Here I am in vibrant New York City for the National Stationery Show. I love New Yorkers, they are the best! I knew I was officially back when one outdoor vendor offered to waive the $2 fee for a diet coke for a "leetle kees". I passed on his generous discount offer but it made me smile.

We primarily saw folks from the tri-state area- trains, turnpike, bridges and tunnels. I was thrilled to sign up a bunch of new subscribers to Scrapbook Retailer.

Speaking of trends, Scrapbook Retailer contributed the scrapbooking trend forecast and it was very cool to see the 6-foot tall poster of the trends next to all of the forecasts for bridal, gift, card and stationery trends.
Didn't get out of the booth much so not alot of trends to report. Today I was showing how chocolate bars can be customized as gifts. The Hot Off The Press mini file folder template and little Xyron X box generated quite a bit of interest.

I haven't gotten over there yet but from the buzz, it sounds like Accucut is doing well with it's new dies with pins for creating invitations. With the big crowd of designers and handmade invite at the designers, they seemed to have a home run.

Mrs. Grossman's has introduced a new adhesive product that picks up pet hair. A portion of the proceeds goes to a charity for seeing eye dogs. Tomorrow a.m. I interview Andrea Grossman whom I admire as an entrepreneur and a person who gives back to her community in many ways.

Anw Crestwood presented a coolly elegant booth and it just goes to show you that scrapbooking and social stationery are in the same sphere.

Paper can be a beautiful and visually stimulating product and fixtures from Display Dynamics are sleek and elegant. If you are in town for the merchandising seminar on Tuesday-  you will hear a great presentation from Bob Radcliffe. I am definitely going to work on capturing that info to share further.

Just in my own little corner of the show I saw a lot of pink, more than at CHA and texture in decorative papers and wrapping is very strong- especially velvety flocking in polka dots and damask prints. Birds aplenty with 1970's owls and japanese inspired line art prints.

Early morning call for our 8:30 interview then a seminar on Understanding the Scrapbooker with my friend Beth Williams. I promise to report more on product tomorrow.Good night!--Beth