We drove to Massachusetts today to spend holiday time with the family. It’s Mili’s first Christmas! Tomorrow, she’s going to meet Santa and take a picture with him :) I am so excited!

Pictures are the ornament of the year and Mili’s first Christmas stocking :)

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!!! xo Hijiri

DUMBO Arts Festival 2011 is this weekend! Last year was a lot of fun so I am so excited about this year’s. If you are in NYC area, I highly recommend coming by and check it out, during the day and/or night. If you see a 9.5 months pregnant lady walking around, that’s probably me so say hello! :) xo Hijiri

Tonight is the Fashion’s Night Out! There are soo many awesome events happening throughout NY and other cities all over the country, are you planning to attend any? I experienced the FNO last 2 years and I know how crazy it gets, I’m not sure if I could go this year with 36 weeks pregnant belly… but this DIY event with Marimekko at the Crate and Barrel on Madison Avenue sounds so fun that I wanted to share!

…to create a custom necklace made from the bold color and pattern of Marimekko fabric as you enjoy music and refreshments.

I guess DUMBO is having lots of events tonight also, I might stop by few since it’s right here in my neighborhood… What are your plans? :)

I stopped by Renegade Craft Fair in McCarren Park, Brooklyn yesterday. Despite the storm weather report, it was actually a nice day and there were LOTS of people with LOTS of awesome booths, I really enjoyed it :)

The Arm was actually doing a demonstration of letterpress printing in the booth!! (on the very right — it was so busy, I couldn’t take a close photo — plus, I was with Maia :)) How awesome :)

One of the things I learned and enjoyed at the stationery show is a booth giveaway. Every booth/company had something for the audiences to take home with so they can remember the booth/company. Some are just catalogs and business cards (well, these are mandatory), but some had really creative fun giveaways. I couldn’t walk around much, but I’m sure there were tons more fresh ideas!

Our Ladies of Letterpress booth did an “Alter Ego ID card” giveaway (Maia from Dandy Lion Press came up with the idea and we all went with it. Elizabeth from Wildhorse Press designed the template, Kim from Paper Lovely designed the back of the card with all of our company names and Ladies of Letterpress logo). Each 11 of us came up with 2 alter egos, designed them and letterpress printed them so we had 22 different kinds of ID cards to choose from, we take picture of you, print it out, trim it out and ta-da — your alter ego card is ready. It was so fun to see people’s reactions and interact with people :) Who would your alter ego be?

and the papers we used were Holyoke Premium Cotton donated by Holyoke Fine Papers. Thank you!

Mine :)

We also hosted a breakfast one morning — it was fun to get together before the busy day and meet with other exhibitors, eat, drink and chat. The invitation was designed and letterpress printed by Nadia from Ink Petals.

And Kseniya from Thomas-Printers made these cute “Printer” badge and everyone wore it with our passes, we are all so proud! Thank you!

I could NOT have done the National Stationery Show without these amazing gals. They are all so professional, talented, and very fun to work with, I was really happy to be a part of this great group of people. Thank you so much to every single one of you (and your friends, spouses and families) for the wonderful show! You guys are THE BEST!!

I took everyone’s booth pictures and wanted to share — in alphabetical order, first up is:

Anemone Letterpress:

Super cute dachshund card <3 and love the colorful collections.

Cleanwash Letterpress:

There are so many funny and cute cards, made me smile :)

Dandy Lion Press:

Everything is hand-drawn by Maia, the artist, amazing stuff.

Ink Petals:

Great alphabets and numbers posters.

Lulabelle Letterpress:

Their wedding book was stunning also!

Painted Tongue Studios:

Love their beautiful nature inspired greeting cards.

Paper Lovely:

Love her simple and lovely cards <3

Studio SloMo:

These love themed cards are super cute :) <3

Thomas-Printers:

Co-founder of Ladies of Letterpress, Kseniya did so much for us, thank you again so much!! She had lots of beautiful invitations.

Wildhorse Press:

Love all of her colorful and fun work!

Finally, the final look of the Heartfish Press booth at the National Stationery Show 2011.

Wood Type Letterpress Greeting Cards above, Houndstooth Letterpress Greeting Cards below.

Pattern Note Cards both single cards and box sets:

I (blank) You Letterpress Cards:

Decorate your own Christmas Tree Card (both are featured on the Sweetest Occasion! Thank you!):

and last but not least, Love, Hello and Smile wood type prints:

I brought the paper flower I made with misprints and it was actually a big hit. I’ve been wanted to try making more and be able to sell them — maybe very soon!

The set-up day 3 — I started off with the last row of placing alphabet cards and then, onto placing another vinyl stickers on the wall, kind of like a divider, that goes in between alphabet cards and other greeting cards. But… again, it was really hard to place it totally straight and it made a weird curve towards the right side… (please don’t look closely, I am embarrassed… but it’s true, it was NOT straight…) sigh… oh well.

This is the booth picture at the end of the day. Few decorative things were missing, made a note to bring those, and called the day.

After my booth was very close to be done, I went to the “Press Room” to place our press kits — I was amazed by so many great looking, creative press kits here! This is definitely something I had no idea what to expect and learned so much about. I will do this differently next time for sure. (Mine was just a press release sheets of papers, card samples and my business cards… in an envelope.)

Fugu Fugu Press (left) and Printerette Press (right)

Old Tom Foolery newspaper press kit — very clever and funny, reflects their products very well :)

Paper Stories (left) and Paper Parasol Press (right) — simple and elegant.

((sorry for the blurry pictures))

The set up day 2 started with placing our shelves evenly and put up the vinyl logo stickers — oh boy, was it hard!

I’m short and pregnant, so my booth mates helped me (thank you!)…

but for some reason, the sticker was so not straight… so we had to stop. Luckily, I had 2 vinyl stickers (1 was a little mess-up, but that saved my life!) so we decided to peel this off with hair dryer, which Wally (Carrie‘s husband) ran back to their hotel and get for me. (Thank you again so much!!)

In the meantime, I worked on getting the first line of the alphabet greeting cards up.

and 2nd try… Wally is so tall so he helped me again here. Thank you, thank you!

whew! It looks nice and straight! I was so relieved :)

and after that, I just keep putting up all the alphabet greeting cards by using masking tape as a guide.

The second day ended here… I does take a while to put up all the cards straight and evenly by hands…

(To be continued…)

I still can’t believe how awesome the stationery show was… I wanted to document as much as possible as a first timer (and for those of you who are thinking about exhibiting next year) so I will be sharing what went on behind the scenes first…

The set up day 1 — when we arrived, our booth was filled with crates… (none of them were ours!) and the wall was only half way installed… (see below)

Our aisle 2300 was empty!

After a while, the wall installation completed, more and more booth mates showed up, we built tables and stools…

Building time!

By the end of the day 1, most of the shelves were built, tables and chairs were built, met most of our lovely Ladies of Letterpress gals :)

(to be continued…)