Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Hey there pals!

It's absolutely GORGEOUS outside today and we are super pumped for the holiday weekend. Our lovely Ms. Samantha is off on her way to Greece with her family, so I am tending to all of Gus's strange and hilarious behaviors for the next week or so... and Whit and I are holding down the fort here on Congress Street. Wanted to share some Memorial Day inspiration this afternoon to get you all excited about the long weekend, and to hopefully spark your interest and get you to come out and visit! This weekend is the official start to our extended summer hours:

Friday & Saturday 10:00 am - 8:00 pm

Sunday 10:00 am - 5:00 pm

Yippppeeeeeee for the lovely weather!

We've got all sorts of goodies to help you celebrate the weekend in style - bright blue and red Pantone Mugs for your coffee at Sunday brunch, nautical stripe and metallic star Seabags for your beach gear and pool party loot, blue and red stripey straws for a tall glass of homemade lemonade, and all the most fashionable stationery to send out to your fave hosts and hostesses once the festivities have come to a close next week (I especially love the mixed pack of Jonathan Adler notecards and the mini-postal service kits we just got in!) Such fun - right?!

I won't keep you any longer - get off those office chairs and get outside - sock up some rays for me (but be sure to wear your SPF and fab straw sunhats!) Much love and many hugs from us here at G&R, and hope to see you all soon!

XO

Lizzy

Summer Hours!

Well, y'all, it's about time we started summer weekend hours again. Woo hoo!

Starting this coming weekend, Gus & Ruby Letterpress will now be open until 8PM on Friday and Saturday evenings!

Yep - that's right - 8PM! Come see us on your way to dinner, or on your way back from a drink on the decks. We'd love to see you bright and smiling faces. Happy start of summer!

National Stationery Round-Up: the booths

We've taken the time to show you some of our favorite new products from this year's NSS and now we want to show you a few of our favorite booths! As much as Sam and I love to go to the show, we do tend to get super overwhelmed by all of the stuff to look at. We spend two and a half days strolling aisle after aisle and stopping in every booth that we've made a note to visit or that simply catches our eyes because of their beautiful set-up. Needless to say it can be a bit of visual overload! This was our third show and I think we've really mastered how to weed out the really great booths from some of the mediocre ones. If you aren't careful you can get dragged into dozens of booths just by chatting up the nice designers. And while we love to talk with fellow paper lovers, we are always on a time crunch and have to be conscious of who we spend our time talking to and buying from.

Below are some of our favorite booth designs from this year's show!

{Ink + Wit known for her minimalist, geometric designs. Love the birch walls and white lettering and silhouettes}

{Albertine Press & Carta, Inc. always share a booth and this year we were totally smitten with their soft blue walls and whimsical, hand-drawn illustrations. Shelley has some fabulous new designs that we can't wait to share with you!}

{Not surprising that Rifle Paper Co. has a stunning booth that is easy to navigate and highlights the products}

{Above: a sneak peek at 3 different calendars they are debuting for 2012. They are SO beautiful we almost can't stand it}

{Even though we ordered a ridiculous amount of boxed thank yous by the time we reached Rifle, I begged Sam to let me order the ones in the center with the bold hues and stunning foil stamp... she caved:}

{Could the Smock booth be any more colorful? They launched a handful of new patterns that will be used in their wrapping papers, boxes, greeting cards, jotters and letter sheets. To see a step by step process (in pictures) of setting up the Smock booth, click here. Photos courtesy of Smock}

All photos by Brian Tropiano Photography (unless otherwise noted) via Oh So Beautiful Paper.

National Stationery Show Round-Up: the bold & the beautiful

Hello lovelies,

As Whitney said yesterday, we are still wide-eyed and reveling in all our finds from the NSS. When I say we found some real gems, I mean GEMS. Whit and I were gaga over all the bold graphic patterns and bright, saturated colors that we saw. Check out a few of our favorite bold and beautiful new finds:

AMAZING new patterns and colors from store favorite Smock Paper. We've got boxes, NEW notepads, gift bags and wrapping paper galore coming in for the summer!


Beautiful, bright, floral coasters from Rifle Paper to dress up your party tables.

Vibrant fabric gift wrap and new stamp sets from Chewing the Cud. We can't wait to get creative with these beauties!





Perhaps the item I'm MOST excited about - Japanese washi tape from MT. I can't stop dreaming up ways to use this beautiful tape - from decorating to gift wrap to arts projects - I love it all. And, don't worry, we got a ton of colors and patterns.






Bold and graphic new hand-printed cards from Yellow Owl Workshop. I love the LCD cards - what fun to create your own message! And how awesome are the letter-writing sets? Hello pen pals!





(all photos courtesy of the respective vendors)

National Stationery Round-Up: Hilarious Greeting Cards

Samantha and I just returned from a 4-day, 3-night visit to NYC for the National Stationery Show and are so super excited about all of the new goodies we ordered for the shop! We placed huge orders with store favorites like Smock, Retro 1951, Chronicle Books and Mr. Boddington's Studio, but are most excited to introduce you to some new companies hitting G&R this summer.

Power & Light Press is a one-woman shop based out of Portland, Oregon and though her collection was small, it was 82% hilarious. These babies (and a few more) will be arriving in early July:

{images above courtesy of Power & Light Press}

Our favorite new company is Blue Barn House based out of Asheville, North Carolina. Their cards are laugh-out-loud funny. Sam and I were literally laughing our butts off in their booth. Ironically enough though, the husband and wife duo (I'm assuming they're married, but they easily could just be friends... or enemies... or frenemies) was surprisingly quiet, shy and not funny when they were meeting us and writing our order. Perhaps that is why we walked right by their booth in 2009 and 2010? Their cards definitely take our humor line to a whole new level - so much so that we're thinking we might need to create an "adult humor" category in our card bins. Keep your eyes peeled for these in late August!

{images above courtesy of Blue Barn House}

We were introduced to Lisa from Sapling Press (think "we go together like Billy Cosby and pudding pops") at last year's show and have been ordering from her ever since. She dazzled buyers this year with her newest line of greeting cards titled "dear blank" (it's been blowing up on blogs for the past few weeks) and we ordered almost evey single one! We'll be getting these in in June. Here are our faves:

{images above courtesy of Sapling Press}

Don't worry, this is just a sampling of the cards we ordered and as always we'll keep you updated here and on our Facebook page as the goodies start to arrive. Check back tomorrow as Sam will be giving you a sneak peek at some of the new products we ordered! They're ridic. For reals.

It's FRIDAYYYYYY!

Hey there friends!

So it's officially Friday - again - YIPPPEEEEEEE!

Samantha and Whitney leave on Sunday for the National Stationery Show to get more fun Spring and Summertime goodies for the shop... but we've brought it a handful of lovelies to get the season started that I think would be perfect for a trip to the market. I'm feeling inspired and hope to get to the Portsmouth Farmers Market, myself, this weekend. You should too! But come by the shop first to check out these fab accessories... because who doesn't love to look good when they go to market? :)

These new designs from Envirosax are a perfect POP! for your fresh market shopping needs. And these bags are HUGE - they hold a whopping 44 pounds of produce (or cookies. or candy. or dog treatttsss!) and they are FULLY washable!

And your puppy doggers deserve to look good too! These new collars and leads from Jonathan Adler are so fun and funky. The collars adjust to between 11 and 15" in length, and the leads are just over 5' long. Both are made of sturdy cotton canvas so they're easy to adjust and will hold up nicely over time.

So let's be serious here - get yourselves together! Come and grab up a new Make My Notebook to write out your grocery list... your shopping list.... your cleaning list... or to fill with recipes for the incredibly yummy goodies you are going to get from the market :)

I just love new goodies - don't you?! Hope this post has inspired you to clean house, and to accessorize your weekend with something new and lovely! And to visit your local farmers market. Enjoy this gorgeous Spring weather and come visit us at the shop soon!

XOXO

Lizzy