Whether you’re a first-time attendee or a seasoned Stationery Show vet, we know you’ll appreciate these 10 helpful tips from Audrey Woollen, owner of Urbanic Paper Boutique in Venice, California. Audrey travels cross-country for the show, and her shop always features an amazing mix of carefully curated paper goods.

MAP OUT A PLAN: The NSS walking map is a great tool to use prior to the show. When I start receiving booth invitations, I add the booth numbers of the lines I am interested in visiting and keep tabs on the booths per aisle as destinations. I’ve learned from experience that it’s easy to accidentally miss a booth (especially the smaller ones) if I’m not intentional about finding them. I save the lines that are more comprehensive for me to write until my last day — since they take a lot of time, I try to really hone in and focus without distractions. 

PLANNING TIPS FOR FIRST-TIME SHOW ATTENDEES: When you arrive, walk the show first to take it all in — and keep track of the booths you want to make sure to visit. After you’ve done a walk-through, it’s always a good idea to start in the middle of the show and work your way to both ends. This will prevent you from getting caught up in the traffic cluster of the end aisles during those peak show hours and will help kick off your show pace at a more even level that you may need as a first timer. 

GET ORGANIZED: I always come to the show with a notebook divided up by the months that I’m ordering for. That way I can mix up the product assortment, and keep track of what is coming in and when. This also helps budget out each month for our cost of goods and evens out the flow of entering and receiving.

As for show buying,  I write all of my orders as I go from booth to booth and comb through all of them by month a few days after the show. This is where the real work comes in: moving around delivery dates, referencing catalogs, and editing where needed.

Since I travel across the country for the show, I try not to take too many catalogs home from the booths. I request that they be sent out to me and only take the ones I feel that I’ll need to reference right away or lines that I’m considering writing but have not committed to yet.

THINK AHEAD: I’m always on the lookout for product themes that go well together for promotional content. I’m always thinking ahead for store newsletters, features and merchandising concepts while I’m doing my buying.

FIND INSPIRATION: I let the booth displays, product trends and the pulse of the amazing NYC shops and restaurants fill my creative cup to overflowing with new inspiration for Urbanic. I take it all in and let this consolidated creative energy inspire and recharge me for store windows, line collaborations, special events and everything in between.

My phone back up charger is my #1 necessity at the show  (…besides food and water, of course!). I take photos of everything, which helps me document the inspiration and the goods we have coming in. It also makes for great social media content during the show and after.

STOP FOR A SNACK: There is a little deli called Frame just up the street from the Javits on 33rd Street. This is an amazing little place to stock up on good healthy snacks for the day or even a great place to hop out if you want to get some fresh air and an amazing salad. Keep in mind it’s not open on Sundays though — I forget every time!   

Whether you’re heading to show or following the action on Instagram, be sure to follow along with Audrey’s 68.4k followers on Instagram and see her snaps @urbanic! You can also see updates and new product sneak peeks on our account @smockpaper!  

all photos provided by Urbanic 

We were thrilled to be sponsors for Paper Party 2015! Paper Party is an amazing event hosted by Nole Garey of Oh So Beautiful Paper, and this was our third year sponsoring. Bella Figura printed this year’s invitations, which featured a gorgeous design by Moglea, and Meant to Be Calligraphy hand addressed the envelopes. The party was held on the rooftop at Hudson Terrace, and Janice of Bellwether Events helped plan the event and kept everything running smoothly throughout the night.

We used a variety of our double-sided gift wraps to create jumbo paper chandeliers for decor! They looked so fun blowing in the breeze next to the disco balls.

Dawn from Soirée Floral combined gorgeous peonies, garden roses, ranunculus, and greens from Flower Muse with a few tropical flowers like king protea and pink ginger flowers to make the amazing floral arrangements that were used throughout the party.

Guests arrive early each year to snag a coveted Paper Party swag bag – and this year’s bag did not disappoint! The totes featured a design by Rifle Paper Co., and were filled with cards, notepads, pencils, and other paper goodies from a wide variety of vendors (our Miette thank you cards and our hot pink heart gift tags were included!).

Courtney from Swiss Cottage Designs (who is also a designer from our sister company, Bella Figura!) designed the giant welcome sign, cute cocktail menus, name tags, coasters, cocktail stirrers, and matchboxes that were featured throughout the party.

One of our favorite decorative elements of the party were the clusters of honeycombs with gold paper air plants created by Mandy Pellegrin of Craftcourse — aren’t they so fun and festive!?

Many thanks to Nole for inviting us to sponsor the event!

Photography by Charlie Juliet Photography

Paper Party Sponsors: Smock | The National Stationery Show | Minted | Etsy Wholesale | Silhouette America | Simply Framed | Rifle Paper Co. | Hester & Cook Design Group | Legion Paper | Postable | Mailchimp | May Designs | StationeryHQ | Flower Muse | Foryourparty.com | Soirée Floral | Meant to Be Calligraphy | Moglea | Swiss Cottage Designs | Alexis Mattox | Smilebooth

We’re back from another successful year at the National Stationery Show! This year we moved to a larger space, so we took advantage of the opportunity to redesign our booth. We wanted the space to feel open and inviting, so we created a back wall the ran the entire length (40 feet) of the booth, with both ends open and accessible. The back wall of the booth was covered with a textured charcoal fabric, to which we adhered our product samples — the dark background really made everything pop! When it came to our favorite part — the decorative elements — we drew inspiration from some of our new cards and opted for a party-like theme, creating enormous ribbon curls with our gift wrap that spanned the length of the booth and covered an entire panel of our display.

We created a custom box tree to showcase our nested sets of keepsake boxes, and perched flags with our booth number on top so that we were easy to spot from a distance. Every year debut a variety of new products at the show, and this year was no exception: we introduced new gift wrap patterns and keepsake boxes, lots of new cards, calendars, art prints, coasters, gift tags, and more. We also launched two new albums at the show: Smock Wedding Volume 6, as well as our first ever Holiday album. These new custom designs, as well as our new Everyday offerings, will be available on our website soon!

In addition to the 2015 National Stationery Show, we were excited to be a part of another event: Paper Party! Smock sponsored the amazing event, which is hosted each year by Oh So Beautiful Paper. Our BFF Bella Figura printed this year’s invitations, and we created paper chandeliers to help decorate the event.

Many thanks to Nole at Oh So Beautiful Paper to inviting us to be a part of the event, and thanks to all of our amazing dealers who made time to see us at the show! We can’t wait for 2016!

It’s almost time for the 2015 National Stationery Show! To kick things off, we recently sent out announcements to spread the word on our new offerings for this year’s show. We chose a sophisticated color palette of black, white, and gold matte foil, and created informative cards that doubled as art prints. Our new foil stamped envelope liners made their debut, and we purchased some gorgeous postage stamps from the USPS as a finishing touch. We hope you’ll come see us at the show — we’ll be in booth #1840!

PS: check us out on Instagram to catch a peek at the postage stamps we used on the envelopes!

We were thrilled to be asked again this year to print the 2014 Paper Party invitations. This year’s invitation for the amazing event put on by Nole Garey at Oh So Beautiful Paper was designed by Mr. Boddington’s Studio, and we printed the invitations on Mohawk Superfine paper. Take a look at some of the photos – didn’t the invitations turn out beautifully? We love the calligraphy from Michele at Meant to Be Calligraphy and the stamps & envelope liners add a fun finishing touch!

Design: Mr. Boddington’s Studio | Printing: Smock | Paper: Mohawk, Superfine Ultrawhite Eggshell 130 lb | Envelopes: Mohawk, Loop Antique Vellum Kraft 80 text in A7 size | Envelope Address Calligraphy: Meant to Be Calligraphy 

We’re back from our annual trip to the National Stationery Show, where a handful of members from the Smock team enjoyed a fun, paper-filled week and got the chance to see a lot of our amazing retailers! We made some changes to our booth design this year, switching from large, panel displays to sleek shelves for our greeting cards, and selecting new fabric and carpeting. One of our favorite changes for this year was our decorative gift wrap display! Each year we also create a decorative element to dress up our booth, and for this year we decided to make decorative diamonds using our new gift wrap. Check out some of our shots from set-up and the finished booth!

We were also honored by the Greeting Card Association with our third (!) Louie Award for our “Elfing” holiday card in the humorous holiday card category $3.50 and up. The GCA put on an amazing gala for the Louie Awards, which featured a cute candy theme (check out those giant gumdrops!) that was also present in the Louie Award Exhibit at the Javits Center during the show.

One of our favorite things about the Stationery Show? Paper Party! We were sponsors again this year for the Oh So Beautiful Paper 2014 Paper Party, and we had the pleasure of collaborating with Mohawk Paper and Mr. Boddington’s Studio to create the invitations for the event. Our gift wrap was even used to make giant paper flowers for some of the Paper Party decor!

Be sure to check out our new arrivals to see all of the new cards, gift wrap, boxes, and more that debuted at the show! Many thanks to everyone who stopped by to say hi at our booth!

Paper Party flower photos courtesy of Charlie-Juliet Photography via Oh So Beautiful Paper 

We’re hard at work with last minute preparations for the upcoming National Stationery Show, but we had to take a minute to share our 2014  National Stationery Show invitations. We’re loving the look of digital printing paired with foil stamping, so this year’s set included one of our vintage print patterns and a new watercolor fade pattern with tawny matte foil! A watercolor envelope liner tied the invitations together. Our BFF Bella Figura will be making an appearance at the show this year, so we printed a beautiful blind debossed invitation with tawny matte foil and custom hand calligraphy accents by Elizabeth Hardin on Bella Figura’s rich cotton paper. We’ll be launching a brand new Mitzvah album at the show, along with lots of new Everyday products, so be sure to stop by our booth – #2341 – to say hi!

It’s hard to believe that the 2013 National Stationery Show has already come and gone! We had a great time at the show catching up with our Smock dealers and introducing new products, and we were beyond excited to be honored by the Greeting Card Association with our second Louie award for our “Like Campfires” letterpress love card! Smock also sponsored Oh So Beautiful Paper’s 2013 Paper Party, so it was a busy week for the team in New York! Here’s a peek at our booth display and some of the new products we introduced at the show. We’ll be posting a follow-up later this month complete with a DIY tutorial on how to make our festive cone garland! Here’s a sneak peek at some of our new holiday gift wrap, and a close-up of our decorative gift wrap display featuring hundreds of colorful cones. We also added new boxes and letterpress coasters to our line-up, too — keep an eye out for these great new products in a Smock store near you! Our new kraft collection was a huge hit as well! Photography courtesy of Nole Garey at Oh So Beautiful Paper

It’s hard to believe there are less than two weeks until the 2013 National Stationery Show! We’ve been hard at work pulling together the last minute details for the show, and we’re excited to be introducing lots of exciting new products (like an amazing new custom wedding album, and fun stuff like coasters, new keepsake boxes and colorful gift wrap from our Everyday line!). The invitations we printed for the show feature a sampling of the new offerings our latest album will contain: colorful digital liners, a new ticket style sleeve, elegant new foil colors, and Ruby: a brand new, Smock-exclusive calligraphy font by Molly Jacques! We can’t wait to show you everything that’s new, but for right now, we’ll share photos of our National Stationery Show invitations to give you a hint at the beautiful new things to come. Be sure to stop by booth #2341 to see it all in person!

It’s official: foil stamping has arrived at Smock! Today we’re sharing a special sneak peek of the letterpress invitations we printed for the 2012 National Stationery Show, and we think you’ll love the new additions we’re bringing to the line. We’re adding two gorgeous new fonts to our collection of exclusive Smock calligraphy fonts, and these invitations feature both of those new fonts! Plaza is an elegant, formal script based on Sarah Hanna‘s calligraphy, and Stella (based on a Kelle McCarter hand) has a more playful, whimsical feel. The invitations are just a hint at what’s new: besides foil stamping and new calligraphy fonts, we’re also introducing four inspired new wedding suites, 12 dazzling colors for foil stamping, 100% recycled coasters, and lots of cool new products for our Everyday line (including 6 new styles of double-sided gift wrap, new notebook styles, more man-friendly stationery, and much, much more!).  A special thanks to master calligrapher Debi Zeinert from The Blooming Quill for addressing the invitation envelopes – aren’t they gorgeous!? Foil stamping will be available at Smock dealers in early June, so stay tuned!