05/28/2013

National Stationery Show 2013, Part 6

Before we jump into a few more booths from the Stationery Show, I have one booth to share from Surtex â€“ a separate licensing show for artists and illustrators that takes place at the Javits Center during the same week. I wish I could spend more time at Surtex, but I made sure to stop by and say hello to the incredibly talented Dinara Mirtalipova at the show. Dinara created some fabric and wallpaper prototypes with her pattern illustrations below â€“ aren’t they amazing?? Hopefully someone will step up to produce them soon!

Dinara Mirtalipova

Okay, now back over to the National Stationery Show! Sarah from Fancy Seeing You Here had a delightfully quirky booth with everything from travel-inspired map stationery to fortune telling greeting cards (such a great idea!) to coasters. Totally up my alley!

Fancy Seeing You Here

After taking a break last year, Hello! Lucky was back in a big way at this year’s show with a bright and happy booth with tons of new cards! They also recently started incorporating gold and silver foil into their designs â€“ with fabulous results!

COMPLETELY obsessed with these gold foil pattern note cards!

Hello! Lucky

When it comes to colorful cards, no one does it better than the ladies of The Social Type! Their cards never fail to put a smile on my face, and this year they added some beautiful new matchbooks to their collection!

The Social Type

It feels like just yesterday that I stumbled into the debut Printerette PressÂ booth at theÂ 2011Â show â€“ I can’t believe this was Catherine’s third year exhibiting! In addition to her sweet letterpress greeting cards and wedding invitations, Catherine introduced a new seasonal calendar and some of the cutest notepads I’ve ever seen!

Cutest notepads ever!!

Printerette Press

I love the way the team at Egg PressÂ mixes graphic patterns, whimsical illustrations, and die cut shapes â€“ often in the same card! Their booth was full of colorful greeting cards, some fun new everyday greeting cards, and pretty gift wrap.

Egg Press

Next up, the wonderful illustrated cards from Dear Hancock! I’m already a huge fan of their “from the desk of” and unconventional workstation cards, along with their bunny and truck card series. This year they added a monthly calendar and some fun new notepads to the mix!

Dear Hancock

Last up for today, the greeting cards, art prints, and temporary tattoos from Banquet Atelier & Workshop! The mythical creatures print below might be one of my favorite new products from the entire show â€“ I want one for Sophie’s room!

Banquet Atelier & Workshop

Iâ€™ll be back with more from theÂ 2013 National Stationery ShowÂ tomorrow!

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper, please ask permission prior to reposting any photos

05/28/2013

National Stationery Show 2013, Part 5

Happy Tuesday everyone! I hope you all had a nice and relaxing long weekend! Today I’m ready to jump back into my National Stationery Show coverage with two more recaps full of some seriously gorgeous booths. First up, yet another new exhibitor at the show with lots of screen printed awesomeness: sister companies The Paper Cub Co. and Sass and Peril!

I love the clean and modern style of the greeting cards from The Paper Cub Co.

Sass & Peril is more kid- and home-focused, with animal prints and posters, onesies, and even tea towels!

The Paper Cub Co. / Sass and Peril

I’ve been a big fan of Brainstorm ever since discovering them at a local craft fair a few years ago â€“ and I was really looking forward to their debut booth at the Stationery Show! I love the warm and cozy vibe they created (complete with a faux fireplace), and of course I love all their beautiful art prints!

This atlas series is one of my all time favorites!

Brainstorm

Is it weird if I actually want to move into a booth? Rebekah from Wild Ink Press created the most warm and cozy booth to showcase her beautiful cards â€“ she even installed crown moulding at the top! The walls were lined with all the new collections that Rebekah debuted at the show, from a brand new letterpress calendar to garden-inspired greeting cards to a funny quotations series!

I love the new Otomi and Aztec patterns in Rebekah’s textile-inspired collection!

Wild Ink Press

The Letter C Design booth was a happy rainbow of stationery, with boxed note sets, colorful travel journals, and cute little place cards â€“ all with cute white foil printed motifs. I also love love love the kraft paper stickers, including gift tag stickers!

Letter C Design

After a strong debut last year, Pei Design has become one of my highlights at the show. This year’s collection was largely designed around a Parisian-inspired theme, with art prints, a calendar, and several new illustrated greeting cards. Those gold foil pattern note cards and new gift wrap sheets? Gorgeous!

Pei Design

The ladies of One Canoe Two went BIG this year, from the actual booth size (too big to get a single frame shot!) to a bunch of fabulous new products to an absolutely gorgeous new oversize calendar! So so good.

These perpetual calendars come in a gorgeous heirloom wood berry box â€“ and can even be used as a daily journal that you can revisit every year!

One Canoe Two

It’s so fun to see stationers branch out and experiment with new products, and these days I’m particularly excited by the new objects from The Great Lakes Goods. You’ve probably already seen their color-dipped wood feathers and arrows, screen printed gift wrap, and ribbons, but this year’s booth also included color block wood candle holders and the cutest balloons with hand lettered messages â€“ all along with their awesome screen printed greeting cards.

The Great Lakes Goods

Of course, the National Stationery Show wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the Rifle Paper Co. booth! This time around the booth was full of beautiful new art prints, a stunning new garden-inspired calendar, new gift wrap patterns, new greeting card designs â€“ and of course their fabulous iphone cases!

Rifle Paper Co.

I’ll be back in just a bit with more from the 2013 National Stationery Show!

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper, please ask permission prior to reposting any photos

05/24/2013

Friday Happy Hour: The Delbarton Burns

Nole and I are big fans of one of our Capitol Hill neighborhood restaurants:Â Ted’s Bulletin. Ted’s has some great food and drinks (and is very welcoming to Sophie, which just makes us like them more). One of their best drinks is the Delbarton Burns, which carefully balances a really peaty Scotch â€“ an unusual base â€“ with sweet and spicy notes for a subtly delicious cocktail.Â â€“ Andrew

Illustration by Caitlin KeeganÂ for Oh So Beautiful Paper

The Delbarton Burns

2 oz Scotch
1/2 oz Sweet Vermouth
1/2 oz Benedictine
2 Dashes Orange Bitters

Combine the Scotch, vermouth, Benedictine, and bitters with ice. (Ted’s starts with Laphroaig, a really briney, peaty Scotch, so make sure you use one with lots smoke to it.) Stir well, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a cherry or a lemon twist. Enjoy!

The resulting drink is pretty neat. A peaty Scotch can, by itself, taste something like a campfire, not something everyone is looking for in a cocktail. The smokiness does shine through in the Delbarton Burns, but it’s not overwhelming at all. Instead, it’s carefully balanced with the light, sweet notes of the vermouth and the sweet herbal notes of the Benedictine, making this drink far more subtle than its ingredients would suggest. (This seems to be a reoccurring theme with Scotch cocktails.)

The Delbarton Burns is, in a lot of ways, a play on the Manhattan we featured last week. Swap in Scotch for another whiskey, replace a bit of the vermouth with Benedictine, and you have a very different but still familiar drink. Like the Manhattan, the Delbarton Burns is the sort of drink that benefit from a bit of aging. Try mixing up a batch and leaving them to sit in a glass container overnight; you’ll enjoy a much mellower, superbly well-integrated drink.

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper

05/24/2013

{happy weekend!}

Whew! What a whirlwind of a week! Three and a half amazing days at the National Stationery Show, a Paper Party with the stationery community (more on that next week!), and a 5-year wedding anniversary to celebrate this weekend! I’ll also be spending some quality time editing the remaining photos for Stationery Show recaps, so thank goodness for long weekends! But in the meantime…

Photos by me via Instagram

…a few links for your weekend!

Love these cedar garden stakes
Secrets to the perfect burger (I can’t wait to start grilling in our new backyard!)
Dinara’s beautiful booth at Surtex!
More great books to add to Sophie’s library

This week on Oh So Beautiful Paper:

NSS 2013, Part 1: 9th Letter Press, Tabletop Made, Bench Pressed, Rocket Ink, Yellow Owl Workshop
NSS 2013, Part 2: Ladyfingers Letterpress, Sideshow Press, Moglea, Parrott Design Studio, Letter & Lark, Iron Curtain Press, These Are Things, Snow and Graham
NSS 2013, Part 3: Sugar Paper, Fig. 2 Design Studio, Sycamore Street Press, Mr. Boddington’s Studio, Belle & Union, 55 Hi’s
NSS 2013, Part 4: The Ladies of Letterpress (12 Fifteen, Steel Petal Press, Bowerbox, Grey Moggie, Noteworthy Paper & Press, Les Bois Letterpress, Creativity Cards, Ari Press, Black Heart Letterpress, and Pressbound) and Crow and Canary (Rock Scissor Paper, Pie Bird Press, Two Trick Pony, Ghost Academy, Gilah Press, Greenwich Letterpress, Black and White and Red All Over, Ashkahn, Lark Press, Red Cap Cards, Carolyn Suzuki, Candyspotting, Cartolina, Waterknot, and Dude and Chick)
Well Said Type: Kailey Script
DIY Tutorial: Neon and Kraft Paper Wedding Invitations!
Gorgeous calligraphy by Meagan Tidwell
Pretty wedding invitations from The Creative Parasol

Check back soon for this weekâ€™s cocktail! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and Iâ€™ll see you back here next week!Â xoxo

05/24/2013

National Stationery Show 2013, Part 4

Today I thought I’d share a couple of big booths from the National Stationery Show that are packed full of awesome stationery: the Ladies of LetterpressÂ and Crow & Canary booths! First up, the Ladies of Letterpress â€“ which is really twelve independent stationers packed into one ginormous booth at the show. I totally forgot to take a wide shot of the full booth this year, but you can check out my 2011 recap for a better idea of the layout. Now on to the letterpress awesomeness!

Such a sweet set of cards!

12 Fifteen

Love this series of cards made from hand carved woodcut designs!

Bowerbox Press

Steel Petal Press

Pressbound

I’m still laughing at the cards above!

Noteworthy Paper & Press

Grey Moggie Press

Les Bois Letterpress

Creativity Cards

Black Heart Letterpress

Ari Press

The ladies of Crow & Canary represent some of the best stationery lines, so it’s no surprise that I always enjoy visiting their booth! There were 14 companies represented in this year’s booth, with lots and lots of fabulous paper goods!