national stationery show 2009

so we're only a few weeks late with our national stationery show recap. that's not too bad, right? okay, okay, sorry about that. let's be civil and get on with it...

here's the nice mess we made before we left for new york. whitney took a lot of time to make sure every single sample was flawless. good job.



and here they are at the javitz center putting together the walls of the booth. for some reason they seem to be ENJOYING themselves. smiles are usually never seen on set-up day. be thankful i was there to capture this rare moment. and that drill right there? pretend you don't see that. tools aren't allowed at the javitz center but we trust you won't tell on us...





kat specifically asked me to take this photo to show you all how perfectly these boxes fit into the cabinets we brought with us. aren't we just so organized? we were very proud of ourselves!



more finalization of the set up. when samples started getting hung on the walls we got super excited. it's really fun seeing everything come together in just a few hours.







check this out. we got this awesome little ladder thing to lean against one of the walls to display our new notebooks! and of course, we had to letterpress the "new" sign on the top. consistency is key.



and this is how the booth looked when it all finally came together. ah, gorgeous.



woohoo! it was a lot of fun seeing old friends and meeting new people as usual.

PCB paper show / open house

here's my favorite image from the production club of baltimore paper show we were at about a month ago:



oh, hey! we've got an open house coming up!



the details: it's happening thursday, april 20th from 6:30 - 9:30 pm. this time around, you have to RSVP to get in. please send your RSVPs to info at gilahpress dot com by april 24th. (that's only two days away!) see you there.

pulp, ink and hops 2008

the date snuck up on us so quickly, but the pulp, ink and hops trade show was almost here! it was time to get off our butts and start preparing.

maggie lent a very helpful hand and finished putting together the rest of our notebook giveaways:



and like last year, we wanted to have an open house a few weeks after the show, so i designed this poster to give away to anyone who was interested in checking out the studio and seeing a letterpress demonstration:



even if you didn't get a poster, you should definitely come if you can. it's happening thursday, november 13th from 6-9pm. we even have a band booked to play, so come check it out!

anyway, this is what the plate for the poster looked like when it was inked and ready to be printed onto the chipboard:



cool, huh?

this year's pulp, ink and hops show took place at geppi's entertainment museum near the inner harbor in downtown baltimore. since we were one of the first vendors there we nabbed a prime parking spot that made loading and unloading easy as cake! we brought up all of our stuff and started piecing together the booth. it started out like this...



and eventually turned into this:



aren't the vintage comic books behind the booth a great touch? the museum houses tons of american pop culture items. if you're ever in baltimore, make it a must-visit non-art museum.

after a fabulous show where we made lots of new friends and caught up with old ones, i managed to get someone to take a photo of us at our booth. we're wearing fangs in the first one (though mine just made my mouth look all weird. i didn't do it right...):





yay, trade shows! so good talking with everyone, as usual. hope to see you at the open house!

national stationery show 2008

three weeks ago was such a whirlwind. gilah press + design had been preparing for our third time at the national stationery show for months and it was finally time to put all of our hard work on display!

we spent hours putting together dozens of press kits. they took up more room than we thought:



these little notepads were given away at the show. they were a hit:



about two hundred catalogs were put together by hand with help from our intern maggie:



whitney's husband jacob even pitched in and built us a pair of beautiful dollies:



and then it was off to new york...

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putting up the booth was relatively painless since we had the help of our intern justin and kat's husband adam this time around (usually it's just us three girls, or just two of us):



we put up all of our cards and made sure they were positioned perfectly:



in the end our booth turned out great!



after the show we wandered around times square...



...and met up with a great pair of letterpress people from australia that we met at the show earlier.



their company, chapel press, puts out some really beautiful letterpress work. it was so cool to share funny stories about our company with them and vice versa. all the little quirks and things about the letterpress business can be really fun to discuss when the other person actually understands what you're talking about!

all in all it was a fabulous show. we had a blast running into our regular buyers while also making some great new contacts. we're looking forward to next year!

bridal event at grey rock mansion

we took part in baltimore magazine's bridal event at the grey rock mansion on sunday. here's what our booth looked like as we were closing up shop. what you can't see is kat who just happened to be hiding behind the counter as i took this photo.



and looking out from our booth into the tent.