Paper store caters to letter writers

Wednesday, May 10, 2006 | 7:29 a.m.

An advocate of the handwritten note, Anne Kellogg has been sending letters on cards and formal stationery all her life.

"It's more personal," she says. "Anyone can shoot off an e-mail. You can be sitting at a stop light and text-message. It's a reality of the time we live in, but if you want to say something special to someone, you want to do it in handwriting."

To keep alive the waning tradition, Kellogg created a business that sells stylish stationery, high-end greeting cards, designer cards, postcards, specialty papers and cards with silk-screened, embossed or letter-pressed images.

For three years, she peddled the works from her home - a side project that catered to friends and family. Then LaPour Partners renovated and refurbished the Holsum Bread Factory on Charleston Boulevard, near the Arts District. Kellogg, who grew up in the John S. Park neighborhood, made her move and opened Las Vegas Paper Doll stationery boutique there.

Catering to all crowds - businesspeople, downtown lawyers, young arty types, designers and whoever else may stop in - Kellogg stocks unique and hard-to-find cards, frames some of the works and even switches them out as if Paper Doll were a gallery. Indeed, some clients hang the cards as art.

"Pretty much my whole apartment is decorated in Paper Doll," says designer Kellie Arakaki, who mostly buys from a line of Saturate Design cards and displays them in frames and on small easels in her home.

"As a designer, you're always looking for something different - something that's going to make you stand out," she says. "Every one of these cards almost has a little story to them. Many of them are handmade."

Las Vegan Sarah Ning prefers stationery with a hip or retro Las Vegas theme, which is abundant at Paper Doll. She sends between five and eight cards a week to friends, nieces and nephews.

"It doesn't matter if it's for Flag Day or it's for Christmas," Ning says. "People don't do that anymore, and it's shameful. I give a lot more credit to anyone who has sat down and written a letter on stationery."

The "gohgirl" cards from artist Liz Goh, who recently moved to Henderson from San Francisco, use characters that are part of a larger story on her Web site, gohgirl.com.

The characters - bold, colorful and simply designed - are secret agents with special powers who represent different countries. For example, Lillehammer, a Norwegian special agent, has a Viking hammer that doubles as her cell phone.

"I definitely wanted a sense of humor, as well as an interesting and unique design," says Goh, whose cards are sold only at Paper Doll and at a store in San Francisco.

Other artists featured at Paper Doll include local photographer Jonnie Andersen and her satirical greeting cards and postcards that poke fun at Las Vegas. Kellogg also carries Pancake & Franks, a line designed by San Francisco artist Stacy Pancake and R. Nichols, a New Orleans artist who brings subtle, everyday humor to his cards with images made from cut paper.

Humor is important to Kate Lydon, a designer for Saturate. "We go for things that are sort of witty and clever," she says. "We generally have sort of a hip clientele. I think people definitely see the cards as an expression of themselves."

Kellogg says selecting stationery is almost like getting dressed in the morning: "If you're having a luncheon with the chamber of commerce, you're not going to wear something you wore to the park. This is where I come in."