Paper Source
Category: Cards & Stationery [Edit]
3333 Bear StreetSouth Coast Plaza
Costa Mesa, CA 92628 (714) 957-8555
- Price Range: $$$
- Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
- Parking: Garage, Private Lot
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
18 Reviews for Paper Source
One of my FAVORITE places. I used to make an annual pilgrimage up to Beverly Hills with my friend Jessica to visit the store there and was so excited when they opened the South Coast Plaza location. Papersource feeds my creative appetite. It is an "idea-paradise". I love it in there. It inspires me! Not exactly cheap, but the ideas are free and if you are a creative person, just browsing around will make you feel good.
I'm a graduating graphic design major at Chapman University and I'm starting to get really into the look and feel of letterpress. With this said, I'm sure you can understand why this place is one of my favorite stores in Orange County! I came here and got some great cardstock and envelopes for my graduation announcements (how can I buy the pre-made ones when I'm a graphic design major?!). I love their projects for pillow envelopes and envelope liners and anything and everything else they have!
They also have a lot of fun trinkets and randomosities that make great gifts.
If you want to give someone a Christmas/Birthday/Thank You/Thinking About You/etc. greeting card that will knock their socks off, check out the rack here-- the stuff is great!
And yeah, I agree with Kat-- embossing is really fun. Don't judge.
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The last place I ever thought I would get sucked into and I hate myself for spending close to $300 in three visits ... in less than a week. Pathetic.
I have to agree with everyone here about the prices. This place is the Tiffany & Co. of stationery shops and that pains me because I hate Tiffany with all my heart.
I feel the major nerdiness coming on full blast, but uh ... I think I found my new hobby: Rubber stamping. F*ck!!!! No, but seriously, I came here because I wanted to buy a dear friend (who loves stationery) a birthday present. So then I had the idea to design her a set of notecards and envelopes when the clerk introduced me to my new crack: Embossing stationery. You take a stamp, dab it in ink, then uh, stamp it on a card or whatever and then sprinkle some embossing powder on it and then use a handy device called an embossing machine (basically a little blow dryer) and the heat melts the powder and raises the ink. Like magic!
Sigh. I'm going to have to turn in what little cool points I had now. And I have like, 75 notecards that I made (and at least 30 that I botched) and not nearly enough friends to send them to. Curse you, Paper Source.
The five stars is for making me feel like a little kid again doing arts & crafts in class. That was always my favorite part of going to elementary school. Almost as much fun as playing handball at recess. And 25-cent ice cream on Fridays.
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Great place for inspiration - lovely cards, wrap, journals, books. In fact, every time I go in to buy something I always end up browsing for an hour!
Drawback: the lines can be long.
I liked this store as much as the other 12 reviewers. But let's be honest. This store is a dark dark hole of things you do not actually need... not even a little bit. OR things which you could use but are insanely overpriced. I think I saw a lone thank you card that was $6.60. No one should ever pay that much for how unspecial this card was.
I simply can and will not go in here again until/unless I have a lot of money that I, for some reason, cannot find other ways to spend it.
Seriously. It's a trap. I bought a paper flower making kit and I can almost guarantee that no paper flowers will bloom at my hands any time soon. And you will too buy something as equally useless if you go in here. There's something in the air that just tells you to buy things.
The sales people are also really nice and helpful. Which doesn't help in keeping you from making purchases.
Watch out.
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This place is overpriced and you have to do EVERYTHING yourself! If that's what you are into, then fine, but I was not impressed by the fact that I have to pay so much money (and keep a 50 card minimum) for simple paper w/o print and then assemble it (glue on the card on the paper) myself.
So the misses and I have been looking around for invitations to our wedding coming up and I must admit that I am extremely impressed with Paper Source and the quality of customer service. A sales associate took out a lot of time helping us and explaining to us our options and lending ideas on how to make our own invitations. I would be in that store all the time if I had a creative bone in my body. The selection is amazing and I would highly recommend that everyone come here once just to steal ideas if you are sending out anything!
I've got two words for you. Paper nirvana. Like a lot of the other reviewers here, I'm a paper junkie. As my patient husband can attest, I can peruse a good paper store for hours.
I first fell in love with Paper Source when we were living in Chicago, where Paper Source was born. When it came time to plan our wedding and choose invitations and stuff, Paper Source was at the top of my list. Since we'd moved back to California by then, we visited the Costa Mesa location.
Like a lot of the other reviewers mentioned, the prices here can be a bit high. We saw an invitation we really liked but it was just too much money. It was a letterpress design (read: even more expensive) and also wasn't available in our colors. A very helpful consultant named Nicholas said we could get the same design in the colors we wanted if we went with flat printing, which is also cheaper. OK, great. The only problem was that then it would be considered a custom order, which jacked the price back up to the same level as the letterpress version. Damn.
In the end, we snuck a photo of said invitation with a cell phone and sent it to my graphic designer brother, who was able to replicate the same design for much less. And since Paper Source even lists the fonts for all their designs right in the invitation book, he didn't even have to guess what they were.
Although we didn't buy our invitations here (sorry, Nicholas), I did go back for a lot of my other wedding paper needs. The employees really know their stuff, and they're always willing to help. There are lots of great little DIY project displays throughout the store to inspire ideas, and there's a good selection of products to choose from. They had place cards, card stock, cute mini envelopes and more, all in the colors I needed, and for that stuff the prices were pretty reasonable.
But by far my favorite purchase of all was a nifty little gizmo called the Tonic Studios 12" Trimmer. At just $19.50, this combo paper slicer and scorer was a huge help for a variety of wedding paper projects. Since we had our invites printed through one of my brother's vendors, we had to print far more than we actually needed. Rather than let all those invites go to waste, I used the trimmer to slice them up to create favor tags, wedding wish cards, table numbers and welcome gift tags. Our invitations had a nice icon on them, and this enabled me to carry that visual throughout, without any added printing costs. I also used the scoring attachment of the trimmer to score our wedding programs, which worked great.
All in all, a great store, but take a cue from their DIY-mantra "Do Something Creative Every Day" and get crafty with your paper projects to keep costs down.
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Holy Bejebus. If you love paper, pretty colors, cards, pens, books, more paper, uh, you're pretty much gonna love this store. Unless you are poor, which in that case, you'll hate it cos you love it so much and can't buy anything to start that little craft project you've had planned in the back of your head. [That COULD just be me.]
I want it. BAD.
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Paper Source is my all time favorite store....This chain originates in Chicago, which is where I first stumbled across them 5 years ago when I was search of place to do my own wedding invitations. I learned that I couldn't afford to have the Paper Source do them, but I did learn I could buy all the supplies there and do them myself...thus the birth of my obsession with Paper Source. I can't tell you how elated I was to learn of an OC location (previously had to drive to Pasadena or Beverly Hills or order online (which everything in the store is not online)).
They have a great selection of gorgeous imported papers from all over the world. They also manufacture their own paper, card stock, envelopes (in all shapes and sizes) and cards, great for corresponding the old fashioned way, on paper, or for creating invitations for any event. Their supply of creative ideas on what do with paper seems endless...from paper flowers and butterflies, to wedding favors. This location is huge and also has all the do dads you need to embellish your paper creations! From stamps, punches, ribbons, dried flowers, and all the assembly supplies...I could wander in here for hours.
They also carry beautiful photo albums, stationary, card kits for major occasions such as Christmas, Hanukkah, Mother's Day, etc. The prices are a touch high, but the selection and quality is excellent. There is no other paper store that I know of that provides the kind of selection as the paper source. Can you tell I love it here?
The Paper Sources motto is "Do something creative every day"! Here here.
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I got my "Thank You" cards here for my bridal shower and wedding. I received many compliments. Lovely store, I love paper.
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Paper Source is bright, cute shop on the situated on the lower level of once Crystal Court.
The paper here is just gorgeous and they have beautiful, quality wrapping paper and an assortment of paper products like cards and journals. They even have DIY kits you can use to express your creativity. I bought a birthday card kit and it came with scrap pieces of nice paper and envelopes and you just cut and paste it to your liking. It also seems like a great place to shop for scrapbooking needs as they have rows of stamps, specialty markers, and little doo-dads.
The store is brimming with ideas to help you with your next project, and their custom invitations are breathless.
Occasionally, they have workshops, though I have yet to attend one.
I agree with Shortbread and must hack off a star for the expensive prices. The wrapping paper on the wall is pre-cut into sheets and go for about $6-7 a pop. And you know what people do with the wrapping paper when it's all said and done. Waste, waste, waste.
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I once thought Papyrus had gorgeous stationary, but Paper Source is just a cut above them. Not only is this store about 3-4 times larger than a normal Papyrus, but the selection is just endless.
Be prepared to shell out beaucoup bucks for whatever selections tickle your fancy because this stuff ain't cheap. But then again, they're destroying all those forests just so they can make these for you, so yeah, I guess it's only fair.
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Oh how I love this place.
Expensive stamps and ink pads, but I LOVE it.
Lots of variety of wrapping paper, ribbons, stamps, stickers, book making stuff.
The staff is very helpful with all your questions.
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the perfect world according to my dear mother: used cars must go before new ones.
but there's no such thing as perfect world. the used car (i'd prefer "old", which is me) wasn't always considered like this back in the days. it was test driven a few times and had it's share of fun although it was never purchased by someone (hence NOT used). the new car (my baby sister), on the other hand, met a dude who was willing to own it for the rest of his life. so there came the problem. my mom wanted to get rid of the old inventory first, and seriously did her best for a while. it was just that every time a potential buyer showed up, the car was acting up (blind dates are the worst, especially set by parents...hello we live in AMERICA!!!). eventually six month ago, my mother had to give up the idea of the perfect world, and agreed to let the new car off the lot first...so here's comes my baby sister entering the stage of bridezilla!!!
she wanted to make her own invitation and i was like what the hell is her problem, but nevertheless tagged along for a ride. paper source was simply amazing. you can find anything that's related to paper craft. they even have classes and there are templates you can model after for invitations. we spent 3 hours...crazy, huh! some stuff were out of stock and they were nice enough to deliver them to our house at no extra charge.
well, i can go on and on about the pain i went through helping my sister with her invitations (they had to be this and that and here and there...sh*t, harder than building a house), but i won't because payback is sweet when my time comes, sista!!!
the used car now has one constant test driver and guess what? my mother sure is scheming her way to finally have him purchase the car. can someone please tell her that the used car still thinks she's brand spankin' new?!
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this store is my mothership, calling me home.
seriously. i could spend days - DAYS! - here, staring at different colors of paper, deciding which mini inkpad i need to add to my ever-growing collection, and drooling over letterpressed paper scraps. talk about inspirational! i spent a good 15 minutes trying to decide which card kit i would buy, and ended up convincing myself that i could create my OWN cards without the kit! who was i kidding? i am not even close to being that creative.
i finally tore myself away and went to the checkout line, where i had to seriously restrain myself from buying every single packet of paper that was displayed oh-so-cutely on the counter. i almost went back later that night to buy more things. sighhhhhh. if i ever win the lottery, i'm spending half of it here, just buying all the crafty crap that i so desperately want, but will probably never use.
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If there's such a thing as a paper junkie, I think I'd be one. I could stay in this store forever and stare and wish I could buy everything even if I'd never use it! I love the huge selection of japanese papers, colored card stock, and humerous greeting cards!
Happy, happy, joy, JOY!!! This is one of my fave stationary/paper stores in Beverly Hills. And now they have a huge store in Crystal Court!!!
Beautiful cards, striking wrapping paper and bountiful stationary. Gifts, books, art and craft supplies. Top quality! Make all your gifts stand out from the others. Come here with time to shop and $$$ to spend.
If only the first salesgirl I came in contact with hadn't been such a snob........
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