National Stationery Show - Final Part 3 - The Show

Here we are the final instalment. I think my average work day was about 18 hours per day in the run up and during the show. It was crazy nuts busy, exercise out the window, eating proper food etc. So after all the preparations I packed up and headed to the airport to catch a red eye to New York. I slept pretty much all the way, there was no way any meaningful work was going to happen so I just tried to rest before Day 1 of set up. Now the show folks will tell you that there is a set slot move in time but let's just say it was flexible.

The not so Blank Canvas

So far so good, arrived walked what seemed like miles with 2 suitcases, back pack and hand bag to get to the shuttle bus pick up, which I had prepaid online. I had an hour to kill as the flight arrived early, so I think it was about 5am instead of 5:30am, so let's just call it pretty darn early. I'm not usually awake at that time, the shuttle bus came and I grabbed my umpteen bags and boarded. About 5 minutes into the drive I realized, horrified that I'd left my handbag behind in La Guardia Airport, money, passport, I.D. everything !! The shuttle bus driver to his credit turned around and headed back to the airport, there was only one other couple on the bus thankfully. It was a pretty tense drive back and nervous as hell I jumped out of the bus and ran into the terminal. Imagine my immense relief when there, sat on the chair was my bag. There were people sat either side who hadn't noticed the absence of an owner, but everything was in it. Faith in humanity restored, faith in reporting suspicious unattended bags not so much... (luckily for me.) After that it was pretty much a given that this was going to be a good trip. I'd averted near disaster and I was pretty convinced that luck was on my side. (Sidenote, carry as few bags as possible, less chance of leaving one behind and sleep helps!)

I arrived at Javits about 7am and dropped off my suitcases in my space which would be my home for the next 6.5 days. It took every single hour of time allocated to get the space show ready. It didn't help that the walls weren't white, after paying 4 figures for temporary walls you'd think they'd at least have a decent paint job.  I had what looked like orange coming through in patches. I did try and contact the team responsable but to no avail. Fortunately my fantastic neighbor had extra rollers and paint and was nice enough to share, it did take extra time that I hadn't factored in for the paint to dry but totally worth it. I was lucky enough to have brilliant first time neighbors who made the experience much more enjoyable and being native New Yorkers with cars had access to things like step stools which hadn't made it into the suitcase but were pretty essential for putting up signage.

Step stools are handy

Minimal but essential tools

As far as furniture was concerned, I had 3 stools and  3 tables shipped to an apartment in New York and then I took a cab to Javits on Day 2 of set up. I entertained ideas of going to Ikea once I was there, but honestly there isn't time, especially if you are flying solo.

 Javits the night before NSS opened, I was there till midnight.

The Final 

Because everything was so clean and white the bare floor didn't bother me too much. The flowers were given to me by another exhibitor who had too many. Fresh flowers are a really nice added touch.

Right wall

Most areas had pink carpet but the Fresh Section was yellow.

There you have it, the last installment. On the financial side I made my investment back within two months so definitely worth doing and I'm hoping to do it all again next year ! Also good to note is that you have to take everything, if you leave any furniture in your space or stuff on the walls you will get charged. Apparently there is some kind of collection process where your furniture gets donated but I couldn't find any info about that so what I didn't sell I gave away.

The National Stationery Show NSS 2015 - The Preparations Part 1

At the start of the year my big business goal was to take my brand national. Part of this plan included doing THE tradeshow for stationery, the National Stationery Show. To the uninitiated this is a BIG deal and unlike the craft shows has a 3 day set up period and the show lasts three and a half days.

It took me a while to commit (late February) but a few things fell into place and it seemed like the right time to take the plunge. Due to the lateness I had already committed to Renegade London and Unique LA which meant I was crunched for time. It's only me making/packaging/shipping all the inventory. For 2 1/2 months it was 7 day work weeks and for the last 3 weeks an average of 5 hours sleep a night. For me, one of the biggest benefits of doing a trade show was the deadline, after investing in a booth you don't want to waste that oney by not having a linesheet, catalog etc. At the start I read every blog post relating to NSS that I could find and started a pinterest mood board.

 As I was on a modest budget for the show I didn't want the added expense of freight shipping this can cost 1,000 each way to ship a crate,  so this booth needed to fit in a big suitcase. I was lucky enough to find someone who lived in New York and would be in London during the show, through a friend and saved a heap in accommodation. I was able to have IKEA furniture shipped to the apartment in New York which was a big relief to not have to go shopping during set up.

So this is how it began with some wonky lines and questionable perspective on a large piece of paper. I had a minor attempt at a mood board but ended up sticking 3 things to it and mostly just kept ideas kicking around in my head. The process was not unfamiliar, back in the day when I did my BA Fine Art Show or studio shows in London it was a similar amount of planning and frantic making in the lead up and it all mostly came together in the end. I think I probably averaged 5 hours sleep a night in the final weeks lead up, not through lack of trying to sleep more, my brain was just over saturated with to do lists and tight deadlines. Alongside this was still the day to day business stuff too. Shops decided to place wholesale orders which was great but made things even more hectic.

Some people do full booth mock ups with walls, (alas there was no space to do this) I made do with large sheets of paper cut to size and placed on the floor, I then started laying out product. Not the most ideal prep, but it does help to lay it all out, I didn't want any super high or low shelves and it helped to see the signage in proportion to the mock wall. I realized my original booth numbers were giganto and didn't use them.

Thought at the time... how the hell am I going to put up 100+ cards by myself !

Notice the not so helpful helper walking all over my walls !

Testing sticking power of glue dots

Yeah,  I ended up having major issues in the end with keeping stuff stuck to the fake walls at NSS, I went through, glue dots, double sided tape (two kinds) and then finally Industrial Velcro.  My point is be prepared, some things don't turn out as you would expect so be prepared to improvise.

Mounting the cards took 2 days

Card Armageddon

So I ended up with about 130 designs up on the walls and grouped them into : Birthday, Love, Friends, Holidays, Baby, Wedding, hello, thank you and other. When you have a Footmoose card you need an other category !

Laser Cut and Spray Painted Numbers

Signage was one of the easiest things for me, all the blogs said put your booth number on everything so people can find you, quite right too, Javits is a huge overwhelming space, you can get lost going to the restroom!
In Part 2, the hard stuff and to do list.

The Unique LA Booth Build (Spring Edition)

This is slightly late but in the interests of documenting this arduous process for posterity, here goes. The space allotted to us was a 10 x 10 acrylic wall corner booth with only two walls. Here is how it went from drab to fab IMHO. Enjoy !!

Lumber shopping

Walls minus paint.

Tada painted, one sore arm later.

These never made it into the booth.

These shelves also never made it, you win some you change your mind some.

Visual merching anthro style.

Yeah, you need a truck for this kind of shenanigans.

Almost there.

Really, this the best picture you got ? Sorry .....

Look at all the people !!

Close up of shelves and goods.

and there you have it !!

Patchwork Edible Show and other Stuff

It's been a very busy couple of weeks and it never ceases to amaze me what can be achieved in a short space of time. So in big news I quit my day job !! I was dragging my feet and clock watching so I knew it was time to move on to pastures new, its an exciting if somewhat precarious time ahead and I mean to make the most of it.

The Patchwork Edible Show was the impetus for some new cards, I had already done food so it wasn't too difficult to create the designs. They were pretty well received. Sorry for being so Crabby being a surprise hit.

I've started experimenting with painting the image using ink as opposed to using a pen and I like the results. Patchwork was like a survival of the fittest endurance test, as much as I love sunshine, temperatures hit 93 degrees and it was tough being outside all day. Still met some lovely people and vendors who were all in the same boat. Here are some photos from the event I was on my lonesome so unfortunately was unable to go walkabout.

Yes it was that hot !

Particularly happy with my cardboard clouds.

Forgot to bring a sheet to hang at the back but live and learn.

Panorama, fancy...

Ok, that's it for now, I'm going to have to backtrack as I have a lot of posts that I didn't finish. Thanks for reading.

Crafted -the opening weekend and beyond

Well the moment of truth arrived and we rose to the challenge. Sleep deprived and sewing into the early morning it was all worth it. Excited customers,tv crews, media were all there for the grand opening. It was a great turnout and the booths looked amazing. It really was such a relief to have gotten to that point and realized that the hard work was justified. It went so well that I have not been able to take much of a break as I battle to restock, a good battle to have I might add. Poor panda is still waiting to be made but on the upside lots of bears, rabbits and owls have found new homes.

I could have sold that chair many times over.

Look it's my card wall.

Hello owl wall.

and more stuff.

Exciting projects are in the works, a collaboration with another crafted vendor to make some bags as well as a potential children's book. I cannot complain these last couple of weeks have been fantastic. Apologies for the blog delay, after all that build up !!

Here's some video footage for you, I do appear about a third of the way through, standing in my booth trying to string a sentence together.

Crafted - 2 days to go....

 So you'll remember at the end of the last post I was unhappy with the raw finish of the walls and so I bought a whole lot of paint and with a full crew dismantled all the shelves and decor and painted the whole thing. May not be interior design standard but it gives the space a finished feel. I'm glad I went with my gut and did it. We still need to put the colored flags up and product in but there's a much cleaner backdrop and the back wall is still wood. I'm excited to get everything in and there will be more tweaking no doubt.

There's our booth at the end.

The Silver Blue Glass Side.

4 days to go....before CRAFTED

So in the blur of preparations I was slightly terrible about documenting the transformation of the booth. It was kind of hot and exhausting. The shelves were painted beforehand but with the walls being less than 6ft tall I went for less is more and reduced the number of shelves I'd planned. The sign had to be rethought after I realised the yarn letters were just a fraction too big but I had a plan B and I think it worked out. The flag idea ties the two sides Silver Blue Glass and me together.

Mr B. hard at work

Pennants for a festive feel

Bright Green Paint

The Vision

The sign that goes on those two long planks on the back wall.

Yarn letters, sadly too big for the sign so this was plan b.

I put these shelves up myself.

A few props

I am really starting to think I need to paint the walls white, that would mean taking all the shelves down, recutting a bunch of flags but I know it would look a lot cleaner. Can't paint the back wall but at least its a nice dark color. How long does paint take to dry anyway ? It's going to be a loooonng week.

Just in, look who's sitting pretty in the July issue of Sunset Magazine. Praise is due to Lindsey Kliewer the wonderful creator of the image they used. Interestingly they took out the sky and reversed it, even handmade plushes can't escape a little bit of photoshopping !

Crafted - Booth makeover Part 1 the Plan

So the finishing post is in sight and there's still soooo much to be done. My lists are getting out of control and I'm a bit grumpy due to stress. I have foregone the surfing for sewing and I don't know how much longer I can abstain. Here's the booth that I will be sharing with Silver Blue Glass or Tomoko as she's known.

Testing whether cloud will stay up.

We have a fabulous original wall which quite rightly we are not allowed to paint but can still attach things to like decals so here I randomly cut a cloud and I quite liked the effect.

$5 bench

I picked up a matching pair of benches for $5 each ! they were splintered and pretty unloved so they were sanded, cleaned and waxed back to loveliness and did I mention they fold flat. It was the folding flat that sold me on it but look how beautifully it matches the wall (and electrics) like it was meant to be.

View from the Booth lovely lovely light

We can see right down to the demo area and you can see us so we're going to make sure we catch your interest.

Here's my very bright painted green shelves

So here's my plan for my half, I had a very loose plan but then I came to the conclusion that I needed an actual plan so here it is. Those green lines are shelves and those white shapes are all going to be painted or decals. The drawing is exactly that I'll just do a freehand with a paint pen/ brush. Due to the markings on the plywood there's going to have to be some strategic placement to cover them up. So give or take a shelf here and there, the walls seem low so maybe less shelving is more. Lots of chartreuse and white and wood. The beauty of the decals is that they will just peel off when I get bored.