surtex diary, the wrap up!

Tuesday morning started off with a big f13 "pow!" as we discovered that we'd been mentioned on print & pattern... a design blog we regularly drool over. To be included with the many other fabulous artists covered there was a huge honor and a great beginning to our final day of the show. Many, many thanks to Bowie Style at print & pattern for the shout-out!

We met so many wonderful people on this trip, and reconnected with friends we usually only see once a year, at the show. Our neighbors were the incredibly talented and sweet folks from Caleb Gray Studio and Lucky Day Studio. We were fortunate to find ourselves inside their little vortex of good vibes and beautiful art!

Caleb and Conor from Caleb Gray Studio were directly across from us and kept us thoroughly entertained. We thought we were on top of things, coordinating our outfits with our booth and with one another... but these guys stole the show!


The lovely Julia of Lucky Day Studio, with Betsy standing in for Lucky Day's Donna. (Sadly, Donna was off on business when this shot was taken, but we wanted to show you their fantastic booth design. This was their Surtex debut as well. Congrats, girls!)

My only regret about this show (other than downing that triple latte on the last day... apologies if I scared off anyone with my insane energy!) was not taking enough photos with our visitors. We are really blessed to have so many great friends in this business. So for what it's worth, I wanted to give each of them a little shout-out here. I only wish we had the following of print & pattern so this could bring you all tons of traffic!
Three cheers to all the fine folks at Cardstore.com, who have been amazing friends and huge supporters of f13 from the get-go.
We were delighted to see so many of our fellow Cardstore.com licensors: Kate Spain, Rob&Bob, Erika Firm of Delphine, Amy Biggers of Snowpea Studio, Maria Carluccio, Anne Keenan Higgins (joined by my friends from Papyrus art directing days, Deanna and Alicia, what a treat!), Lilla & Susan from Lilla Rogers Studio, Salli & Nate from Studio SSS, John McDonald and Robin Zingone. We loved our visits with two of our current licensees and all-around beautiful people: Tom & Susan from Design Design and Alan & Lisa from Great Arrow Graphics. And last, but not least, it was great to connect with several fellow artists who have, over the years, graciously shared with us their advice, tips, and experiences about exhibiting at Surtex, making this debut much easier than it might have been: Cheryl Phelps, Jeanette Smith, Tara Reed. Ellen Crimi-Trent, Marian Nixon, and Vela Tuohy of Little Star Soup (We didn't actually get to see Vela this year because she was busy over in Brooklyn doing this... Congratulations, Vela and John!).

Wednesday, after packing up our boxes and making a few frantic visits around the Stationery Show to check in with folks we'd like to work with, we headed out into the city for a well-deserved afternoon of play, kicked off by a really decadent lunch at Balthazar with Katy, Matt, and Tiffany from Cardstore, and dear Erika of Delphine fame.

Squished but happy... and finally relaxed... in the car on the way downtown.


Matt and Erika


Pam and Katy


Betsy and Tiffany (note that I'm still wearing my show badge... nice touch, don't you think?! ha!)

After lunch we did a little shopping and gazing in Soho, including a stop at the new Kate's Paperie and a surprise find: the Dwell Studio sample sale!


And stumbled upon this random but gorgeous door that reminds me of Alexander Girard, among others.


A little treat for our tired tootsies... fab slippers from Pearl River Trading Company. I buy these in bulk whenever I'm in NYC... so chic and so affordable!

We were away from home for 7 long days and so I save the biggest thank-you for last: to our families, especially to our hard-working and ever-supportive husbands for holding down our respective forts. We adore you!

Amy shared this photo of the beautiful sign that Tavia and Jacey made for her home-coming. I'm sure you'll find their work in our portfolio one of these days!


Now we're back, and knee-deep in the follow-up. We feel really good about the connections we made and optimistic that we'll develop some great new partnerships as a result of exhibiting at Surtex. And we're already dreaming of next year!

surtex diary, part 2

On Saturday the 16th we popped into our booth for a quick touch-up and to see how the rest of the show was coming together. As expected: full of color and a humbling wealth of artwork. It was an honor to exhibit with all these talented people.


I still don't know if our decision to forego look boards and lots of product mockups was a wise one, but we definitely got a lot of attention for the novelty of our booth design! It's not every day at Surtex that you see 5-foot high candy sticks, life-size partying penguins and a ginormous piñata.


Sunday the 17th was the first day of the show. It was a little slow, but exciting enough for us newbies. And it gave us plenty of opportunity to document ourselves, partying with our penguins!




Our home away from home and our refuge from the craziness of the show was the chic and oh-so-comfortable apartment of my sister- and brother-in-law and my darling niece. We are so grateful to them for their hospitality and generosity. They've spoiled us for future trips... it will take an awful lot of royalties to pay for accommodations as luxurious as these, especially with their spectacular views of the Hudson.



A zillion thank yous to my dear family for taking such good care of us!

surtex diary, part 1

After all the years that I've dreamed and schemed about exhibiting at Surtex—and all the months that have gone into the actual planning and preparation—it's hard to believe that it's behind us now. It was a really successful and incredibly enjoyable experience all the way around. Here are some photos and thoughts about some of the best and most memorable moments.

The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Somewhere inside this imposing edifice lies 80 square feet that we can call our own for the next 5 days.


Amy and Pam, as we arrive at the Javits to set up our booth (Friday, May 15th.)


We were surprised to find the place pretty much empty on Friday, and a little incredulous that this dowdy, dirty, bland space could be turned into an inviting and colorful wonderland of artwork within 24 hours. But it happens... you'll see the "after" in tomorrow's post.


Booth 362, home to february 13 creative! What our $3900 paid for: corner 8'x10' with 2 hard walls, furniture, signage, carpeting, cleaning, and storage, for 3 days.


The boxes that I wept for (twice... once in despair—thinking they would never reach their destination intact—and once again in joy, when we found them in pristine condition, waiting patiently for us in our booth).


Unfurling our banners. Our motto for booth decoration (and for most of this show) was "easy, cheap and beautiful." Despite much advice to the contrary, we decided not to mess with elaborate product mockups or look boards. Instead, we designed nine banners (approx. 3'x8' each) to cover our booth walls and counter, and ordered them online at Empire Banners for a cost of $675 including shipping. We hung them with a nifty little system of wooden yardsticks (inserted into top and bottom pole pockets on each banner) and s-hooks. The entire booth went up and looked...


fabulous (pow!) in less than 45 minutes. (We hadn't put up the counter wrap when this photo was taken, but you'll see it later.) It was just as easy as we had imagined (honestly, how often does that happen?) and left us plenty of time on Friday afternoon to take a little field trip.


One of our favorite NYC destinations is the roof garden at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Starting in May each year (as if they were anticipating our arrival!) it becomes the "Roof Garden Cafe and Martini Bar." Combine gorgeous weather, panoramic views of Manhattan and Central Park, a fantastic contemporary art installation, specialty cocktails, and some really first rate people watching, and you have the girls of f13 in the palm of your hand. The installation this summer ("Maelstrom" by Roxy Paine) is phenomenal. I'm not sure these photos do it justice, but you can read more about it and watch a great video of the installation at the Met's website.






After exploring all 130 x 45 feet of this gleaming, tangled forest of stainless steel, we settled down for a lovely and refreshing beverage (featuring vodka, fresh lemon juice and thyme-infused simple syrup) and toasted our "easy, cheap, and beautiful" booth. Cin Cin!

old-school social networking

So, pretty much everyone we ran into at Surtex and the Stationery Show was twittering and facebooking all over the place. I know how important all this social networking is to building awareness of our company, but I can barely keep up with email (let alone this blog)! Plus, like many in this profession, I will probably always be more charmed by a good old-fashioned piece of paper more than by anything digital. That's why I was so excited when our friends at Cardstore asked us to help them launch a great new product: personal business cards. I like to refer to them as "calling cards" because that's even more quaint and old-fangled.

These are just a few of the designs in our new collection. You can see the whole kit-and-kaboodle here. In addition to cards for personal use, we have a great selection of "mommy cards" for modern moms who want a stylish, easy way to share contact info and set up playdates.


And, for those of you who parent children of the four-legged variety, we've even turned Amy's fabulous "Good Dog" series into calling cards that you can exchange with new friends at the dog park! We have 16 of the most popular breeds now and will be adding more soon. Leave a comment here if you don't see your pooch. Send us the breed name or, better yet, email us a photo of your baby and we'll use it as the basis for our next design! (send to: gooddog[at]february13creative[dot]com)

As with all our products at Cardstore, these designs can be easily customized with your own photos and information. And, Cardstore has just introduced a new, greener paper for most of their products, including our cards. It's 100% post-consumer waste, chlorine-free processed, Green Seal Certified and manufactured entirely with wind-generated electricity. Yay!
And last but not least, order between now and July 31st and receive 15% off your first order of our calling cards. Enter code personal 15 at checkout.
see the entire february 13 creative calling card collection here.

catching up!

Hey hey! We're back from a great show in NYC!
Technical difficulties while we were away have left me playing catch-up on lots of fun news. First off... Congratulations to Roberta for her winning entry in our first-ever f13 blog contest. Her sweet name for our frog friend, Cedric, was inspired by our motto, "celebrate everyday": CED[Celebrate EveryDay]ric. How could we resist? Roberta, you can spread the celebration around when you receive your prize... our lovely little set of gift tags (2 each of 6 great designs) in a reusable case, plus a coupon offering for our new product on Cardstore.com... personal calling cards! More on those in the next post, tomorrow!

friday frog blog

All our planning and preparation for Surtex has finally gained momentum and, two short weeks from today, we'll be in NYC, setting up our booth. I feel like I have my head above water again and am happy to be back here on our blog!

This week, we sent our our first postcard to prospective licensees (and lucky friends and family). My dear friend, Cindy, at WilsonWest says our frog needs a name (that's him, above... he's on the back of our postcard, in case you haven't seen it). Cindy suggested that I post a little contest here on our blog to Name the Frog. (What a great way to find out if anyone reads this thing!)

So, here's your chance to make february 13 creative history! You could be the lucky winner of our very first contest. Submit your name ideas via a comment no later than 5/13/09 (cuz it's the 13th, and it's also our last day before flying off to NYC). We'll choose our favorite name and announce the winner on Friday the 15th.

What's in it for you, you may wonder? Well, aside from the opportunity to be our first blog contest winner (I know... as if that weren't incentive enough), we'll send you a gorgeous set of february 13 creative gift tags... 12 of them (2 each of 6 different designs) in a nifty, reusable case! I don't have a photo to show you just yet but trust me, they're delightful!

OK, now I'm just going to sit back and watch those name ideas come rolling in! :)

Happy Friday to all!
[and happy Saturday, too! ... ran into some technical issues at blogger.com last night when trying to post]