all the paper blogs are abuzz with NSS reporting and hoopla!    for me – it was a place to make connections, get inspired, discover product and feel the excitement of opening a new business.  but it was more than that – i also was away from my 2 kids for the first time since the littlest was born (he just turned ONE on Saturday – gasp in disbelief).    one of my closest friend joined me – she is also a mother of two away for the first time.   we had a blast!

NYC: alive, big, bustling, fun!   we got to do things like ride the subway, walk for miles, shop our brains out, sleep in,  sit at the bar.   these are things that are not easy with strollers, high chairs, early-risers, nappers.  so it was pretty fabulous.

NSS:  booth upon booth of creative wonder!  colorful designs, super thick papers, laugh-out loud humor, interesting booths, friendly faces, bloggers come to life, fun kid stuff, snarky cool stuff, calenders to make you swoon,wedding invites that make you wish for a do-over (with the same man, naturally).

all in all, a successful foray back into the world of retail trade shows.

and that includes a ginormous amount of catalogs and line sheets and a seemingly impossible process of selection and elimination.  My friend, my parents and my husband all ask, “How will you possibly decide what to buy?”. darn good question.

my answer? it will be intuition broken down into methodical choices.   i’ll start by circling my favorites.  then i’ll create a grand spreadsheet (similar to Kates Merchandising Matrix – but re-tooled for stationery) with everything i love with columns for “style” “price” and “type”.   then i’ll break it down into occasion and/or recipient.  then i’ll decide what percentage of produce to devote to greeting cards, note cards, books, gifts.   then i’ll decide what percentage of cards i need for birthday, baby, wedding, etc. then i’ll make sure i have a good mix of sweet and snarky and everything in between.  then i’ll determine which wedding albums to stock.  it’s gonna take awhile to go through everything.  but as i find bits and pieces of time between naps – i will begin to report on what is making the cut.

i welcome suggestions!!