnoticed.

 Max is an exceptional printer, and they look amazing. Great Job!

Hello all you lucky folks out there! This is the 63rd edition of our Lucky Friday Giveaway.  Each Friday we feature one of our letterpress greeting cards. We’ll choose THREE LUCKY WINNERS to get a free card.  Post a comment by 12 p.m. PST the following Thursday, and we’ll announce the winners on the following Friday!

The three winners from last week are (drum roll, please): Laura H, Angela, and Ana Laura de Romero! We’ll contact you next week to arrange sending your Going Places card.

Design: Go Wild
Artist: Julia Rothman
Inspiration: We were wool-gathering for a while, and though the idea was a little fuzzy at first, we eventually found it had teeth.
Who to send it to: Someone’s who’s packin’ pachyderm, who’s a giraffe-and-a-half or who’s the ostrich with the mostrich.
Ideas we scrapped in favor of this one: “Let’s Get Domestic” was a cute design, but we didn’t feel like it was going anywhere.
Favorite Detail: Why, all the animals have de-tails, so how can we choose our favorite of de-tails?
Why letterpress? Animals all make such interesting prints, we figured we’d use a heavyweight press method for all our animal champs.

Don’t forget to post your comment and tune in next week, same time, different stationery, to see if you’ve won!

Our brand new letterpress greeting cards are hot off the presses and arrived just in time for spring! We’ve got smashing new designs by Esther Aarts, Julia Rothman, and yours truly. We’ve taken a new spin off our popular BBQ Parade Father’s Day card and created Thanks a Brunch, and Julia’s Better With Age card speaks simply the truth – we are especially fond of this card being so close to wine country!

Our wedding Skyline series is such a hit we couldn’t wait to offer letterpress skyline cards for all our favorite cities! San Francisco, New York City, and London are all available now but there are more to come! Also making it’s big debut is our bright and cheerful Visit Seattle card.

To view the entire collection of new letterpress greeting cards, click here!

We have been open for 3 1/2 years.

Can you tell us a little bit about the neighborhood where ink & peat is located? 
ink &  peat is in an up-an-coming section of the Boise-Eliot neighborhood in North Portland. Many of the shops and restaurants were built in old warehouses.

I was a textile designer for many years. My boyfriend and I wanted to move to Portland from San Francisco and I started thinking of ways to re-invent myself. I had an “a-ha moment” at 5 in the morning while I was shopping on the east coast for antiques. I started thinking about what I would be willing to get up early for – I loved antiques, home decor, and flowers. I soon started taking night classes in floral design and thinking of ways to incorporate all the things I love into one career. It ended up being this lifestyle store called ink & peat!

How long have you been carrying H!L cards? 

We have been carrying Hello Lucky! cards for 1 1/2 years. I love the sense of whimsy and seeing people smile when they pick them up.

Do you have a favorite or best selling card from us?  

The Spring Chicken card sells well – Portland is definitely a chicken town – so many folks raise them in their yard. I always love Julia Rothman’s unicorn card – maybe because I grew up in the 70′s!

From what’s selling in your store right now what do you think is the next big trend?

I’m not sure about the NEXT big paper trend – but right now people can’t get enough whales!
In home decor, there is definitely inspiration from Native American handcrafts and there is a lot of color coming on strong. I think people are ready to climb out of this tough economy and need some bright inspiration and a return to handmade goods.

Hello all you lucky folks out there! This is the 62nd edition of our Lucky Friday Giveaway.  Each Friday we feature one of our letterpress greeting cards. We’ll choose THREE LUCKY WINNERS to get a free card.  Post a comment by 12 p.m. PST the following Thursday, and we’ll announce the winners on the following Friday!

The three winners from last week are (drum roll, please): Danyun, Nicky and Shannon! We’ll contact you next week to arrange sending your Champ card.

Design: Going Places
Artist: Julia Rothman
Inspiration: Julia’s a REAL jet-setter—what more inspiration could she need?
Who to send it to: A friend who’s movin’ on up, movin’ on out and taking the high road.
Ideas we scrapped: The original text went, “If you have a lot of baggage make sure, at least, that it’s old and beautiful.”
Favorite detail: Adore the color combination— perfect for spring travel and new beginnings!
Why letterpress? Old suitcases and typecases have much in common—they hold a lot more than you think, and both can easily become heavy as lead.

Don’t forget to post your comment and tune in next week, same time, different stationery, to see if you’ve won!

Hello all you lucky folks out there! This is the 61st edition of our Lucky Friday Giveaway.  Each Friday we feature one of our letterpress greeting cards. We’ll choose THREE LUCKY WINNERS to get a free card.  Post a comment by 12 p.m. PST the following Thursday, and we’ll announce the winners on the following Friday!

The three winners from last week are (drum roll, please): Morgan, Ellie and Sarah! We’ll contact you next week to arrange sending your Dad, You Rock card.

Design: Champ
Artist: Eunice Moyle
Inspiration: We’re continually inspired by the feats of style and deeds of design-derring-do we see here at Hello!Lucky every day.
Who to send it to: A grad with mad skills, a daring doctoral darling with a fully fledged dissertation, or anyone harder, better, faster, stronger.
Ideas we scrapped in favor of this one: The Daft Punk draft didn’t quite come across on paper, sans laser show and strobes.
Favorite detail: We’re feelin’ the satisfied expression on the strongman.
Why letterpress? Such typographical strength demands a bold and beautiful printing method.

Don’t forget to post your comment and tune in next week, same time, different stationery, to see if you’ve won!

Hello all you lucky folks out there! This is the 60th edition of our Lucky Friday Giveaway.  Each Friday we feature one of our letterpress greeting cards. We’ll choose THREE LUCKY WINNERS to get a free card.  Post a comment by 12 p.m. PST the following Thursday, and we’ll announce the winners on the following Friday!

The three winners from last week are (drum roll, please): Ann, Kate Purdy and Kayla King! We’ll contact you next week to arrange sending your Love You Bunches card.

Design: Dad, You Rock
Artist: Esther Aarts
Inspiration: Many of our dear dads have gone on a tunes binge in recent years, and are surprising us with their alternately hip or horrible tastes.
Who to send it to: Fathers who’ve got the Funk, and DJ dads who dig it.
Favorite detail: We like how Esther spans the generations, and includes the old-style analog audiophile and the MP3 file technophile digital dads.
Ideas we scrapped in favor of this one: The Hippie version, with an 8-track and cassette saying to an LP “Dad, You’re Groovy.”
Why letterpress? Letterpress is classic. It transcends genres and generations.

Don’t forget to post your comment and tune in next week, same time, different stationery, to see if you’ve won!

Hello all you lucky folks out there! This is the 59th edition of our Lucky Friday Giveaway.  Each Friday we feature one of our letterpress greeting cards. We’ll choose THREE LUCKY WINNERS to get a free card.  Post a comment by 12 p.m. PST the following Thursday, and we’ll announce the winners on the following Friday!

The three winners from last week are (drum roll, please): Thom Watson, Sand and Ross Moody! We’ll contact you next week to arrange sending your Tea Time card.

Design: Love You Bunches
Artist: Eunice Moyle
Inspiration: We were dazzled by daisies and overcome by the rich colors of the cosmos.
Who to send it to: If you don’t know this one, then Mum’s the word.
Ideas we scrapped in favor of this one: The forget-me-not card was unfortunately fairly forgettable, the bouquet was just OK, and the pushing up daisies birthday card made us want to crocus. (ergh, so does that “joke-us”.)
Favorite detail: The striking gold sheen of the yellow and pink ribbon.
Why letterpress? The depth with the overlapping color is subtle and sweet as baby’s breath.

Don’t forget to post your comment and tune in next week, same time, different stationery, to see if you’ve won!