2013 National Stationery Show Recap

I am honestly feeling a little down and blue now that that National Stationery Show is over and I'm returning to work. I took off the entire week of NSS and I am SO glad that I did. Last year I only took one day off, and I regretted it BIG TIME. So this year, I took off an entire week, and I still don't feel like it was enough time.

I spent three days with some of the most amazing people - from familiar Minted friends, to my virtual stationery buddies - I can say that, without a doubt, the stationery industry houses the most talented, genuine, kindest people that exist. It's so humbling to be a part of the community.

While I could gush for hours about how much I love everybody, I thought instead you would prefer to read a few highlights.

NSS started off with a casual designer meet-up that I organized at The Jane Hotel. The room we were planning on hanging out in was mysteriously closed, so we took over the entire bad instead. It was kind of a "just hang out and catch up" type of get together, and that's exactly what we did. We chatted, laughed, snacked, laughed, and even ended the night playing subway roulette (you know that game, the one where you try to take a NYC subway on the weekend, and it turns out it's going along a different line, and then you end up in who-knows-where and you try to guess which subway might take you back to where you want to go? Yea, that game).

Here's a group shot of almost all the designers that came out Sunday night. We're missing a handful, but we're all here in spirit:

Back row, from left: Hailey, Anita, Kristen, Kimberly, Carol, Melanie, Lori, Chelsey Middle Row, from left: Carrie, Aspacia, Jill, Lauren, Amy, Nam, Kristie, Dawn Bottom Row, from left: Jen, Hannah, me

I got home that night well after midnight, which, for me, is crazy late (remember, I'm usually conked out on the sofa by 9pm). The Mexican we ate at 9pm gave me heartburn, so I crashed on the sofa for a few hours before driving into the Javits Center for my first day of walking NSS.

My favorite part of walking the show is seeing all of my paper pals kicked butt in their own booths. While I don't think that exhibiting is the right thing for me or my business, I really admire all of the ladies (and gents) that do it. The effort they put in is absolutely insane, and I love seeing the creative booths and amazing art they display. I have to admit, I am pretty crumby at taking pictures while I walk the show, so I'll send you over to Oh So Beautiful Paper to see all of Nole's recaps. She rocks, and thank goodness she captures all of the amazing stationery!

Anyway, after walking the show all day on Monday, Minted hosted a part for all of the Minted designers that were in town. It was at KTCHN Restaurant and was the perfect way to end a day full of walking (read, good food, comfy chairs, and great company). I'll also add that, thanks to Natasha from Minted, I had my very first (and oh-so-amazing) macaron.

After another late night (although, this time sans the heartburn), I was back and ready to go bright and early for day two of walking the show. One of the best parts of NSS is all the awesome swag and goodies that vendors give out - it's like the stationery version of trick or treating.

Hands down, my most favorite goodie came from the fabulous ladies at Ladyfingers Letterpress. Arley-Rose is one of the most talented hand letterers, and her live demos at their booth were mesmerizing. I caught them during a lull and she whipped up this awesome piece for me for my upcoming anniversary. She literally created it in under 2 minutes. I die.

The only way to end yet another awesome day, is with yet another awesome party. Thanks to Nole (and Minted + all the other sponsors) for throwing the kick-ass Paper Party '13. An entire room filled with everybody in the stationery industry + a photobooth = great times.

Here, again, is why I so love this community:

I'm so sad that it's all over, but am incredibly grateful for the time I got to spend with friends new and old. The outpouring of love and support for Sincerely, Jackie was heartwarming, and was exactly the encouragement I needed. I left feeling empowered and determined to keep working harder for my little business. So much has changed since last year's NSS, and I cannot wait for next year to see where I land and to catch up with everybody again.

Sincerely,

New at Minted - Inline Birth Announcements

I recently won an Editor's Pick for my "Inline" birth announcements, which were inspired by a custom project I did for baby Cruz. These modern, sophisticated birth announcements are now available for purchase over at Minted, and come in a variety of fabulous die cut shapes and paper options.

To view other designs available by Believe Notes, exclusively for Minted, please visit the Believe Notes Minted shop.

Custom Recap - Baby Cruz's Birth Announcements

Today I'm sharing with you a really fun project that I worked on back in late 2012. There definitely seems to be a bit of a baby boom lately, and there isn't anything I enjoy more than helping first time parents announce their newest little addition!

I first met Mel when I became a Hand Pick Vendor for the Wedding Chicks. Mel and I were exchanging emails and small talk practically every day, and then, one day, I got an out-of-office reply from her that she had her baby! YAY! I quickly sent her another email to congratulate her and before I knew it we were talking birth announcements for her new baby boy, Cruz.

When I asked Mel for some inspiration - as I always do on custom projects - she sent me these gorgeous photos of Cruz's nursery. A neutral palette with bright pops of green and fun patterns - I was in designer inspiration heaven!

How awesome is his nursery! I love the clean lines, pops of color, and sophisticated neutrals. It was so easy to start designing on the birth announcements - I drew on all of the room elements, the colors, patterns, and lines, to create this modern, yet sophisticated announcement.

How adorable is baby Cruz?! And how perfectly do these announcements coordinate with his Nursery?! I loved the announcements so much, that I actually submitted a similar design into a recent Minted challenge, and it won and editor's pick! So now you can get your very own Cruz inspired announcement.

The Inline Announcement, below, is available in a variety of die cut shapes and paper options.

If you'd like to see more pictures of adorable baby Cruz and his nursery, head on over to On To Baby, where a sweet feature was posted.

Holiday Gifts from Minted

I've been super busy this season with my highest volume of holiday sales to date - plus all of the orders from Designers Care - which means that, more than ever, I am doing almost all of my holiday shopping online. I'm one of those gift givers that really likes the gifts to be something memorable and personalized, but not super expensive, which is why I am so excited about all of the stationery gift options available through Minted.

One of my favorite ideas for a gift is a custom photo calendar - I mean, who wouldn't love to have a calendar that is actually nice to look at (instead of those freebies that your dad got during a business meeting??). The calendars are printed on thick, luxurious paper and are designed by some of the best designers in the stationery world.

Back in August my family took formal family portraits, as a gift to my grandparents, and what better gift than to use those photos to create a calendar! (I hope my Grams isn't reading this blog post!). You can even put in the dates of everybody's birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and so on! I'm positive my grandparents are going to love it! And I love how simple the design, by Kristie Kern, is!

I can't wait to pick out a few more designs - and I think I'll be picking one up for myself too! I just absolutely ADORE the Year of Art calendars! And when the year is over, you can can down the calendar and frame the art!

In addition to the beautiful calendars, I am also completely smitten with all of the Art Prints available now through Minted. While I personally wasn't able to submit any designs into the art print challenges, I think the community of designers worked together to create one of the most gorgeous art collections available anywhere.

And if beautiful art prints and calendars aren't enough for you, Minted also has some really handy (and perfectly designed, of course) journals available as well. They're super affordable, really lovely, and this one right here was designed by yours truly.

*this post was sponsored by Minted, in exchange for this post, I got a free calendar, which was really darn smart of them because I liked it so much I went back and purchased three more. Yes, I like them that much.

Designers Care

As many of you may know, I live in Queens, New York City. Although, I've got to be honest and say that, even though I've lived here almost three years, I still don't really call Queens home. Home, to me, is the south shore of Long Island on the water. I'm one of those people that actually takes comfort in the smell of low tide, which is why when I moved to Queens, I found a place right on the water. Most of the people I know are also water lovers, in fact I think it's fair to say that if you live on Long Island, you've got water running through your veins. And trust me when I say that nobody ever thought the water they so loved would ever turn against them.

Oh, but it did.

Two weeks ago Superstorm Sandy smashed into the East Coast, wrecking everything in her path. Maybe another time I'll write about what my personal experience was during the storm, but for now just know that I'm safe, my home is safe, and my family is safe. After the storm came through, and people lost everything, those of us that had power sat in absolute stupors in front of the television looking at the wreckage. The news coverage was (and still is) 24/7 about the crisis. For me, it took days before I actually realized what happened. When I went back to work, I found myself staring at the computer screen unable to really move.

I wanted to help. I thought about volunteering, but I knew I didn't even have enough gas in my car to get to the areas that were hardest hit. Plus, if I heard about a single pet that died, well, I'd be a wet mess on the side of the road - I don't know why I'm such a softie for animals. But I still wanted to help. Everybody wanted to help. In fact, as soon as the storm was over, I went online and the entire designer community was reaching out to me to see if I was OK. They kept asking if there was anything I needed - but there wasn't, I was fortunate to have had no damage. Although still, the aching feeling that I needed to find a way to help.

And then I had this crazy idea. What if I found a way to use stationery to help? So I put an exploratory idea out into the design community: Would anybody be interested in donating a design to me so that I could use the design to make a stamp and then create gorgeous hand stamped note cards to sell with ALL proceeds going to help the storm victims?

The answer was a unanimous and overwhelming yes.

Friday, November 9th, I threw the question out there. Within 48 hours I had over 60 designers involved, a submission kit created, an army of designers pitching in, an Etsy shop opened, and the decision to donate proceeds to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief.

Designers Care was born.

I knew we'd need support, so I reached out to a few of my favorite vendors to see if they'd be willing to get us off the ground. Simon, over at Simon's Stamps, was the first person to support us by donating the our first 20 stamps. We then raised enough money as a group to purchase the remaining 40+ stamps and ink pads. Envelopes.com was so extremely generous in providing us with some envelopes, and we're still hoping to get more paper and supplies donated to help us keep growing.
Over the course of the first 24 hours, the amazing Jennifer Wick quickly created a shop logo, while Rebecca Bowen helped raise the start-up costs, and Kim Dietrich Elam researched some legal/logistical issues. My mother rolled up her sleeves and jumped in to help too, creating a new email address, setting up all of the shop listings and helping me coordinate emails and inquiries. She'll also be helping me fill all of the orders and send out to customers. The design community became so involved that we created an entirely separate place for us to work together in creating the new initiative.

I am so humbled, honored, proud and grateful to have the privilege of organizing such an amazing project. Designers Care has already become my baby, and I cannot thank all of the designers enough for helping me get it off the ground. Our goal is to raise at least $2,000 as soon as possible for Sandy victims, we're already at over $400 and we need all of your help! I would love if you could share the story, write a blog post, pin, retweet or whatever it is that you can do to help us sell as much as possible.

And please, please, please visit Designers Care and purchase some note cards. I'm offering small (2" x 3.5" cards) or note cards (4.25" x 5.5") in singles or sets of 4 or 5. Prices start at $2.25 for a single card and $8.75 for a pack of five cards. You'll have the options of white or kraft paper, and black, gold metallic or silver metallic inks. In the next few days I'll also be adding black paper and gold embossing as well as 4x6 prints that would be perfect as framed art.

So a huge thank you to all of the designers that made this happen, and to everybody that donated to help get Designers Care off the ground!

1 - Joy Comes by Mariel Joy. 2 - Full of Hope by Paper Next by Lesa. 3 - Love Peave and Joy by The Lovely Letters. 4 - You're Awesome by Geekink Design. 5 - Made with Love by Frooted Design. 6 - Un Grand Merci bhy le Poetik Studio. 7 - Thank You by Kristen Smith. 8 - I Heart NY by 2BSquared Design. 9 - Tweet Thanks by Pistols

1 - Strong by Susan Asbill 2 - Shine On by Bleu Collar Paparie. 3 - Left My Heart by Jennifer Wick. 4 - Home Is by Kerry Doyle. 5 - Sunshine Ahead by Stacey Hill. 6 - Go With The Flow by Laura Bolter, 7 - Happy Thoughts by The Occasional Hello, 8 - Hope by Robin Ott, 9 - Bless Your Heart by Felicity Paper

Minted Perfect Match Wedding Voting is Open!

I've been so busy lately that I haven't been participating as much as I'd like to in the Minted challenges, but I absolutely HAD to participate in their Perfect Match Wedding Invitation Challenge. When it comes to the Minted challenges, I try to stretch my comfort zone and test out some new things - whether it's patterns, typography or hand-drawn details, you'll see some things from me for Minted that are really different from my normal day-to-day items. That's what's so fun about Minted, having the opportunity to stretch and grow.

So here are my submissions for the wedding challenge, voting is open, so please go vote!

 

 

1. Blushful 2. Florals on Sapphire 3. Merriment 4. Pearlescent 5. Ombre Names 6. Sweetness 7. Infinite Class 7. Subtle Mosaic 8. Vine Knot

Holiday Cards Now Available at Minted!

One of my favorite parts of being a stationery designer is having the joy of Christmas in May. Yes, I said May. You may not realize just how much work goes into designing holiday cards every year, so trust me when I say it's a lot of work. As a designer, I'm thinking about the holidays all year round, and it's always SO much fun when Minted has their holiday challenges in the Spring. It's such a blast to play holiday music in warm weather with the windows open. My neighbors must think I'm crazy.

Anyway, I have two designs that will be for sale this year through Minted. Snowy Man is a fun, simple design featuring a little snowman and simple type.

I'm so excited that Snowy Man is now available, and if you're one of those super organized go-getter types that started buying presents last year, well now's a perfect time for you to start thinking about your holiday cards!

Now For Sale at Minted: Handy Thank You Cards

Head on over to Minted to purchase my latest design, Handy Thank You Cards.

This Handy design was so much fun to work on - it features hand drawn elements and fun typography! It was one of the first times I submitted a design to Minted that featured hand drawing. I've been trying to do a little more drawing for my designs, so be on the lookout!

Bowtied Baby Shower Invitations - Available at Minted

My "Bowtied" baby shower invitations are now available through Minted. If you've got a bun in the oven, or are hosting a shower for somebody else, head on over and check them out!

Matching thank you cards are also available, I love the little bow!

And if you are looking for more baby shower invitations, head on over to my Etsy shop!

Winner Winner!

I recently got my very first Minted Winner star! Up until now, all of my designs for sale at Minted have won awards as Jury picks or Editor picks, which means that one of the special judges for a particular challenge picked my design to be sold. In the Thanks A Million challenge, I got my very first "winner" which means my design scored high enough that it landed in the top 20 for the entire challenge! How exciting!!

Here's the winning design, that will soon be for sale at Minted.

Handy

I'm looking forward to the launch of several new designs on Minted, once they are all available, I will certainly let you all know!

National Stationery Show 2012

May 19th-23rd was the National Stationery Show, which is like Christmas for those of us in the stationery world. I couldn't go last year (it was the weekend before my wedding) but this year there was just no excuse not to be there! Besides, it's right here at the Javits center in NYC, just a few subway stops away!

The show was amazing, with tons of booths for different designers, wholesalers, printers, retailers and so on. However, the best part of the show was, for me, meeting all of the Minted designers who traveled from near and far. A bunch of the Minted ladies got together to walk the show, but we got split up and I ended up spending the day with Tanya of Frooted Design - who is awesome! So glad I got to meet and spend time with her!

The Sunday before NSS, Kimberly FitzSimons of Daily Sip Studios organized a little "Minted-Meetup" over cocktails at a hotel in Times Square. I had SO much fun meeting all of the Minted ladies, as well as a bunch of other talented designers. We had a pretty good sized group, and it was so nice to talk about stationery with people who actually cared! It's so funny to put real people to the profile pictures, and apparently all of us are shorter in person, and I have a bit of a New Yawk accent - what can ya say,  I was bawn and raised on Lawng Island!

A few of the Minted designers during cocktail hour. From top left: Meg of Moglea, Kristie Kern, Kimberly of Daily Sip Studios, Lauren of Palm Papers, FRONT ROW: Laura Hankins of Duncan Park Papers, Lesa from Paper Nest by Lesa, Me, and Alston of B. Wise Paper

Once of the really fun things about the NSS is how much fun loot is given away. I ended up with bags and bags of stuff. I also apparently dropped by business card in lots of fish bowls, because I'm still having loot sent to my house. Just a few days ago an incredibly large and heavy box arrived from Neenah Paper - it was an entire set of samples for EVERYTHING they have. Holy crap, I tell you it was like Christmas came early! Now I just need to find some storage space for all the stuff!

Strolling through the booths was so inspirational. There were actually a few Minties that had booths, and man, they blew me away. I've always admired the work of fellow Minted designer Meg Gleason, of Moglea, but after meeting her and seeing her letterpress in person, I am just down right in awe of her. Her booth was amazing, and she's been getting tons of awesome press, it's so well deserved! You go Meg!

After the show closed on Monday, Minted hosted a little party for current designers, interested designers, and a few members of the press. Mariam Naficy, the CEO and owner of Minted (and awesome, awesome person all around) spoke to us for a little to share some Minted insights and future plans. Here's a group shot with most of us:

I cannot wait to go back to NSS in 2013! I've already decided that one day was just too short, and so next year I plan to give myself at least two days to walk to the show!

Vote for the Minted Joy To the World Holiday Challenge!

The Holiday Challenge at Minted is by far their biggest challenge of the year. Last year was the first one I participated in, and I only submitted two designs - neither of which made it to the second round of voting. I've grown so much since then as a designer, and I was determined to enter some really strong designs for the Joy To The World challenge this year - which I did! And I am super, super proud to announce that five of my designs made it through to the second round of voting!

The first prize is $7,000 - which would be AMAZING to win! I know I won't be a winner (um, hello, Minted has some of the most talented designers in the world participating in this challenge!) but I would still love for you to head on over and vote for my designs! While you're there, vote for the other designs too - your vote matters, so help Minted decide what to sell by voting. 

Here are my designs that have made it through to the second round of voting:

Surrounded by Love

 Snowfall

 Starry Night Family

 Trivium

Mr. & Miss-tletoe

So go grab yourself a cup of coffee (or glass of wine) and vote for your favorite designs - including mine! 

Coming Soon to Minted

My husband and I just got back from our one-year anniversary trip to Vegas and I am thrilled to come back to a Minted Editor's Pick for my "Bowtied" Books to Bottles Baby Shower invitation design.

The design features a pale lavender, linen textured background and a sweet, hand drawn bow. It'll be offered in several additional colors themes, and will also have coordinating thank you cards. Once the designs are up for sale, I'll certainly let you all know!

For all of you that have contacted me while I was away on vacation last week, I'm looking to spend some time today catching up on emails and Etsy inquiries - so you'll be hearing from me soon! Next week I will be traveling as well, but I'll have my computer and will keep my Etsy shop open and will be fulfilling orders as well as working on custom designs - so if you need anything, just shoot me an email at believenotes@yahoo.com. 

Thanks A Million! Minted Submissions

As I mentioned in my last post, Minted has been having back-to-back challenges to keep us designers super busy. One of the challenges was the "Thanks A Million!" thank you card challenge. Thank you cards have always been one of my favorite things to design, and they were actually some of the very first items I had for sale in my Etsy shop.

It was a lot of fun creating these designs - I tried some new techniques and really pushed myself out of my comfort zone by using new fonts, textures, hand drawn elements and different type layouts. At the end of the day, I love the designs I submitted and am proud that it's such an obvious sign of growth for me as a designer.

handy, dignified, gratitude, curled, opaque, petite gratitude, sky high, steele

Voting is still open for the Thanks A Million challenge, so please head on over and tell Minted what to sell! 

Smoldering Business Cards - Now for Sale on Minted!

My "Smoldering" business cards are now for sale at Minted. Head on over and check them out!

"Smoldering" comes in three different color options and has a variety of options for the backer. they are the perfect new business cards for the upcoming hot summer!