The 2013 National Stationery Show

I'm back from a very successful National Stationery Show! I had a much-needed few days of rest after a long couple of months prepping for the show, and now I'm back in the studio (not completely relaxed though, I had a stress dream that the next Stationery Show was starting again today and I had one hour to prepare).

This was a big year at the show: I released 24 new blank card designs, a line of new greeting cards, a new color for the monogram cards, new art prints and journals, plus a new block printed quilt and lots of new little things (gift tags, coasters and notepads). There was a lot of new stationery in the booth! I am in the process of adding all the new items to the shop, so they should be up in the next week or so.

The Stationery Show is the biggest event of the year in the paper world: a full day of meeting store owners, buyers, and other artists, followed by meetings and cocktail parties in the evening with more schmoozing. It is so much fun and so inspiring, but also completely exhausting and I was so excited to get home after the show.

For my booth this year, I went with a purple-grey color (a more subtle look than last year's red walls). I wanted to stick to a lighter color this year since there were so many products in the booth. The big new addition was the block printed quilts which got a great response! They are made by the same printers who block print the scarves and I'll be sharing lots of photos soon. I built a wooden ladder to display the quilts and loved the way they looked hanging in the booth.

Take a look at the photos of the new products below! If you have questions about any of the new products that aren't online yet, you can contact me here. And if you want to see some of the other booths at the show, there is a great round-up going on at Oh So Beautiful Paper.

Stationery Show Sneak Peek

In one week, I'll be setting up my booth (# 1942!) at the National Stationery Show. This last week before the show always feels like finals week: late nights, cramming in as much as possible, and lots of junk food. But now the booth walls are painted, the catalog is at the printer, almost all of the cards are printed, and I just have the final touches to add. I can't wait to unveil the whole new line at the show!

A Rainy Renegade

Under normal circumstances, a torrential downpour and forecasts of thunderstorms would have craft vendors running for their U-Hauls and fleeing the scene. Not so at Renegade, where Day 1 began with a drizzle and only got worse from there. It's lucky I started packaging all my cards in plastic a few months ago, or I would have lost a whole lot of inventory.

When we arrived in New York on Friday night, we were surprised at how clear the sky was, since it was the first time in a year we have been to New York and it wasn't raining. It rained at the Bust Craftacular last year, it rained when we went to visit friends, and it rained the entire way through the Stationery Show. But no, the clear skies didn't last long, and we woke up Saturday morning to an almost 40-degree drop in temperatures and cloudy skies.

Because of the rain the night before, my booth was located right next to an enormous puddle, which was deep enough to be classified as a pond. The rain kept going all day, misting at some points, and then bucketing down at others. It didn't deter the shoppers though, and McCarren park was packed all weekend with some very soggy-looking New Yorkers.

We got to sample the hippest iced tea I have ever had, home made and individually bottled. I kept giggling every time I drank it.

Joe held down the fort while I took bathroom breaks (or meandered on my way to the bathroom to talk to other vendors, sorry!) He did an amazing job; thanks Joe, I couldn't have done it without you!

The booth was packed all weekend (at least the rain drives people in for shelter) and it was great to meet so many people who had come from all over for the show.

There were plenty of other printmakers at Renegade, and one of my favorites was Ohio-based JustAJar, who combine woodcuts with letterpress to make beautiful prints and posters.

One vendor was actually letterpressing business cards in their booth, so people could watch as they had custom pieces made.

On day two, the forecast predicted storms all day, but it turned out to be mostly sunny. We kept running out to get "one last thing before it rains" and even rushed to pack up the car at the end of the day before the rain started. But, as of 8:30 pm when we hit the road, not a drop had fallen all day.

Overall it was a great show, and a huge thanks to everyone who stopped by the booth! It was great to meet you all, and we'll see you again next year!

Renegade Brooklyn this Weekend!

This weekend I will be at the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn, so if you're in the New York area, come stop by! I will be at Booth #119 in McCarren Park, and as well as cards and accessories I'll be selling some limited edition prints that aren't available online! Once they're gone, they're gone, but if there are any leftover at the end of the weekend, I'll be posting them online next week for all you non-New Yorkers.

Photo courtesy of Renegade Craft

With hundreds of vendors, this is one of the biggest craft shows I have ever done, so there is sure to be something for everyone. You can see the full list of vendors right here, so take a look and start planning your purchases!

If you're in New York, stop by and say hi, I would love to see you this weekend!

Home from the NYIGF

This week I took the bus up to New York to see the New York International Gift Fair. It was my first time at a trade show, and I loved it. One good thing is that you can't actually buy anything at the show, so it was like shopping without the pressure of buying. I met so many people I knew from reading blogs or seeing their work, and it was great to see the people behind the products.

The purpose of my trip was to get ready for the National Stationery Show in May. I wanted to see what sort of booth displays and setups people had so I can start working on my own. The range of displays was huge, from booths that looked similar to what you would see at a craft fair, with tables and curtains, to fully recreated houses you could go into.  I don't exactly have the budget to something for that scale, but it gave me a good idea of what works and what doesn't.

The things that stood out while I walked around were scarves from Patch NYC, picture frames from Shiraleah, cards by Sanna Annukka from Vigo, and necklaces from Jane Hollinger Jewelery.

I'm sure I missed a lot of great stuff since there was a seemingly endless number of vendors at the show, and if I were a buyer I probably would have gone for the full five days rather than just one.

Now I know how much work I have to do before May: there are postcards to order, price lists and order forms to assemble, shelves to build and products to finish. But if the Stationery Show is as exciting as the NYIGF, then I can't wait.

Back from Bust with a Platter of BBQ

After one of the most exhausting weekends I've had in my whole life, we are back from the Bust Craftacular in NYC. The rain put a damper on things and the show wasn't quite as packed as I had hoped, but we got to go to possibly the best restaurant on the planet. I had been looking forward to it for months. If you live within a 1000 mile radius of New York, get in a car right now and drive to Fette Sau, order the pork belly and allow the food coma to sink in. Amazing. I would move my apartment into the restaurant if I could.

The pork was definitely the highlight of the trip, but I also loved seeing the prints from YeeHaw Industries which I have had my eye on for a while. Their musician prints are my favorite, and I love the way they use text in images. Text is something I always shy away from in linoleum prints because it can come out looking like a five-year-old wrote it, but they pull it off so well and it really goes with the folk-y look of the faces. 

I was excited to see them there because of the new book that I was just flipping through, the Little Book of Letterpress. The book has a page on each of the big names in letterpress, and the YeeHaw team wrote the introduction. It's a really nice book, and now I just need to write to Chronicle Books and ask to be the author of the Little Book of Block Printing. So Chronicle Books, if you're reading this, I'll do it!