Last week we arrived home from seven days in New York City at the National Stationery Show. We are still recovering from this crazy adventure, but wanted to take a few minutes to report back. First and foremost, the booth really came together! The walls, the shelving, and the pinwheels we made out of our wrap added so much color and 3 dimension, just as we’d hoped. Once the show started, we spent quality time with our reps (that we had homemade treats in our booth helped!), caught up with current customers, and met some new folks as well.

We also made time to reconnect with some of our friends in the industry: Smock, Night Owl Paper Goods, 9Spotmonk,  Albertine Press, Chewing the Cud, and Tiny Prints. And, we met some new stationery nerds like us at the party hosted by Oh So Beautiful Paper and Delphine Press.

It was a great success, but I must admit I’m breathing a sigh of relief now that it’s behind us. Below is a peek at our set-up process — lots of measuring and glue gunning involved. To see further coverage of our booth, check out these round-ups at Oh So Beautiful Paper and Sweetest Occasion (Thank you Nole and Cyd!).

Things are positively hectic as we prepare for the National Stationery Show. The stress keeps mounting as we think to ourselves how in the world will we finish everything on time?  There are press kits to mail, cards to print, furniture to assemble, the list goes on! Amidst the craziness, I decided to take a walk to clear my head and came upon a local girl’s high school softball game. I stood there for a good 20 minutes, taking in the intensity of the match up and remembering my own days on my high school field hockey team — the hustling, the strategy, the team work. Even though I am light years away from that hockey field, I am part of a different sort of team today. And as we pull together the final details for the show I am reminded that the same intensity, team work, and determination applies here — just as it does on the field. Smudge Ink is comprised of such a fun, talented, creative group of people, and it’s our collective efforts that make us an effective team. I have no doubt we will make it to New York successfully.

Last Thursday, Deb and I headed to the Cape to help build walls for our 10’ x 17’ booth at the National Stationery Show. We‘re stepping it up this year and trying an alternative to our usual foam core walls. My dad enthusiastically accepted this challenging project, so we left the studio behind for a day to help him with construction and painting. Using wood allows us to hang deep shelving and reuse the walls year after year. This translates to a better looking booth and significant cost savings (yay! and yay!). Luckily, it was a gorgeous day and we accomplished almost everything on our list. It was a nice change of pace to be outside, enjoying the fresh air and physical work. Thank you Advil, Sparrow coffee, and most importantly, Dad.

The Gift Show is coming to a close today, so we finally have some time to pull together our photos and share a bit of the set-up process with you. Setting up for trade shows takes a lot of time and effort and this show was no exception. We start planning roughly 2 months in advance for our display, but admittedly much of the heavy lifting doesn’t happen until 1-2 weeks before the show begins. Below are some early stage set-up pics followed by close-ups of the sticky stars and the booth overall. Thanks a ton to Bruce at Creative Displays who stores our booth and delivered our walls, and to the Smudge Ink team whose combined efforts helped us to have a successful show.

We were pleased with how the sticky stars turned out especially because they added an interesting (and much needed) 3-D element to the booth. In terms of actual product, customers seemed particularly excited about our wrap display. Note to self: it’s good to mix up how you display your products!

The note writing desk was probably the most exciting feature of this booth. We set-up a desk where visitors could sit down, write a note, decorate/address the envelope, and post it.  Everyone here at Smudge Ink makes the time – amidst the craziness of our lives – to write notes, so this note writing station seemed like a natural extension of what we are about and why we are in business. For all those who took the time to sit down and write, thank you!, your letters have been sent. And for those of you who didn’t, we will continue to offer this service in shows to come.

Pictures of the booth all set-up…

As with any trade show we exhibit at, there are always lessons learned. Inevitably there are things that don’t work so well and things that do. We continually try to improve upon our display each year. So, alas, we make a list and tend to such issues between now and the National Stationery Show this May. Hope to see you there!