The Paper Fold

Typically I discover new stationery makers at markets, then I nerd out on them online, but with Erin Dayhaw, it’s been quite the opposite! I was laughing along with her TikTok adventures for quite some time (along with her 30K followers) before I actually met her IRL at NY NOW this past February. Because Erin seemed to understand the TikTok algorithm in a way other stationery makers do not, I initially envisioned our interview to be focused on winning insights that app. However, Erin is letting her feed go stale on the app she now describes as...

Every year in the winter issue of Stationery Trends, I compile a department called 10 Makers to Watch. Throughout the year I will be highlighting my special 10 — including my very special guest today, Carissa Potter of People I've Loved. Much like that of my other guests, this brand offers stationery and gifts, but with a radically different, deceptively simple approach. Rather than seeing her wares as yet another commodity, Carissa utilizes them to develop ourselves and our relationships. In her words, "Each is a conversation we long to have, a feeling we are hoping for, an object to do...

Stationery is this podcaster's favorite subject — but color comes in a close second! After all, color doesn't just shade our world, it elevates, deflates or defines a mood — and it can make or break any given design. If you have never heard an expert discuss how color trends are formed and evolve, get ready for a treat! I have had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Woodman of Mark Woodman Design + Color many times over the years for my publication's trend coverage — now I'm bringing his insights, garnered during a prestigious 40-plus-year career, here. In The Paper Fol...

Recently I hosted Wolf & Wren Press' Lauren and Liz, who just won the Louie Award for the Card of the Year. But there are actually two divisions of Card of the Year, $5.50 and above and $5.50 and below. Wolf & Wren took the below slot, while UWP Luxe took the above $5.50 slot with their fabulous tea-themed birthday creation that must be experienced in life to be fully appreciated.* That's because UWP Luxe is a pop-up card company, and while this market has gotten more crowded of late, UWP Luxe — as well as its sister companies Up With Paper and Ju...

In the Part 1 of our chat, Rachel took us behind the vibrant, woodblocked Heartell Press design curtain, now we delve into its ethos of sustainability, and the many challenges it poses to a stationery brand. For example, shoppers absolutely loves seeing cards printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper — but it drives up costs, and brings a bevy of creative limitations. For Rachel, action — not discussion — always brings clarity. Thus many of Heartell's introductions, like its upcycle-able boxed note boxes, successfully cut down on single-use plastics as they differentiate themselves at point of purchase. It's all in the nam...

Greeting cards have the nearly impossible task of connecting us with loved ones when we don't know what to say — so we all owe a huge debt of gratitude to makers like Rachel Kroh of Heartell Press, who have made it their life's work to help others give and get the emotional support they need. Today we travel behind the vibrant Heartell design curtain to learn what drives these irresistible, timeless woodblock designs. Rachel well understands grief, our enduring taboo against discussing grief — and even the many types of loss and change that can spark this staggering emoti...

What goes into a Louie Award-winning Card of the Year? In the case of Wolf & Wren Press, every design grows from the 30-year friendship of co-founders Liz Wolf and Lauren Stapleton. That precious connection, born in middle school, is the kind where one finishes the other's sentences ... and the other picks right up on the story! I's at the core of every design Wolf & Wren prints — including their winning pet sympathy card that from first glance honors both the love and grief of these companionships. While their cards connect and uplift those separated by emotional and physical di...

While journalers and junk journalers exist in this digital age alongside the rest of us, they crave the tactile and in-person elements of the analog world. In part 2 of my chat with Software Engineer Victoria Kirst, we take a deep dive into this non-digital community in the pages of her stationery zine Pouch and beyond. If you are unfamiliar with stationery clubs and swaps, it is positively heartwarming to learn of tools like washi tape or stickers being lovingly bartered or shared by these offline groups. Here, stationery is not a commodity but a tool for collective...

Like me, my guest today is a huge paper nerd who is the founding editor of a stationery publication. Unlike me, Victoria Kirst is also a software engineer who created her fabulous zine Pouch as an offline labor of love to share her passion for analog tools with an ever-growing community. If you haven't seen a zine in a few decades or so, prepare to be dazzled! This purely 21st-century publication truly celebrates our medium, showcasing its endless potential — as well as the seemingly endless creative ways individuals in the stationery community express their inner lives and ex...

Just because a maker isn't already a household name, that doesn't mean you're not already a big fan! You have most likely seen (many times!) and possibly even purchased the uplifting, inspiring and heartfelt greeting card designs of my guest today — and not even known it. For the past 24 years, Vicky Barone has been quietly licensing her designs behind the scenes to larger card brands like Papyrus and American Greetings. While she has stayed behind the design curtain, her thousands of cards have generated millions of dollars in products sold. Now Vicky has officially entered the stationery spotlight solo wi...

For Anna Bond, being a creative is certainly about generating jaw-dropping imagery to be presented just so on irresistible products — but creativity is also a key to enabling this CEO to navigate Rifle Paper Co. forward as both a business and a brand. In Part 2 of our chat, we discuss subtly evolving the Rifle look to keep it consistently looking fresh and new, yet true to its signature style, as time passes and tastes evolve. We also delve into navigating the larger challenges facing small businesses, such as tariffs. It's rather unsurprising that Anna often feels like she...

In 2009, freelance illustrator Anna Bond and her musician husband Nathan debuted Rifle Paper Co. to the trade in a double booth buried deep in the back aisles of the National Stationery Show. They were but one of dozens upon dozens of small (often forgotten) stationery brands showing there, but in Rifle's case, a stationery, gift and lifestyle star was born those five days in May. Rifle's dizzying trajectory into the collective American design unconscious was singularly dramatic, with Anna's signature hand-painted artwork and vibrant color palette having headlining collaborations over the years with Keds, Target and Pottery...

Don't miss Part 2 of my chat with type A über-creative Sally Diguette! In Sally's role as specialty buyer for Anthropologie, the merchandise she painstakingly sources from small, quirky makers are often where the brand's fans find the connection and community they seek as they shop. Sally honed this expertise at Atlanta's Citizen Suppy, an artisan marketplace that showcases handmade goods, clothing, and standout finds from independent makers. Sally joined the Ponce City Market venue at its inception in 2017 to build all operations — and then heralded it through COVID, finessing her skill set all the more...

This Type A über-creative wears a lot of hats, every last one of them impressive and fabulous. Sally Diguette is a specialty retail buyer for Anthropologie, tasked with buying in the stationery and related gift and home categories, as well as spearheading collaborations such as Papier x Anthropologie. But Anthropologie is also where many a small maker gets her first big break — even if it's just one greeting card on its enormous website. Not only does Sally undertake the enormous task of selecting each maker to tell certain trend stories across every inch of Anthropologie retail space (bot...

For many in our community, running a stationery brand turns out to be but a single milestone on an incredible larger journey. That's the case with Catherine Hildner of Kitty Meow Boutique, now a part of Shade Tree Greetings. Over the past several years, this dynamo — also my guest in episode 20 — not only established her own brand, she also helped create the Ultimate Product Party series of events and podcasts to empower other product-based creatives (mostly women) to bring their own visions to life. But part of being a smart entrepreneur is knowing when it's time to move...

How better to kick off January 2025 — and the eighth season of this podcast — than with a visit from this bona fide industry legend? While Susan January has been at the helm of Leanin' Tree, a mid-sized Colorado house of stationery, for over a quarter century, she has also served as president of the Greeting Card Association, from 2011 to 2013. More recently, she spearheaded a team of women from across generations to debut Willow & Ivy, a boutique brand devised solely for our times — and the women navigating them.With such an illustrious career under her stylish belt, Su...

How does what began as a pandemic pastime become the UK's first stationery B Corp? For Michele Feron of Good Tuesday, her sustainable brand came to life in 2020 on Etsy as Once Upon a Tuesday. Her then-eight-year-old daughter Flora created the name, but as this color-driven Cornwall brand grew, Michele realized a big evolution was in order.However, the rebranding paled next to becoming a B Corp. Michele shares how the transition is far more than an icon to place on one's site — it represents a dramatic change in perspective to every conceivable area of her business. Whi...

Since its premiere seven seasons ago, the Netflix reality show Love is Blind has only tightened its grasp on pop culture. According to Nielsen, Americans watcher over 1.1 billion million minutes of the most recent season of this will-they or won't-they get married show, set in Washington, D.C. — and that doesn't include infinite video discussions and gossip on social media. While those can get somewhat seamy, the season's fan favorite couple, Taylor and Garrett, put an enormous national spotlight on how stationery, correspondence and calligraphy can connect, capture and elevate a relationship, now and forever — with a little help from t...

As the economy flounders and the election cycle drags on, many makers and retailers in the stationery space are simply navigating their way through the best they can so that their businesses survive the downturn. But stationery success stories still happen! Tyler McCall and his husband and business partner Eric Campbell have been on an upward trajectory since opening their 400-square-foot shop in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago, Paper & Pencil, in May 2023.The two built the highly curated Paper & Pencil on their own terms, and when attending the New York markets for the first time in Winter 2024...

For the past quarter century, the Pantone Color Institute has grabbed headlines each December with its Color of the Year (COTY) announcement. Each selection is carefully formulated to reflect our global culture, expressing the zeitgeist through the dynamic language of color. Peek behind the curtain as I host the incredible Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. Lee generates each COTY, and also teaches color forecasting to burgeoning gurus at The Eiseman Center for Color Information & Training in Tucson, Arizona. Recognized by Fortune Magazine and The Wall Street Journal as one of the most influential p...