Search Results for: nyigf 2011

NYIGF August 2011, Part 2

As promised, I’m back with a few more favorites from the summer Gift Fair!  First up today, the unbelievably gorgeous porcelain ceramics from Portland-based Pigeon Toe.  In addition to vases, bowls, and votives, they recently released a collection of porcelain string lights!  I’m also rather partial to the bird house and wind chimes.

Pigeon Toe

The next booth might take the prize as my favorite new discovery: UK-based Lazy Oaf.  I love the adorable line of bright greeting cards, illustrated notebooks, patterned tape, and jewelry.  And the booth design is just as fun – the design was created using black electrical tape!

Lazy Oaf

Next up, Russell + Hazel.  They have lots of calendars and office stationery, but I zeroed in on a new collection of boxed notecards.  Each one has a different message, from birthday cards to change of address cards.  So pretty!

These are oversize gift cards.  They’re huge!  They’re around 6 x 8″ and come with a gift card enclosure envelope affixed on the back of the card.  I love the gold borders!

Russell + Hazel

It was so nice to see Viola from Chewing the Cud at NYIGF – I love her collection of pretty fabric gift wrap and tote bags, and of course her beautiful stationery and stamp kits.  Viola just introduced some amazing limited edition DIY kits in vintage cigar boxes.  Fun!

Chewing the Cud

I stumbled upon these gorgeous patterned textiles from Pehr.  Each design is hand-printed in India, including napkins, table runners, placemats, and pillows.  Of course I love the stripes and chevron pattern, but I’m also really loving the more organic and floral designs.  So pretty!

Pehr

The collections from Bailey Doesn’t Bark combine three of my favorite things – ceramics, stationery, and beautiful textiles.  I love the four seasons tea towels and mugs below, not to mention the postcard mugs!

Bailey Doesn’t Bark

The Pistachio Press booth was full of fantastic stationery, from birthday cards to calendars to a new notebook collaboration with designer Christen Maxwell.  They also snuck in the adorable new art print below that I absolutely love.

Pistachio Press

I’m really loving the canvas tote bags, wall art, and apparel from San Francisco-based Fluffy Co.  They also make adorable baby onesies!

Fluffy Co.

I’ll be back with more from NYIGF a bit later!

Photo Credits: Nole Garey and Stephen Michael Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper

*Pistachio Press is one of my fab­u­lous spon­sors; for more on my edi­to­r­ial poli­cies please click here.

NYIGF August 2011, Part 1

As promised, today I’m kicking off my coverage of the Summer 2011 New York International Gift Fair.  If you follow me on twitter or instagram you’ve already seen a few sneak peeks, but there’s tons more that I’m excited to share.  Like the National Stationery Show, the Gift Fair is a wholesale trade show, but this show takes place twice a year and covers way more than paper.  There are sections just for global importers, handmade products, home and bath, baby and kid products, and lots, lots more.  It’s huge!  I only feature a small part of the show here – and today we’re starting with a few of my favorite exhibits in the Handmade section!

First up, the lovely Shanna Murray, making her trade show debut at this show.  I’m a longtime fan of Shanna’s wall decals and was thrilled to see her beautiful booth at NYIGF.  Shanna recently introduced some gorgeous new designs, as well as a brand-new collection of decals specifically for windows!

 

Shanna Murray

My friend Laurel from Laurel Denise is a trade show veteran and I always look forward to seeing her creative booth displays.  This year Laurel went with a cool industrial vibe – using old manuals and charts! – as a cool contrast against her delicate jewelry and beautiful glass vases.  I’m loving the colorful new silk edition of her simply stated collection below.

The 2012 edition of Laurel’s awesome yearly planner (available for pre-order here).

Laurel Denise

I also checked out the Walk Up Press booth a couple aisles over.  The fill-in-the-blank letterpress cards and day of the week lunchbags are so much fun, and I’m loving the new letterpress gift wrap sheets!

2012 write-on monthly desk calendar

New letterpress wrapping paper!

Walk Up Press

It was such a pleasant surprise to find Jessica Rust Designs at this year’s show.  I love Jessica’s personalized mugs and heirloom plates (they make a perfect wedding gift).  Jessica recently added some new etched glasses made from recycled wine bottles to her collection, along with some farm animal designs and cute personalized pet food bowls.

Jessica Rust Designs

Speaking of dinnerware, it was wonderful to see Asya from Gleena at this year’s show.  I’ve been a fan of her beautiful numbered porcelain bowls for a couple of years now, and I love the newer botanical designs and color additions to her collection.

Gleena

 

Also in the Handmade section, Brooklyn-based Haptic Lab – they make the most gorgeous embroidered fabric map quilts.  Each of the large quilts is literally hand sewn (no machines)!  Such a lovely heirloom.  They also have a fun DIY option; city maps are screen printed onto smaller quilts and come with little icons and patches that can be sewn onto the quilt to indicate homes, locations of first dates, etc.  They also have a DC version, which made me very happy.

Haptic Lab

After checking out the exhibitors in the Handmade section, I wandered off to Baby & Child where I had a great time catching up with the folks from Wee Gallery.  We played with their rubber stamp sets and checked out the new (moveable) wall decals and art cards, and my husband and I totally want to get the temporary tattoos for our niece and nephew!

Wee Gallery

I’ll be back with more from NYIGF tomorrow!  You can check out past year coverage from NYIGF right here.

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper

DIY Hand Painted Watercolor + Rubber Stamp Save the Dates

Hi Everyone!  I’ll be starting my NYIGF recaps later this morning – but first, it’s the ladies of Anti­quaria, back with another fab­u­lous and cre­ative DIY project for you all!  This week they’re here with instruc­tions for a summer-inspired watercolor design for your invi­ta­tions or save the dates!

This week our DIY project is a twist off of our popular post “Hand Watercolored Save the Dates.”  Using watercolor we created an freehand crosshatch effect around the text.  By adding hand painted elements, each card becomes its own unique work of art.  You don’t have to have highly tuned artistic skills to achieve this look, in fact, the more uneven and irregular the lines turn out, the better it looks!  The combination of the watercolor lines and the vintage typewriter text of the stamp reminds us of cheery and picnic-filled days of summer.

DIY Watercolor Save-the-Date Step 1

Step One: Using a pencil and ruler, grid out 5×5 squares on a pad of watercolor paper.  Ink stamp and press evenly in each square, varying location makes for an even more interesting result.  For this save the date, we used our “Old Typewriter” stamp.

DIY Watercolor Save-the-Date Step 2

Step Two: With your choice of color, paint vertical lines in uneven and organic stripes, covering each 5×5″ stamped square invitation.  Again, try not to make each too uniform.  Let it dry (watercolors don’t take long).

DIY Watercolor Save-the-Date Step 3

Step Three: With the same watercolor, go back over each 5×5″ square and the paint horizontal lines.

DIY Watercolor Save-the-Date Step 4

DIY Watercolor Save-the-Date Step 4

Step Four: Using your pencil lines as a guide, use a paper cutter or X-acto and self healing mat to trim each save the date into a 5×5″ square.

DIY Watercolor Save-the-Date Step 5

DIY Watercolor Save-the-Date Step 5

Step Five: Using double stick tape, mount each 5×5″ square on a 5.5×5.5″ square backer in a coordinating or complementing color.  You’re done!  These are quick and simple, yet make a huge statement!

Materials:

Custom Save the Date Stamp – “Old Typewriter” Save the Date

Watercolor Pad

Pencil & Ruler

Watercolor paint, color(s) of your choice.

Watercolor Brush – Spending a little more on a brush will pay off if you are producing a large quantity of save the dates.  Make sure that the brush you choose won’t lose its bristles.

Paper cutter or x-acto, self healing mat & ruler – Find at your local office supply or hobby store.

5.5×5.5″ square backers – We used moss green

Square Envelope

Photo Cred­its: Antiquaria

National Stationery Show 2011 – Part 8

I’m back with a few more collections from the National Stationery Show to help brighten up your Monday, with the beautiful images courtesy of Brian Tropiano Photography.  We’re about halfway through the coverage from this year’s National Stationery Show, so let’s get right to a few more booths!  First up today, the ladies of 9SpotMonk with their collection of edgy greeting cards and color-in letterpress clocks and cards.

9SpotMonk

It’s always a treat to catch up with Shelley and Angela at the Albertine Press and Carta, Inc. booth.  Shelley debuted a two new volumes – pattern cards and city sets – in the letterpress library at the Gift Show back in January, and those new collections made another appearance at the Stationery Show alongside a new collection of holiday cards.

Albertine Press

On the Carta, Inc. side, I’m still loving Angela’s collection of stamp notebooks – not to mention all of her gorgeous Italian ribbon!

Carta, Inc.

Double Bravo was another of the many new exhibitors at this year’s show and was full of little letterpress goodies, from calendars to cards to a clever way of marking newborn baby milestones!

This card is part of a series to help mark baby milestones – sleeping through the night, first steps, eating solid foods, etc.  So much more creative than your standard baby book!

Double Bravo

Over at the May Day Studio booth, Kelly was showing her collection of antique type letterpress note cards and posters, along with patterned handbound journals, coasters, calendars, and notecards.

May Day Studio

I love the vibrancy of L2 Design Collective‘s screen printed note cards – and this year the booth was full of new cards, including some seriously sweet love notes and a bunch of fun holiday cards.

L2 Design Collective

And last up for today – here was lots of activity over at the Aesthetic Movement booth, with collections from Yellow Owl Workshop, Austin Press, Mara Mi, and Set Editions, among others.

Yellow Owl Workshop

Mara Mi

Set Editions

Austin Press

I’ll be back tomorrow with more from the National Stationery Show!

Photo Credits: Brian Tropiano for Oh So Beautiful Paper, please ask permission before reposting.

National Stationery Show 2011 – Part 3

It’s hard to believe that today is the final day of the Stationery Show in New York – but don’t worry, I have so much more to share with you from this year’s show!  Yesterday I was lucky enough to have photographer Brian Tropiano join me to help out on photo duty at the show, which made me a very happy blogger!  First up today, Figs and Ginger, who put together one of my favorite booth displays for this year’s show, hands down.  You saw a sneak peek of the new wood collection at the last Gift Fair, but the full collection of wedding and party goods made its big debut at the Stationery Show with amazing silhouette cake toppers, banners, wood signs, and dress hangers for wedding party members.  Just stunning!

Figs + Ginger

Right across the aisle, Laurel Denise was exhibiting at the show with her totally awesome calendar/planner.  You’ll get a sneak peek at the 2012 version below, which is totally adorable with some fun patterns and multiple cover color options.  See that large scale version that Laurel made just for her booth display?  I’m trying to convince her to figure out how to actually make that for people to use in their own offices.  How awesome would that be?  I know I could use one!

Laurel Denise

After making her big debut at last year’s show, Anna from Rifle Paper Co. was back this year with even more gorgeous stationery – including gold foil note cards, multiple calendars, note pads, coasters, and prints.  So much pretty!

I looooove those watercolor cards!

Rifle Paper Co.

I always love the Linda & Harriett booth at the Stationery Show, and this year was no exception.  This year Liz is exhibiting two calendar formats, including a hanging letterpress calendar and a totally gorgeous and larger scale watercolor calendar, along with new versions of a Linda + Harriett classic – note pads!

Linda + Harriett

Check back in a bit for more from the Stationery Show!

Photo Credits: Brian Tropiano for Oh So Beautiful Paper, please do not repost without permission