Tags are in!

Our die cut tags are now online! We got a really great response to our Pig and Butterfly tags at the show, including a little shout out on Design Sponge (thanks Grace!). They're 100% cotton and can be used for all sorts of stuff - gift tags, place cards, decoration. I like tying them onto bags - like above. And at some point soon, I'd like to try rubber stamping a pattern on them. But for now, I'm enjoying them nice and crisp in white.

Devon Kelley-Yurdin

I was first introduced to the work of Pratt grad Devon Kelley-Yurdin at my favorite neighborhood coffee shop, Blue Sky Bakery. There, above all the people enjoying their muffins and newspapers is Devon's fantastic work. I love her ink and watercolor pieces - especially this one titled finally. I don't know if it's a Brooklyn-inspired piece, but I can't help but think of brownstone tin ceilings and molding - and maybe some really beautiful wallpaper too. The intricacy of her cutouts, like this one cut and run, are pretty great in person. Check out some more of her work here or head on over to Blue Sky to check it out - and pick up what I promise to be the best muffin you've ever had.

[Photos courtesy of devonkelley-yurdin.com]

Jonathan Harris

I recently read about the work of Jonathan Harris via Lizzy, and I am in awe. I'm also really bummed that I missed his interactive project about online dating I Want You to Want Me (in collaboration with Sep Kamvar) when it was at MoMA earlier this year. You have to watch the above video - it's pretty amazing. I could spend all week posting about his work and have had so much fun exploring it on his website. I highly recommend taking a look.

Pretty Pretty Drywall

So I've gone from taking pictures of public bathroom interiors to... drywall. Naturally.

Pre-show, we were in Home Depot a lot. Looking at carpets, picking up homasote boards, small sheets of wood, a staple gun, light bulbs, etc. And you all know my thing for zig zags these days and how I'm seeing them everywhere. Well, drywall is apparently no exception. Look how great these colors are in the Home Depot drywall aisle? And you get up close and see that they're just staggered dimensions, logos and bar codes. And then on our way up to the Javitz Center, we saw this truck on the West Side Highway. Beautiful. It's amazing what you see when you're eyes are open to it.

Pretty Bitter

My second favorite find was Pretty Bitter. Kit had come by our booth early in the show, and I knew right away I loved this guy. He was hysterical. And then I come to find out that he's one of the guys behind these Man Notes that everyone was carrying around. Fantastic. Loved meeting them. Love what they're doing. I hope to see more of their stuff because it's just so fun.

Yellow Owl Workshop

One of my favorite new finds at this year's show was Yellow Owl Workshop. The booth display drew me in - how great are those trees?? - but once I got talking to Christine and saw her work, I didn't want to leave. She is crazy talented - and even more, she and her husband could not have been nicer. I wish they never left Brooklyn -- big sigh.

See more of Yellow Owl Workshop here.

NSS Breather: A Little Update

Before I post more on the show - I just had to tell you about the new headers we've added to our homepage that change as the pages refreshes. I'm loving the added burst of color and pattern to our otherwise neutral website palette.

Many thanks to Jenny at Also Online for her help with this!

More from the L&H Booth

Wow. Wow for so many reasons. I can't believe it's over. I can't believe it went so fast. I can't believe I just slept for 10 hours.

This year's show was fantastic. I met so many wonderful people - buyers from all over the world (the Aussie couple was a favorite), other designers, writers for magazines, and bloggers face to face. I loved talking to people - and that kept me going. Or at least from thinking about how much my feet hurt. So thank you to all of you who stopped by! And a very special thank you to my sister & C for helping over the weekend and to Katie for taking off a day of work to help us. We love you guys.

Lots more to come today from the NSS - including two great new designers who I met this year. Must go grab some coffee from Blue Sky first!

Brooklyn Bride

Vane over at Brooklyn Bride is guest blogging for Design Sponge this week and posted about us yesterday. She's doing a whole Brooklyn-based vendors round up. And if you're not familiar with her blog, you must check it out. She's got some fantastic wedding links - even if you're not a Brooklyn bride yourself.

Thanks to Vane and Grace for stopping by our booth! I love meeting bloggers in real life.

Off to our last day! This day tends to be pretty slow - which means I get to go walk around and meet other designers. Lots to recap tomorrow!

Hmm, Telling.

I don't know if you can see it in these photos - but yesterday, I pulled out two of the drawers in our Ikea side table (which I love by the way) and saw in one drawer my business card box with my name on it surrounded by Lip Smackers Strawberry-Banana flavored chapstick and Le Pen pens, and the other drawer to see John's business card box surrounded by heavy duty claps, duck tape, a screwdriver, a box cutter, zip ties and extra bulbs. Had to capture it - our little office supply personalities tucked away in our drawers.

Off to Day Three!

NSS 2008

Here we are! Booth #2059 at the National Stationery Show. The picture is a little blurry - but unfortunately, it's the best one. I'll try to update later with a better shot. So far we've had a great response to both the Redesign line and the Wedding Album too. Hooray!

Off to Day Two!

Fridays with John: Off to the show!

Unless I'm helping a friend move, or transport a new craigslist or ebay find, it seems that I drive a truck one week a year. I'm off to Budget to pick up the wheels for our load-in day at the Javits Center. We'll do a lot of our rough booth setup today and then most of the finishing details tomorrow. I'll also be baking my mother's chocolate chip cookies today (in the 100's). I'll be sure to share a picture later and I'm sure Liz will have updates during the day

Redesigned: Dress Cards

And finally, as part of our Redesigned Line, we are debuting these Dress Cards. Like everything from the Redesigned line, they are made from misprinted letterpress cards. I especially like these because of the mixing and matching of patterns and colors - and, well, an animal here and there. The top two have a little Hedgy in them. Top right has a little Piggy. And bottom left has a couple Moose legs. Not your typical animal print here.

Redesigned: Flower Pin, from November

November might be my favorite month from our 2008 calendar. And I'm loving it in flower pin form! See more at the show - booth #2059.

Redesigned: Tags

These tags are our second offering in the Redesigned line. They are about 2" in diameter and will be sold four to a pack - all assorted. I'm a big fan of tags. And making them from misprints just made a whole lot of sense to me.

You can see more of our Redesigned line on our site next week.

Redesigned

For the rest of the week, I'm going to give you a sneak peek of the new collections that we're launching at the stationery show. The two big debuts are our very first Letterpress Wedding Album (which I've been posting about here and there) and a new line of ours called Redesigned - a limited edition of letterpress misprints, reconstructed by hand.

In printing, there are bound to be misprints - too much ink here, too little there, a mis-score everywhere. But it makes me sad to throw away letterpress work - even if it's not perfect. So we've been collecting those misprints - keeping them for reuse - even though we had no idea how or what come of them. Above is one of our Redesigned offerings: a letterpress flower pin. I cut all the petals by hand, sewed them together, attached a button and a pin on the back - and tada! A letterpress pin! That could have been tossed.

We'll be launching our Redesigned line on our website next week to coincide with the show.

Small Studio Collaboration

I've been dying to announce a very exciting project we were asked to be a part of for this year's stationery show. Shelley at Albertine Press has spearheaded a letterpress collaboration called "Small Studios, Big Ideas Print Production" in which Albertine Press, Spruce Avenue, Two Trick Pony and us all contributed work based on stanzas from the Lewis Carroll poem, The Walrus and the Carpenter. In order to complete the full set, attendees of the show will go around and collect the cards from each of our booths. I am thrilled to be a part of this and am so excited to see all of the cards in person.


This is our card - based on the last three stanzas of the poem - where, after the Walrus and the Carpenter convince the oysters to take a seemingly friendly walk on beach, they eat them!

If you'll be at the show, make sure to visit us at #2059.

Show Prep

We're prepping for the show over here at L&H. I was laying out invitations yesterday on my new work table. It's a door we found in our building and have propped it up on saw horses. We just had a piece of glass cut for it too - but we need to take the door knob off before we assemble it. We'll be bringing it to the show with us. We may just have to bring a peony or two too. I'm trying very hard not to girl-out the booth. Not that I'm a super girly girl in the first place - but I really did like the pink rug. So no pink rugs - check. But flowers - I have to have them. Especially peonies. They smell so good, are the perfect touch of pink - and just make me so happy. All good things for long days.

Virginia Johnson

I love these prints from Virginia Johnson. I think mushroom is my favorite, but the colors in the others are pretty wonderful.

She's having a great sale online, too! Check out her stuff here.

Me as Tourist, I mean Blogger

This is what it's come to as a blogger... I'm now not only carrying my camera with me at all times and taking pictures like a tourist, but I'm now taking pictures in public bathrooms. So sad, so true. The above picture was taken in the bathroom at Django - a restaurant in midtown near my sister's office. I fell in love with this yellow wallpaper and funky tin mirror and was admittedly excited when I realized I was carrying my camera. All for you, people - all for you! :)

A new note card: Birches

When I was at Bates, I would drive along this windy road to get to Vermont a few times a year - to either visit my friend Bird at UVM or to play Middlebury in lacrosse. There is this one stretch in Vermont where you are completely surrounded by birch trees, and it's magical. I looked forward to it every time we passed through there. And while running in Prospect Park a couple of months ago, I noticed how the white line on the road had these deep dark cracks in it that reminded me of these birch trees. Sadly, it's concrete, not birch trees at all! But I was happy to think that although it was perhaps a stretch, my little concrete jungle had just reminded me of the Vermont birch trees I loved so much.

And.....

we have a rug! I'm so excited that we were able to get a rug at the sample sale yesterday! I really loved this two-tone pink one, but since it's going to be in our apartment after the show, John was less than thrilled about a pink rug. Lucky for him they had my other favorite - and in a more neutral color - which also happened to be a lot cheaper too. Who gets this excited over a rug?? This reminds me of when I was planning my wedding. I was in B&J Fabrics choosing the fabric for our table coverings for hours & hours - at least a whole afternoon. My dress? First one I tried on. My hair? Didn't try anything until the morning of. (A little piece of advice to you brides to be - all those hair trials they talk about - DO IT. My 'pull back and pin' method didn't really cut it - especially when you've got a dad who likes to twirl.)

High Hopes for Rug Heaven

Rug dreams might be coming true today! I'm off to the Madeline Weinrib Sample Sale at ABC Carpet & Home this morning. Now through May 11, get 50% off. Fingers crossed!

Zig Zag Love

First it was the lamp posts, now it's the zig zag. I'm madly in love with the zig zag, and I see it all over the place now - cracks in the street, rugs of course, cobblestone walkways, umbrella frames, even the guy at the YMCA doing his basketball drill makes me think of the zig zag!

This stationery above (letterpressed in gray on front & offset printed in magenta on back) is part of our zig zag collection (envelope liners and notepads to follow) - and part of an invitation set in our wedding album that we're debuting at the show this year. I think I need some of this stationery for myself - to spread the zig zag love.

Pretty Pretty Chocolate

I forget where I first read about Mast Brothers Chocolate - but I came across it again recently and I cannot wait to see & taste it! I'm a sucker for packaging - who isn't? - and that golden wrapper in there has me humming I've Got a Golden Ticket. Even better is that the brother owners are based in Williamsburg Brooklyn and are opening up a store this summer. Bike trip!

See more of the Mast Brothers Chocolate here.

Happy Birthday, Little Big Sis!

When we were growing up - I was definitely the Big Sister. Katie was my shadow, and I'm not gonna lie, I didn't like it. So sad, but oh so true. Years & years later, the roles aren't as defined. She calls me every day - every single day, without fail. She took off work to help me launch my stationery line at the show last year and put in for time off 8 months ago for this year. She packs extra clothes when we go away because she knows I'll need to borrow something. And when I showed up to a dinner last week with her co-workers who I hadn't yet met, they knew all about me - like we'd been friends for years - and were loving their L&H notepads and calendars that Katie had given them. I may be older - but she's definitely the one who takes care of me, who looks out for me, who may still follow me, but only to make sure I'm okay - and then tell me to catch up.

Happy Birthday Sister! xoxo