For this paper nerd, there are few pleasures in life akin to traveling to market and discovering a standout stationery brand fairly fresh out of the gate. Bromstad Printing Co. was just such a find last month at the *Noted Expo in San Francisco. That's the stationery community's annual wholesale meet-up put on by The Greeting Card Association. The …

No matter the brilliance of your offerings, hitting your brand stride takes time. For Alex Gagné of Chez Gagné, reaching her 10th anniversary is the ultimate validation — but that doesn't mean this fantastic founder is slowing down anytime soon. This LA house of design debuted a decade back with just letterpress cards, but has since evolved into a …

Record stores have a day (April 20), independent bookstores have a day (April 27), and even independent pet stores have a day (September 28). But what about the independent card and gift shop? Thanks to my incredible guest today, now they do! Kristina Burkey of Calliope Paperie in Natick, Massachusetts, is the founder of International Stationery St…

What does it mean to be a disruptor? For Lauren Miele of KushKards, it means getting people to talk about you when you are not around. And that's precisely how *I* first heard about this cannabis-tinged brand at its National Stationery Show debut in early 2020. There, KushKards distinguished itself out of the gate by winning Best New Product for it…

Every picture tells a story — unless you are Shannon Martin, of course: Her pictures tell your stories as well. Now celebrating 20 years in business, Shannon Martin Design's signature sepia creations have attained a definite ubiquity and immediate recognition. That's no easy task, and Shannon takes us behind the scenes to share how she consistently…

Like all my guests, Dominique Schurman is a paper nerd .... but one with a most distinguished stationery pedigree! In 1950, her father Marcel founded Schurman Fine Papers, which, informed by his global "treasure hunts," brought exquisite stationery artistry and bespoke paper traditions to American shelves. Meanwhile, her mother Margrit opened the f…

Can a maker make the world a better place, one gorgeous, handmade sheet of Fair Trade paper at a time? For Chisty Asper, the answer is a resounding yes — and her efforts involve so much more than simply donating a small percentage of her profits to charity. Instead, every last Paper Baristas offering is brewed to do good by careful, complicated des…

It's officially the spooky season, so I've got a triple treat! The actress Jennifer Love Hewitt drops in The Paper Fold along with the power duo that is 2021 Co. — Nicole Couto and Emily King — to talk all things Holiday Junkie. This refers of course to the ever-growing collection the three have collaborated on to celebrate the joy and magic of var…

I really like Suzy Ultman’s chutzpah … and you will too, nerds! Suzy is a lifelong and prolific illustrator, card and stationery designer, toy creator, and bookmaker. The simultaneously sophisticated and simple objects that she brings to offbeat life delight young and old alike. Really, every last one of her playful creations — and even her much-lo…

Where does stellar design begin and end? I used to think I knew the answer, but witnessing the ascension of Girl w/Knife, I've found myself rethinking that. Over the last several years, Elicia Castaldi has sliced not just a singular path through stationery, but home décor and even home design as well. Her stylish wake reveals that rewriting the rul…

This month's dynamo guest is a trailblazer in countless senses of the word. Mary Engelbreit debuted at National Stationery Show in 1983 with just a dozen card designs and a decidedly under-decorated booth — but neither that quantity or the booth mattered. Mary paired her distinctive illustrations with clever messaging that transported viewers to an…

The sixth season of The Paper Fold kicks off on a new network — Evergreen — and a slightly different format, but just this once. Instead of focusing on stationery within commerce, I am examining instead stationery within activism, with an admittedly personal bent. When he was just 14, my nephew Sam Schwartz lost his first cousin, Alex Schachter, at…

Stop what you are doing this instant, Nerds, and listen up to the newly crowned, Louie Award-winning Writer of the Year! Alyson O'Connor is one half of the decade-old Rust Belt Love Paperie (RBL) team — husband Nick is the other half — but she shapes our stationery community in a big way, all on her own. RBL's greeting cards spotlight the centuries…

Paper nerds, here's the second part of my interview with this one-of-a-kind stationery innovator and disrupter! @emilyonlife and I kick off discussing The Long Table Collective. The collective provides invaluable mentoring for Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian artists & creative entrepreneurs as it attempts to even out the design playing field. …

A decade ago, Emily McDowell of Emily McDowell Studio sparked a greeting card revolution and evolution with the release of her Empathy Collection. Her card reading, "There is no good card for this" was both an acknowledgment that the market didn't reflect real life, and a challenge to makers to begin doing just that. Emily's self-named stationery b…

For this extra-special episode, my Paper Planes Cocktail Hour Podcast co-host and I decided to try something different. For decades now, Amy Loewenberg and I passed like stationery ships in the night, walking the same shows and stationery shops. Ironically, we never really got acquainted until lockdown in 2020 — that's when we developed and startin…

True progress may occur only at the macro level, but it begins on the micro level. Just ask Sadie Teper, founder of the feminist stationery and gift brand Twentysome Design. Her hand-lettered range draws big laughs as it voices our often unspoken thoughts — just ask her craft fair patrons, or the stores across the country that stock her. But beneat…

It's tough getting any stationery brand off the ground, but one that goes an entirely new direction is a real challenge. Just ask Sharon Glassman of Smile Songs. This Brooklyn fashion writer turned Colorado songwriter actually came to stationery circuitously — as she was envisioning a way for her listeners to access her anytime, she actually was pl…

What is success exactly? That is the question Kristen Ley began asking herself following the meteoric rise of her paper and gift brand Thimblepress. Taking her creations from Etsy shop to Target shelves in a few short years was a dream come true, but at what cost? Caught up in a mindset of "hurry rush do," Kristen became scattered. "I was spinning …

Most of today's young stationery makers grew up swooning over our medium, but Libby Llanso of Seedlings literally grew up working in our trade. As the daughter of Legacy Publishing Group's Cathy and Carlos Llanso, her childhood was filled with packing orders, attending various markets and helping her mom select art for the next year's release. But …

If you ever wanted to put your truth out there and hesitated due to the response you feared you’d get, hesitate no longer. Just ask Jocelyn + Roland Kirouac of Ümlaut Brooklyn. Although this range has a reputation for having the proverbial potty mouth, their product actually doesn't contain a lot of profanity. What it does have, however, is the cou…

If you've ever felt creatively restricted by your corporate job, move over! Brittany O’Brien of Brittany Paige Designs feels your pain, but better yet, she acted on it. She launched her namesake brand in 2017 with six greeting cards — all concerning break-ups — and although the release was small, it proved to be incredibly powerful. With it, Britta…

Do you want to unleash that creative powerhouse that resides within you? Then you absolutely cannot miss my chat with Stacie Bloomfield. This design dynamo was just named a 2022 40 Under 40 Honoree by Stationery Trends and Gift Shop Plus magazines, and it will become pretty apparent, pretty quickly, why I gave her a perfect score when I judged the …

Hold onto your undated planners everyone, Rosanna is here, and my, does she have a lot to spill! When I last checked in with her, pre-pandemic, the founder of this letterpress brand and Los Angeles shop had just lost her husband and co-founder Joel to brain cancer, leaving their 18-month-old daughter Judith behind as well. Our stationery community …

We all know that a life lived in letters is a far richer one, but what about the letter itself? Former university vice president, professor, policy advisor, attorney and poet Wendy Hind tackled this question, and you may be surprised at the results. The mission of her Tiny Poetry Project is to give, not receive, so for her poems printed on plantabl…

Every last woman stationery maker you see today is building her brand upon the shoulders of the women who forged their paths before them — and the younger generation may not even know it. Bonnie Marcus has been a prominent figure in the stationery and gift industry for 20 years, counting celebrities like Cindy Crawford and Kathryn Heigl among her c…

So, you think you can write a clever card, the kind that makes you laugh uncontrollably and that you just HAVE to send your friend, who will totally get it? Maybe you should think again — it's not nearly as easy as it looks. Just ask Michelle of 417 Press, who has been letterpressing her signature blend of wit and wisdom since 2015. The graphic des…

If you can make it in NYC, you can make it anywhere ... and that truism definitely applies to The Lobster Studio. This brand first came to life organically, as a hand-drawn, homemade Valentine from Ken Crossland to his wife Rachel Lauren James. It depicted the tails of the cats in their newly blended households forming a heart. That one card became…

Like many stationery brands, Tiny and Snail is a family operation. Sisters Leah Nixon & Grace Nixon Peterson launched this brand in 2017, with both designing their initial 13-card signature collection, paint stroke by keystroke. But everything flipped upside down in an instant when Leah, AKA Tiny, was crushed under a telehandler at her day job, bui…

Letterpress is to stationery what couture is to clothes. In capable hands, this printing process, which literally took us out of the dark ages, transforms cotton paper into bespoke missives that effortlessly elevate whatever message they convey. But the craft requires a savvy blend of experience and instinct; it's said letterpress takes 10 minutes …

Every maker has a great backstory, but for Lana Effron of Lana's Shop, the juggle is real. For a decade now, this Colorado artist and mom has been creating paintings of "love and kindness" for her upscale stationery range. While capturing the sweeter side of life and the stillness of nature comes organically to her, finding a path to balance raisin…

You probably didn't know it, but the letter-writing resource for the 21st century just dropped. Meet How to Write a Letter: Find the Right Words for Every Occasion, the newest entry in Penguin Random House's über-polished How To series. Co-author Chelsea Shukov visits The Paper Fold to show you how not to just add polish to your correspondence, but…

Many of us talk for our dog, but for Kate Smith, voicing the thoughts of her French Bulldog Frank became the essence of her wildly popular From Frank range of greeting cards and gifts. She introduced it in 2012, and very quickly she had 11 licensing partnerships, including one with Recycled Greetings, who placed some cards in Target's vaunted card …

I often talk about makers who run their businesses with key support or partnerships with relatives, but for Keli Spanier of Colette Paperie, her Mom nurtured her business in a completely different way. While Keli was caring for her Mom as she was battling cancer, Keli saw the cards her Mom was receiving and realized she could do a lot better. Why s…

Stationery businesses are uniquely suited to the family operation. Over the years, I've become acquainted with brands comprised of mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, several generations, and, in the case of ilootpaperie, sisters. The lovely & talented design duo that is Alice and Doris Lieu launched their pun-a-rific brand in 2010, and thes…

If you think you know stationery, stand the F back, because my guest today will turn all that on its ear. Victoria Venturi has been raising eyebrows since 2014, when Paper Epiphanies was born in 30 square feet of her LA apartment. At that time, people were shocked to see swear words exquisitely letterpressed onto greeting cards — but over time it b…

Chances are, you are already smitten with Molly Hatch's work, you may just not know it. Over the past decade or so, the charming wares of this prolific potter have graced over 500 home and gift items created exclusively for Anthropologie. As a result, her distinctive brand — defined by the tagline 'modern heirlooms with everyday charm' —has receive…

So, you've created an amazing product, but if you've ever wrestled with how to style it, you should have a quick word with my guest today. Erika Firm describes herself as an "artist, surface designer, graphic designer, brand builder, magazine hoarder, kitty squisher, wife, and mother," but that doesn't begin to scratch the broad scope of her experi…

Succeeding as a small stationery maker is not easy, but over the last eleven years or so, Lindsay Henry has definitely made it appear that way! She founded Inklings Paperie with the understanding that the bests moments in life happen offscreen, and her tactile, tangible keepsakes surprise and delight as they celebrate life with those we cherish. As…

Creatives have traditionally been told to avoid working with animals and children, but apparently family photographer Sarah Sloboda never heard that! For over 25 years, she has been capturing moments and relationships and distilling them into photographs for posterity. Mary Ellen Mark described her work as "very joyous," but what goes into preservi…

Lucia Saisse of Lucy Loves Paper is living the stationery version of the American dream. The Rio do Janeiro native opened her Etsy shop in 2013 after her corporate graphic design job went South. Lucia's first personalized offering was wedding invitations bearing the couple's faces, but it was her charming custom portraits that distinguished her tal…

A brand doesn't always evolve in a straight line. Just ask Emma James and Bailey Rivera, co-founders of Antiquaria. Over the last decade or so, these two stationery It Girls have maneuvered their brand down a path that from the outside may have appeared somewhat circuitous — but each step was as carefully considered as the charming calligraphy curl…

Stationery is filled with makers who have taken a risk and started their own brands. Catherine Hildner launched Kitty Meow Boutique with the idea that every glam offering she puts out into the world, be it card, coaster or pencil, should make others feel special. Divided into witty and sweet offerings, the look is posh and the vibe is smart in ever…

If you create any conceivable item using paper, and are not yet taking advantage of Parse & Parcel, you're not accessing the "super power of print design." For years now, Jill DiNicolantonio has worked with clients to elevate creations from acceptable to awesome at Millcraft, a paper merchant not unlike Dunder Mifflin — except instead of being in S…

If you're anything like me, most of your visual stimulation these days is limited to your house, your neighborhood and whatever it is you're looking at on various screens. Hopefully Instagram figures in there somewhere, but if you are not following @amy.atnynow, the riveting feed of my guest today, Amy Loewenberg, Relations & Partnership Developmen…

For every Mary Engelbreit or Anna Bond, there are hundreds of smaller makers who are not only sustaining themselves by staying small, but wearing it as a badge of honor — no household name required. Joanna Alberti of PhiloSophie's got a huge boost early in her career, in 2005, when she was named one of Business Week's Top Five Entrepreneurs Under 2…

Most retailers have had a difficult 2020, but for Suzanne Loesch, owner of Mockingbird Paperie in Ithaca, New York, her summer of 2019 featured a terrifying, headline-grabbing troll attack that plunged her life and business into a waking nightmare. It all began when a customer took a photograph of a few of Suzanne's greeting card offerings, a serie…

While you may not immediately recognize the name of my guest today — Leslie Moak Murray — you've likely laughed at her cartoons. Leslie is the creator of Murray's Law, and over the past several decades, her award-winning and prolific body of work has appeared on cards, napkins, note pads, paper plates, newspapers, books — really, anywhere cartoons …

Every once in a while, a card maker comes along who strikes a cultural chord at exactly the moment it needs to be struck. If I'm lucky enough to spot the range early on, sitting back and watching the world fall in love with it is truly a wonder to behold. I saw this when Emily McDowell and her magnificent empathy cards came on the scene several yea…

Closing a store is incredibly painful, but my guest today, Liz Scott, is here to share that that difficult decision may just be a badge of honor in disguise. Liz was the proud proprietress of the paper & gift shop Lovely Somethings in Bath, Ohio, for several years before closing its doors at the end of 2019. But, her industry story doesn't end ther…