Copper Willow is an all-green custom stationery business started by Jill Velez and Leora Mauck, whose husbands were best friends in college.

Wanting to care for their children themselves, they first began the business from home, Velez providing the art and Macuk supplying the business know-how. With business bustling more than the babies, the time came for a separate space. And Culver City is the place. Off busy Overland, you enter through a sliding glass door to find a small room with a beautiful sofa and a few shelves of exquisitely decorated paper. If you’re allowed to go to the back, passing through a makeshift nursery, you’ll find an antique letter press, where delicate stationery is printed and pressed all by hand. At boutiques around the country, their packaged note cards are subtly elegant, if not a bit cutesy: think turtles, balloons, and birds. Their Culver City space provides said packaged note cards, but also custom orders, with a 100-count wedding invitation package starting at around 1200 bucks, and everything is eco-friendly. Working from home was their reason for going green. “We didn’t go green because it’s trendy.” Jill says. “We did it because we were working out of Leora’s house, I was pregnant, and she had a child.” Still, it doesn’t hurt that they are right on trend. —Philip Harris