Another setback: we put the camper on our well house access road - all good, right? Nope. Our shared well started having major issues that summer. We had a new pump installed, but were told that they needed to repair the piping and the camper had to move to do that. So, by the day we were supposed to, one of my brothers was kind enough to haul the camper out to our parking area to provide access to the well house.

As we didn't think the camper would be there for long, we didn't worry about getting it exactly level or anything. That was a mistake! Time passed, the well people didn't come. We got a new vehicle and this is how our house looked.. for months!

I did continue moving forward with projects. Pretty lights, check!

Paper straws onto the pegboard, check!

But, uh, there was still a lot left to do! Note the ceiling lights in this photo. Those are one of the only original items left in the camper (besides window handles and skylight trim). I don't think I have a photo of the glass, but it's a pretty, decorative 'globe' that I was happy to keep.

As the weeks passed, I realized I couldn't wait for the camper to get back in its proper place before tackling organizational projects. I was happy to repurpose some wire racks into much more usable and durable storage by zip tying them together.

Voila! Vertical storage for my gift wrapping paper rolls!

A little night painting of an old Ikea chair that was torn up by our cat in a custom-made color.. I'm glad I didn't invest a lot in a studio chair as I hardly EVER design out there.

And here we are! This is a good approximation of what the camper looks like now. No more paper straws and lots of stationery sets nowadays, but this is pretty much it.

And here is that unfinished window trim I mentioned, plus the chair oomphing up the wall color a bit. You can also tell that it can get pretttttttty chilly out in the camper, despite my efforts at insulating. I now have a wifi heater that I can (usually) turn on before heading out. In the winter that means I wait for it to get to 45 degrees instead of 32 before I sit down to prep orders. Brrrrrr!!!

This is winter 2020-2021. Did I mention that it gets cold!?

But, wait! We're not done! Did I say the camper was in our parking area for months? I meant A YEAR. UGH. However, I used the time wisely. My neighbor had complained about seeing the camper through the woods. I always thought it was pretty cute, but that didn't mean I didn't have dreams about how to make it cuter. So, while it sat easily accessible in the parking area, in summer 2021, it got an exterior makeover!

Goodbye, Terry!

Hello, primer!

I believe I used Sherwin Williams' Pro Industrial Pro-Cryl primer that helps inhibit rust and is a good base for marine paints.

Gettin' there! And, yes, I couldn't resist a fun pop of color! I used a glossy spray paint on the door, but on the camper exterior, I think I used Sherwin Williams' Pro-Line 1000 Deluxe Marine Enamel. I did not want to have to paint it again! I listened to many, many hours of the Outlander series audiobooks while painting this thing!!

And there is it! All finished on the outside, too! Fall 2021

And after over a year in our parking area, in the late fall of 2021, my pretty camper went back to its home on the access road - all tucked in the fall foliage in a pretty, camouflaged way. It only took almost three years!

A view from 2023, making use of that wheel well for our greeting cards, notepads, and letter writing sets!

And a few projects getting wrapped up like giving the back corner of this steel CB2 table a leg over the short wheel well. Note the wire racks with packing materials underneath the table, above the wheel well. Gotta use every nook you can in a small space!

As we sold out of our paper straws, I moved some of my crafting supplies out to the camper. These rainbow-arranged spools of thread on pegboard make me very happy!

There continue to be not-so-fun surprises every once in a while. There's a bit of water damage near the front skylight and I just can't seem to fix the leak. For now, I have a tarp over that skylight and a plan to try again... sometime!

However, in the meantime, I get to enjoy tucked in the woods, having birds and deer pass by my windows. And, let's be honest, spiders and hornets too.

I also am only ~100' away from my house, so I get cute visitors like this popping by to see what I'm working on and to try to build forts in my studio.

It can get messy, it can get leaky, it can be hot and it can be very cold, but I don't pay rent, I don't have to commute, and I have a cute space to run my business from.

A few unseen projects and notes: double piggy-backing wifi extenders to get internet out here.. which can be inconsistent given the metal siding. The flooring has gotten some gaps length-wise with the expansion and contraction due to temperature. Boo! I hope to someday make a 'skirt' for the camper that may help keep it warmer in the winter. Maybe I'll get AC figured out someday and the leaky bit at the front. I still have not put the metal cover on the outside vent.. it faces the bank and 'out of sight, out of mind'! I did, however, finally finish up the hinges at the wheel well and front window trim in early 2023, yay!

Lots of storage for washi tape (all those white boxes on the shelves), flat wrapping paper sheets in the cardboard boxes and in the large tubes, rolled wrap in the wire rack behind the shelves, re-used shipping paper/bubbles and boxes on and by the shelves, stickers and paperboard boxes on the pegboard, envelopes galore. There is a lot of beve magic packed into 125 square feet of vintage camper studio! It may not be the prettiest, tidiest, most-efficient studio out there, but it's cute and it works!

Thanks for following the journey from this to that!

And now, back to work in my little vintage camper studio in the woods!

It's a very light blue-green. And now that the walls are painted, all sorts of things can happen! Here, I got the screens stapled in (so I could open the windows and let the breeze in!). You can see that I also was getting the floor insulation laid out.

Chop, chop! Time to slice up the trim for the windows!

Spray, spray! What an easy upgrade! I also sprayed the bases of the light fixtures and the AC cover.

And, voila! This is pretty representative of the wall color, too. Just a hint!

And now to the floors! Side note: most photos show daytime camper work, but there was definitely some night work as well! I went with an interlocking peel and stick vinyl wood-look floor. This is very thin, so I didn't lose any height, but it also interlocks to create a waterproof barrier. Seemed like a good fit, wasn't inexpensive but not crazy either, and gave the camper a lovely studio feel :)

My helpers :) Note how clean it looks in there... well...

That's just because everything was squished on the other side! Once I had some of the flooring in, I had to move everything else out onto the finished floor. Still - progress! We're in to late summer 2020 at this point.

Ah, nice! Getting closer! The slice and snap of these "boards" is so satisfying!

We've got some trim for the wheel well boxes, mini baseboard, and 90 degree edging for the front window that sits in from the wall. I'll admit here that the edging at the front window and the hinges on the long wheel well (that requires access to the power cable, so the top needs to be able to flip up) did not get finished until the summer of 2023! One of those reasons I didn't post my completed photos -- because it wasn't completed!

And we're to the reallllllly fun part! Floral vinyl decals!!

 I got all fancy and made a video, too. Just added sound in... 2024!

I was very happy with how the decals turned out! Much less expensive than doing wallpaper as I'd originally thought. I will say that with the temperature variances in the camper, they do sometimes partially peel off. I stick them back up and burnish them a bit and they stay put for a while. I probably need to add some tacky spray to a few of them..... someday!

So, that's just about done with the big things - but I'll do one more post to wrap everything up as the camper's adventures did not end with the summer of 2020.

✨ Imagine you're back in the pre-masking era of summer to fall of 2019 ✨

So, at this point, we'd fixed some of the framing at the rear, but most of the original interior still looked like this:

Time to buy some luan! Luan is that thin wood veneer that old, 1970s style hollow doors are made of. It seemed like an inexpensive-, durable-, and flexible-enough option for our needs.

On to cutting! (Note my son covering his ears in the background. Cute!)

At some point in this process, I tried out the electricity which HAD worked before demo. Alas, even though I'd purchased new switches and plates and had tried to connect them, they did not work. I ended up calling in an electrician that had done some work in our home and he got everything wired and ready to go.

You can see the little groove I had to cut into the floor to keep wiring flush from where it'd gone to an appliance. 

 I also built frames around the wheel wells and attempted to insulate those.

 The ceiling was a pain - and it ended up being a bit wonky in places. You can see on the walls where we used 3/4" adhesive wood veneer at the seams of the luan boards. This had to be ironed on. Ironing this on the ceiling seams was especially not fun (having grown up watching Home Alone!).

Progress, right?! But what about that one dark wall??

Oh, HELLO THERE PEGBOARD! Swoon! I know I'm not the only one who loves pegboard! We put wood behind it in areas to bump it out enough for hooks to catch behind the wall.

Now, full disclosure: at some point post most luan and pre-pegboard, the camper sat idle for a good four to six months. I had fallen hard for presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg in the spring and, by fall 2019, I was heading up Virginia's (giant!) fifth congressional district in the grassroots Virginia For Pete group. So, instead of working on the camper, I was out getting hundreds of signatures to get him on the ballot in Virginia, coordinating volunteers to do the same (we got THOUSANDS more than were required!), hosting Pete Ups and debate watch parties, going to democratic committee meetings to speak about him, and more. I'll probably do a post on it sometime and will then link it here. March 2020 was a tough month with Pete bowing out of the race and Covid hitting hard. My son had *just* bumped up to being at "preschool" two days a week + one day with Grandbob when he and my daughter were home again, full-time. We were incredibly lucky that I already worked from home and we had enough space that the kids could still get outside and play safely. We essentially started summer break early. And with being stuck at home came more time to finally finish the camper and stop paying rent for my studio/storage space (and, bonus: not have to go out during a pandemic to get orders together!).

First order of business: dealing with pesky leaks!

Time to fix up the roof! This is where the vent was in the bathroom, near the back of the camper. But there were also leaks around some of the skylights that we had to patch up too - just not as extensive of patches. And we had thought we were done with butyl tape!

There we go - aluminum plate plus Eternabond tape on a freshly cleaned roof.

We taped up a few other areas and coated the roof with Henry Dura-Brite Roof Coating.

Oh no! Pooled water and a tiny bump in the tape. Back at it to seal it up better!

And then, at last, it was time to prime!

Hm, decisions, decisions!

 Check back in to see which was the winner!

After discovering extensive water damage at the rear of the camper and lots of leaks at windows and lights, we removed, cleaned, re-installed, and re-sealed the front and back trim, all windows, and all lights. Whew! This process has made our renovation take much longer than we'd originally anticipated, but it wouldn't have made sense to make the inside nice and pretty only to get leaked on, right?

We started by removing the metal trim at the rear edges (the J-rail). The vertical-to-curved-area near the top got disconnected and cleaned, but the top horizontal edge remained attached.

We then cleaned the old butyl tape off with metal putty knives and a wire brush, at times using a metal brush attachment on our drill.

On the trim, I used steel wool, the putty knife, and wire brush again to get every last bit of butyl I could off.

Most of the butyl tape on the camper came off easily as it was probably from 1974; only the front window had new butyl tape on it which was a nightmare to remove. 

After the trim and the camper were cleaned of most butyl tape and caulk residue (psst! Lots of research said DO NOT USE CAULK, so we didn't), we cleaned each area with rubbing alcohol to ensure a good bond. We applied new butyl tape to the trim and, for the vertical edges of J-rail and for a few window areas, we did two layers of tape to account for the ridges in the siding. After these were applied, we rescrewed the trim onto the camper.

We then sliced off the excess tape that squeezed out using a utility blade, wiped the area with rubbing alcohol again, and then used special RV sealant to seal up the seams. We did the same for all windows and lights. Also! I found some pin holes in one spot of the rear that we sealed up from inside. 

As we'd had to reframe the back of the camper, there were a number of places that the screws didn't catch any wood, so we used wooden shims and chunks of leftover 2x2 on the inside so that the screws really pulled tight.

Instead of using the caulk gun to put the sealant on, I ended up just applying it with my finger, allowing for a lot more control overall. By no means does this mean that it's a perfect and pretty job.. I made sure to get a kind of sealant I could paint over and clear so I didn't have to worry too much about it in the meantime. It's sealed and I'm satisfied! Also, fyi, vinegar works well to get the sealant off your skin. It's not recommended to have direct skin contact though.. oops! 

We also discovered that the front bay window cover can slide off, so now I don't have to worry about that blocking my view or getting bent by heavy snow, etc. It'll be stored under the camper. (Photo is pre-sealant)

We also discovered some vent areas on the roof were leaking despite being told that the roof had been re-sealed a few months ago. Looking closely, it appears that there are just some cracks that water was pooling at and getting in. For the meantime, I just filled these with our sealant and will plan to do the big, daunting re-sealing-the-roof task at some other time that I'm not thinking of now because I still have so much to do! :P 

Phew! Now we can pick up where we were supposed to be back in March or something! Considering the posts and Youtube videos mentioning not working on their camper for months at a time, I feel like we're doing alright. However, I'm hoping things will go much faster from here on out - wish me luck!

By the way, we used:

7 rolls of butyl tape (30' rolls)

3 tubes of Geocel Pro Flex RV Sealant

200 new square head screws (at lower J-rail)

100 new hex head screws (at windows and upper J-rail)

You know how I was calling this process 'deconstruction' before? Well, that went out the window! I had hoped to salvage the walls and certainly the ceiling, but upon tearing out the rest of the cabinets, interior walls, and bathroom fixtures, we realized that we were going to need to replace the paneling on the walls and ceiling. And once we opened those up, we found numerous small leaks around the windows, and significant water damage at the back where the camper juts out a bit. The framing literally disintegrated when I touched the wood. This means we'll be re-framing the rear of the camper AND detaching and redoing the corner j-rail and all windows and lights to avoid future leaks. A LOT more work than I'd hoped for, but I went into this knowing this sort of thing was a possibility. So, let's take a peek at the demolition!

My father-in-law was a huge help in the major demolition. It's not really fair that I can hammer and pry and tug to no avail and he can give something a good whack and it'll come off. And I'm not wimpy, either! Oh well! I'm very grateful for his assistance! 

We thought we'd finished most of the demo here..

Till we found...

And, even worse...

There used to be wood in that corner! These leaks and damage meant that the walls, ceiling and back framing got demolitioned too. (You may notice we kept one wall intact which will get... something really exciting on it :) )

We ended up taking three big trailers full to the dump and a trip to the scrap metal recycling center ($30, not bad!). That demo equated to a lot of time of these kids mucking around outside and, sometimes, amusing themselves in the vehicle.. which is why my console now has green pen scribbles all over it. Sigh.

Once we finally got everything cleared out, it was time to get my camper up my .2 mile driveway - and around the hairpin turn on it. MANY thanks to my dad and (remaining) brothers for helping with this. As I've said, this is definitely a family affair.

We were relieved that it made it up so easily! With a little road prep, we ended up not having to winch it around the tight curve. Yay!

I had originally planned to put the camper down my steep "yard," but reconsidered right before the move and, instead, put it on a little pull-off from our parking area.

We got it level and raised it enough so the wheels are off the ground using various-sized solid and core cinderblocks ($60 for 16pcs) to stabilize the camper. In the coming months, I'll get a fabric "skirt" to wrap around the bottom, protecting the tires from dry rot and to helping insulate the camper in winter. 

This location isn't as picturesque - inside or out. Outside: the camper is more visible from our house, from the driveway, and to the neighbors. Inside: it also doesn't look out into the woods from that lovely bay of windows in the front. However, I'll be able to pull electricity from the well house it sits beside, I won't have to walk as far to get to it (through tall grass.. or have to create a path through the tall grass), and it's now positioned so I can look out on the playground that my kids are really getting good use out of these days. It also was a heck of a lot easier to get in there and should be much easier to get out when/if we move. So, it was the practical option. 

As I've said, this has been a family affair and I'm so thankful for all the help I've received and I'm so looking forward to showing everyone how awesome beve headquarters looks once it's done - and to save money on rent - and get more work done more easily!! :D

Next up: the rebuild begins! 

Alrighty! We've made some significant progress on our vintage camper studio project. I had originally been saying "demolition," but after getting in there and working, I think it's more accurate to call it a "deconstruction." The reason is I'm trying to keep the linoleum floor and the walls as intact as possible so that I don't have to do replace them. I'm hoping to put new flooring right over top of the existing linoleum and to simply paint over the walls and ceiling.. and *hopefully* wallpaper my desk area.

You can see how the studio are is looking without the dinette set in there:

 I also did a big load of Goodwill donations of all the appliances and items that conveyed with the camper. They would have been handy if we were camping in it, but, alas, they were of no use to me. Hopefully they'll find good new homes :)

At this point, I hadn't gotten the upper beds (over the dinette and over the twin beds) out.. they're pretty heavy and have the lights on the bottom. I'd essentially gotten everything that didn't have gas, water pipes, or electricity going through it.

Our drill battery charger was also misbehaving, so I took out like 50-75 screws manually. That was fun! Timing demo/decon has been tricky with the kids (21m and 5.5y) as I haven't been able to have Chris (my husband) help me much since he's watching the kids while I'm working on it. Currently, it's at the end of our .2 mile driveway - so it's a bit of a trek. And as luck would have it, our wifi baby monitor is not working right now (my son hit the reset button and it's been out of commission since!), so I can't even zip down there to get a bit done while he's napping. I'm looking forward to making more progress and getting it up to our house so we can start putting it back together! 

For years, even before beve "hq" moved out of our home, I have thought about other possibilities for its location. One of my brother's rentals? A shipping container? Nothing seemed to fit my needs or my budget. I finally rented two small rooms about ten miles away when we were trying for our second child and needed our third bedroom. I don't know why it took so long to realize, but a camper is a wonderful solution for beve's studio and storage needs.

I'm so excited that after nearly two and a half years of trekking to and from "bhq," we are moving back home!! It has been great to have somewhere separate from home to go and work; but with naps, pre-school drop offs and pick ups in the opposite direction, and my issues time management (always having to race off to pick someone up, etc, as soon as something is complete leaving no time to tidy or optimize), it is definitely a good thing to bring our inventory a little closer to home. As alluded to in my last blog post, this is the move, "to make life a bit easier and more efficient, and, hopefully, more creative."

I started checking out Craigslist and, of course, started a Pinterest board (be warned: my boards are not particularly organized). I found the gorgeous camper above quickly. I was smitten! Next step, I had one of my brothers over to help assess if we could actually GET the camper to our house and where we could put it. My driveway is two tenths of a mile long and has a hairpin turn that the 25' moving truck has serious issue with when we moved in way back when. Michael T. gave me the go-ahead for up to 30', acknowledging that we'd likely need a tractor to pull it up and need to winch the rear axles against a tree to get it around the curb. He sounded up for the challenge and even a little excited, so that should be an adventure!! We'll also need to be careful when towing it down our "yard"/field/hill so we don't damage our drain field. Being who I am, I'd even mocked up what the camper would look like painted and in place to see if it was going to be an eyesore or overpowering, etc. Pretty cute!

Sadly, the very night the length was approved, I got an e-mail it had sold. Sigh. So, back to Craigslist and searching from Deleware to Tennessee to South Carolina for that perfect camper. 

I kept my eye out for 25-30' pull-behind campers, primarily looking for 1970s campers as they often seemed to have a bay of windows at one end that would be perfect for a studio area.

They also often have linoleum throughout which could have new flooring applied over it instead of tearing any old stuff up (especially carpet, yuck!) - score! They also were more likely to be in my price range. I came across a few possibilities, even a cute local camper, but the best one was about two hours away and seemed to be in really good condition for its age.

Unfortunately, I'd be tearing out a lot of the parts that were still working well, but - it is what it is. I got the feeling that the owner had taken really good care of the camper over the years which appears to be the case. Good job, gut! I also got an idea on pricing prior to my making the trek out to see it. I wanted the entire camper and renovations to cost less than a full year's rent in my current space. So, after a year, I should be making money on this move. Sweet! After the holidays, I orchestrated a trip to see it with the intent to purchase. I'll say here that this purchase and renovation has been and will continue to be a family effort and I'm so appreciative! One of my sisters went with me with her big truck and she towed the 25', 7000lb. camper like it was nothing. Go, Catherine! Here we are looking at it at the pick up location:

We parked it at the bottom of my long driveway for now as getting the demo'ed materials out and to the nearby landfill will be much easier from here than when it's in place - and it'll be lighter for towing up our driveway post-demo. Let's hope it warms up a bit soon so we can get in there and get to work!

Want to see inside? Feel free to take a peek in the video below!

Stay tuned to see the renovation process!

Something I didn't mention in my January 2018 blog post, A Millennial Mom's Mantra: Pretty Doesn't Have to be Perfect, is that in August of 2017, my little brother was murdered. While I type this and try to find the right words to share, my twenty month old son is causing a fuss trying to get a paper to draw on off of my desk - a paper that happens to be something my five year old daughter drew, so I'm trying to entice him to use another piece of paper instead. That kind of epitomizes last year - trying to wrap my head around what happened - and deal with its consequences - while also dealing with every day life (which for me includes being what I've been calling a 'full-time mom and part-time business owner'). It's been tough. And the fallout from such an sad and unnecessary event has been pretty awful. Lots of consequences. Some of which were unwritten blog posts and un-shared product posts. You can see how these were pretty easy to let go, considering.

You can see a bit more about what happened here.

After the 2016 election, I, like many others, became more politically involved, including launching our kick ass Pussyhat Washi Tape that donates 25% of proceeds to Ignite National, helping get more young women into political office so we can have equal representation in our government. Since my brother's murder, I've also gotten involved with my local Moms Demand Action group, advocating for gun sense in America. This is a really great, non-partisan group for "mothers and others" and I highly recommend you checking your local area for a group. If not for the guns allowed in his home, my brother would be alive. He may have been injured, but he'd still be here. I believe that the opportunity for violence - deadly violence - that guns provide is simply too high. They do not need to proliferate our society the way they currently do. I've found it helpful to do something to try to prevent unnecessary tragedies like my family's. I'll likely share more on this important issue and now you'll have a better understanding as to why.

Something that made 2018 extra fun (sarcasm) was being asked how beve was doing. Well, considering that I had a baby in April, lost my brother in August and was still dealing with the many practical ramifications from that in addition to the emotional ones well into the next year, 2017 was a bust for beve. Sometimes I feel like I'm using what happened as an excuse.. but I try to remind myself of what my grief therapist said about 'excuses' versus 'explanations.' In explanation, 2018 was about surviving - keeping beve going at least till my youngest is in pre-school... or school - we aren't sure yet. Hopefully beve will continue long after that too, but that time frame is my primary objective. That has been what kept me shipping orders, if not reaching out to all of the great independent shops we've worked with over the last nearly seven years. 

With the New Year comes articles about increasing productivity. Apparently, I need to get more sleep, drink more water, and to try not to multi-task. Well, I'll work on the first two. As for the latter, I have to chalk 2019 up to another year of accepting that while most small business speakers advocate uninterrupted focus and strict business hours where you're not available to call your sister or do laundry, that having the flexibility to do those things and take care of my kids while bringing in some income is why I chose to do beve in the first place. Yes, it's messy and stressful to multitask momming and running a business and makes for 'being a Jill of all trades and master of none,' and I'm sure that increased focus would - and will - help beve grow. But for now, I'm going to be okay with still surviving and doing what I can to help beve grow when I can*. I'll take the fact that 2018 was the first year beve's sales have grown instead of declined since 2014 as encouragement that surviving is possible and that I can do this.

It's 2019. I'm going to keep shipping your orders. Going to keep teaching my daughter how to read and my son how to speak. It's going to be a summer full of potty training for me - fun (sarcasm). I'm going to keep doing laundry while checking my e-mails and keep visiting my family members during 'business hours' when that's when works. I'm going to keep talking about my brother, trying to ingrain the few memories my daughter has of him in her forever, to attend Moms Demand Action events endeavoring to keep what happened to him from happening to others; I'm going to keep him close. I'm going to try to go to bed earlier and drink more water and take more dance breaks with my kids. I've also got some projects in the works to make life a bit easier and more efficient, and, hopefully, more creative. I'm planning on keeping you posted on those - wish me better luck with that this year!

*I do feel compelled to say here that I get orders out the door quickly - I'm speaking to the outreach component of my business - I'll do that when I can.

(Psst! The kids don't care!!)

In addition to this guilt, I also feel self-conscious that my blog and social media posts are not polished enough to represent a small, but growing business. This is a big reason why I have ten or more unfinished blog posts of projects I've done that just don't look like a top DIY blog tutorial. (Because I don't have products to design, orders to ship and kids to watch after or anything, right?) Making the step by step photos look at good at a single finished product shot? Forget it! My house gets sunlight for about 45 minutes a day and simply does not allow for sustained photography while I'm working on a project. And an in use shot of some of our fun party supplies? I'm usually running fifteen or more minutes late getting everything together and never quite catch up.. and I get distracted actually talking to guests instead of photographing each cute sip. Sound familiar?

You are not alone. I get it. It sucks to feel inadequate when we're doing so much so well. I don't want to play the perfection game. And yet, to showcase my products, I need to share my projects and ideas of how to use beve's goodies. Knowing I'm likely perpetuating this mommy guilt and these feelings of inadequacy makes me feel even.. guiltier.

So, I'm taking a stand and sharing my mantra with anyone who will listen: pretty doesn't have to be perfect.

I love that tossing a cute paper straw in your sweet tea can make you smile or that using washi tape to organize your planner makes you feel like you've got this week under control. Having beautifully wrapped gifts under the tree at Christmas time? I love that feeling. Do I think that any of these are necessary? No. Do I think that everything has to be perfect for it to be enjoyable, memorable and special? No. I love helping add little touches to your events and your every day life - helping add some extra pretty a polish. I love that these can help make you feel happy and confident, but please know that they are not necessary for you to make a moment special. You bring that all on your own, momma!

While I've feared sharing these sentiments with my customers - I want everyone to purchase my goodies to make their tea pretty and their stack of presents especially gorgeous, right? - I feel strongly about this and think it may just be a breath of fresh air for folks. So, I'm going to get past my fears and post my not-perfect-but-very-pretty projects and share a bit more behind the scenes shots of what running a work-at-home-mom business with a toddler literally climbing up your back ("I'm an opossum!") really looks like. I hope you'll be compelled to feel more confident in your creations and maybe even share them and the pretty doesn't have to be perfect message. Let's help moms everywhere feel pride and joy in their projects!

It may have taken a bit more time to create with a little one in tow, but the above project did finally get done - and turned into paper doll gift wrap and gift tags - a fully usable paper doll set once they're done adorning your gift!

And full disclosure: I wrote most of this blog post over a year ago and never finished it till now - after having another kid and renting a small studio/storage area, "beve headquarters," so said baby will have somewhere to sleep :) It's mainly where inventory lives. I have been sharing more real-life photos on our Instagram account during this time (feel free to follow us!) and I'm planning on sharing a blog post a month this year - big goals!

Also!! A big thanks to my sweet friend, Elizabeth Derby Newberry for her vote of confidence in sharing this message. Elizabeth is a professional wordsmith, advocating for authenticity in copy and marketing messages. Interested? Check her out! So lucky to have met her years ago at our local business group! <3

• cardboard
• scissors
• washi tape
• packaging tape, double sided foam adhesive or similar

For wreath:

• cut a donut shape out of a piece of scrap cardboard
• An easy way to get two perfect circles is to take a string (at least as long as the radius you desire for the wreath), tie an end to a pencil and hold the other end at the center of your cardboard. Keeping the end down tight, draw a circle with the pen. Do this for the outer and inner circle, creating the desired size of your wreath. The one I created is 16" in diameter and 5" wide.
• use your choice of washi tapes to cover cardboard cut out. I had these strips emanating from the center, but they could be more haphazardly placed (by children, perhaps?) and still create a fun, festive look.
• Securely press edges down on the back side of the wreath. I knew I wanted to re-use our wreath for multiple years, so I went ahead and used packaging tape on the edges. As we know, washi tape is removable, which makes it very forgiving for crafting projects, but it does sometimes make it tough to keep edges down when the tape is wrapping around corners.

For bow:

•  sketch bow on cardboard
• Making two cross-cutting horizontal lines works to get the bow's sides even. Then create your vertical lines the same distance away from the intersection. Then, draw a rectangle centered over the intersection for the bow's "knot." Full disclosure: I just sketched mine.
• cut out bow from cardboard
• wrap cardboard bow shape in your desired washi tape
• I criss-crossed my washi tape over the center to cover the cardboard and then covered the edges more carefully. Note the notches I created to achieve smooth edging around the knot's angles.
• attach bow to wreath at your desired location with rolled packaging tape, double sided tape, rolled duct tape, foam adhesive or glue

And now you're ready to display your washi tape wreath! This simple project doesn't take long or any fancy materials. It's something kids can help out with and it's a great decoration to have on hand whenever buying or making that fancy evergreen wreath just didn't happen. Store this wreath flat and it'll be ready to pop on your door whenever it's needed. Have fun!!

Our home has a corner propane "buck stove" in the living room in addition to electric base board heating throughout. When we moved in, the brick area surrounding it was a multi-colored red brick. This was painted pretty early on when we were smoothing out our walls. The not-so-pretty, decorative wood surround remained, however. As did the flashy "gold" accents on the stove itself.

After living with the 'before' for about five years, we were finally ready to focus on this project. You'll notice that we kept the same stove, saving lots of money in the process. I cleaned it and gave it a good spraying with matte black paint to cover up the gold and help minimize the faux logs.

One prerogative in renovating this area was to cover up the unused chimney flue in the wall, too. Why not use the chimney you ask? Well, the buck stove was already all set up and Chris is somewhat allergic to wood smoke, so we stuck with our propane stove. In order to cover up the flue, we had to create a fireplace surround that was a good 18"+ higher than the original one. We built a pentagonal frame high and wide enough to cover the (now filled and insulated) flue and shifted the stove up higher than it sat before to keep the surround appearing balanced. We aren't carpenters, so it's not the prettiest wood working in there, but it's sturdy enough :)

We then covered it with a thin Hardibacker in preparation for tile. My first job after college was working in a tile and stone showroom doing sales and helping folks design their kitchen, bath and fireplaces and renovations. Thus, I knew exactly what I wanted. We used black Sheldon Slate which has very dense clefting and is only 1/4" thick and doesn't shale (break off) for both the surround and to replace the tile at the floor. The floor tile had been a cheap blue-grey ceramic in 8x8. We busted that up and were left with the perfect depth for our slate to match our parquet floor. We decided to do the 12x12 slate in a diagonal pattern, matching the pentagonal-shaped tiled area of the floor and the angle of the corner fireplace surround. I'm usually not a huge fan of diagonally-set tile, but in this situation, it would have appeared more diagonal if it were straight set due to the lines of the spaces.

Floor tile went in with the help of a borrowed wet saw. Add in some sanded grout in Charcoal (Mapei) and matching caulk for where it meets wood and we were all set for the surround to go on top. We decided to reference the brick surround and help add more horizontal lines to counter the verticality of the surround by cutting the 12x12 tiles into 3x12s and laying them in a brick/subway bond pattern. Because the slate has a rectified (90 degree angle, straight cut) edge, our cuts would match the tile's edges.. as long as we cut them smoothly and straight!

After lots and lots of cutting (mostly straight, smooth lines), we tiled the fireplace surround (12x12s on the top, like the floor below), grouted, and caulked around the stove. We even had some tile left over to make a set of coasters that we use all the time by adding a few felt stars from Michael's to the bottoms. We also ended up drilling a makeshift hook into the brick mortar behind the surround and attached the surround to the wall as it was a bit front-heavy and we didn't want any squished babies or kitties!

I think we spent about $100 in materials for the tile, grout, caulk, backer board, wood and spray paint. Not bad!

What do you think of the end result?

Hemp is a natural and sustainable fiber, meaning it comes from a plant and it, "the demands placed on the environment [from its production] can be met without reducing its capacity to allow all people to live well, now and in the future." In providing context for hemp's environmental attributes, I often compare it to cotton as cotton is the most popular natural fiber. This comparison makes it easy to see how much difference we can make by using hemp instead.

WATER

The hemp plant has deep tap roots allowing it access groundwater for its irrigation. In a conservative statement, hemp uses half as much water as cotton, though can be grown with even less. Cotton requires over 5,000 gallons of water to produce enough fiber to make one t-shirt and one pair of jeans. An additional benefit of not requiring extensive irrigation is that hemp can be grown in a wider range of regions more easily.

HERBICIDES & PESTICIDES

Hemp grows very densely, effectively choking out weeds which other crops, such as cotton, utilize herbicides to prevent. Hemp also does not need pesticides as it is naturally fungus and insect repellant (and it's anti-microbial!). Herbicides and pesticides can have negative repercussions for the environment at large, from damaging honey bee populations to creating pesticide-resistant weeds, as well as human health issues from exposure to these chemicals as many health issues have been linked to their use. Comparatively, cotton, which accounts for 2.4% of crops grown on Earth uses large quantities of herbicides and accounts for 11% of insecticides and 24% of pesticides sales worldwide.

SUSTAINABILITY

Hemp is easy to grow due to its lower water usage and pest and weed resistance, but it also grows quickly and very densely. This density produces about 2.5 times as much fiber per acre than cotton.requiring half as much water as cotton to grow. It also grows more densely than cotton, yielding about 2.5x as much fiber per acre as cotton. The hemp plant also has hundreds of uses for various parts of the plant, allowing for minimal wasted plant material. And to top it all off, you've likely heard about the need for crop rotation due to nutrients being leached from soil when the same crop is planted over and over. Not only does hemp not do this (as its fallen leaves actually add nutrients to the soil), hemp can detoxify polluted soil! This process, called phytoremediation, has even been utilized at the Chernobyl site where hemp has been considered quite successful at "eating" radiation. I don't know about you, but I think this is awesome!

GENERAL USE

And for day to day use of hemp products, it's worthwhile to note that, as mentioned earlier, hemp is naturally anti-microbial, so it doesn't mildew. It's also a very strong fiber that gets even stronger when it's wet (that's why hemp was used for fishing ropes before nylon came along). I also just learned that hemp blocks about 50% more UV rays than cotton too, even when blended with other fibers up to 50%! This quality also reduces hemp fading from sun exposure.

As you can see, I'm pretty smitten with hemp. I have been wanting to utilize this fiber for some time now and I am so excited to finally be able to with our hemp gift cord! In addition to the environmental benefits of hemp, we also designed our product so you can use a single strand of it on your gifts and still have your adornment 'pop'! No more wrapping four strands of baker's twine around your gift to make it visible! We also left it unpolished, so it's quite soft and easy to handle. (Most craft hemp is 'polished' with potato starch.) And to make it impossible to resist, it is packed in a cute, self-dispensing box. This means that your gift cord stays nice and neat in its box where the coil pulls from the inside (so it stays put till the very end!) and does not end up under the couch being batted at by your cat. Not that that has ever happened to me ;) While it was developed as a gift cord, it's cute and tough enough to be used for a multitude of craft and household uses. We hope you love it as much as we do!

Here at beve, we like to make events extra special by adding in some memorable details. We did this last year at our family's Fourth of July party. Take a peek at the simple, fun projects we did that really bring some American pride to an Independence Day event!

 Washi Tape Flags on Fun Paper Straws

These, simple, festive decorations only took a few minutes! Using some of our red and blue patterns, our thin red stripe washi tape and a variety of blue washi tape and a sharp pair of scissors, we were able to make miniature flags on the paper straws.

We also did a larger variety (slightly overlapping two lengths of our thin red stripe washi tape and not having to cut our blue washis in half). You can also see how we made the vintage blue mason jar more festive by adding a few bands of our red/blue airmail washi tape.

Here, the large flag straws are in cute, daisy-top mason jars. You can also see how we used our red diagonal stripe treat bags as a flag base and used our blue grid, blue glitter and other blue washi tapes to create the 'star' portion of the flag. Fun, right? (I always find it helpful to cut one piece and then use that as a guide for cutting the rest the same length. And putting them down cut side at the inside of the flag allows for trimming the rest of the washi at the back end.. much easier to do!)

 Just like the vintage blue jars, the drink dispenser was transformed into Independence mode by a few strands of washi tape - our blue eye ikat, navy blue herringbone, thin red stripe and navy blue anchor tapes in particular.

You can also mix in some plain straw 'pennants' in the color scheme if you're having a large event to give the feel of the American flag without having to make flags for each and every straw.

As you can see, the straws are quite cute. As is Lennox at about 11 months old, enjoying her first (rosemary) lemonade.

While we think it is fun to add in some extra details to make events even more fun and memorable, we are strong advocates of not worrying about getting everything "Pinterest perfect." Moments like the one above are what make days truly perfect!

TIE A SIMPLE BOW

First, tie your yarn, ribbon or twine around your gift. Knot it at center or wherever you'd like it to hit. Second, make two loops with your yarn, as shown.

Third, tie these two loops in a basic over/under knot (like at the base of your shoe laces) and pull tight. Finally, make sure your loops are evenly sized and pull the loops to the top of your bow and the strands to the bottom. This "bunny ear" method allows for the loops and strands to be positioned more easily than a traditional tie allows, so the loops stay at the top instead of having a loop, strand, loop, strand orientation. This bow is great for a simple bow that hangs nicely, whether on a present or the back of a dress.

HOW TO MAKE A POUF or POM POM!

Poufs/Pom poms are a great way to finish off a present for a little one. All three poufs featured in this blog post (red at the top, coral from demo and white just above) are still floating around in Lennox's toy bin. She loves playing with them.

Ah, the simple pleasures :)

I am a big fan of wrapping presents. My mom has this huge, glossy black military "suitcase" that holds all of her wrapping paper and accoutrements and I always loved pulling it out for Christmastime to wrap presents. I don't recall being taught how to wrap presents, but I'm sure my mom is to thank for my wrapping skills. With the holiday season around the corner as well as some big news from beve, I wanted to share some tips on how to wrap a present prettily and efficiently.

How to quickly and easily gauge how much paper you'll need:

LONG SIDE: Referencing the photo below, cut paper a bit longer than two times the gift's girth (the length AND width of the gift). A simple way to do this is to line up the gift/box at the edge of the wrap, then flip the gift over while keeping a corner on the gift wrap, flip again and again and again (ex. long side, short side, long side, short side). Be sure to add an inch or two to this measurement to allow for ideal alignment of pattern, if applicable, and folding over raw edges.

SHORT SIDE: To get the appropriate paper width, cut the gift wrap wide enough to accommodate the width of the gift and an extra inch or so if you'd like to have the flap wrap to the back of the gift. Otherwise, you can leave off the extra amount and have the seam on the edge; be sure the amount left is at least three quarters of the gift's width. I prefer wrapping to the back if it’s a thin gift like this example.

And how to wrap a gift beautifully...

It's really surprising how much of a difference folding in the raw edges, trimming bulk and creasing edges can make!

I'll follow up on gift wrapping with How To's on creating pom poms and tying pretty bows so you can put that final touch on your gift. A well-placed store-bought bow works fine too!

And now for some exciting news! The gift images at the top and bottom of this post are of beve's own gift wrapping paper! We will be launching our new goodies very soon. They are great quality, fun designs (of course!) and are in sheets (20x29"), allowing you to mix and match patterns and still get about 6 small gifts per sheet. Be sure to check back to scoop some up for the upcoming holiday season!

Last summer, I was thrown a lovely baby shower by my sister with help from family. The theme was more color-based with a pink grapefruit feel and lots of fun beve details including our printed and jumbo balloons. All were hung without using helium which is a great conservation of resources! Above, you see our argyle, chevron and confetti dot prints and jumbo balloons. The printed balloons are 12" balloons, but as you can see, they can be inflated to be larger.

Pink and orange is one of my favorite color combinations and I love how adding in the golden yellow on our chevron straws softens the combination some while keeping it fun and punchy. The invitations had the same color scheme and helped convey that we weren't going for a baby pink look for Lennox's nursery and clothing. This golden yellow can be seen in our balloons too - a golden yellow is a favorite stand alone color for me... I have two awesome yellow coats to attest to this! Missing washi tape flags and decorations? My shower occurred before beve started having our washi tape made, but we now have plenty of yellow, orange and coral pink options available!

 Here, my cousin had the great idea of using disposable table cloths to act as fabric to flow into the balloon bouquet to create the focal point in the room above the chair I opened gifts in. Bits of the table clothes were also used to create little pouf decorations on the chairs (which you can see a bit of below in the cake photo).

 A cousin took the left over paper straws and made fun marshmallow pops with them. So fun! Also, she filled the containers with sugar to utilize a simple, theme-appropriate and reusable base for the pops. What a great idea!

The cake in the middle is a Princess Cake from the Albemarle Baking Company in Charlottesville. If you're in the area and have a special event coming up, I highly recommend getting this cake. They are incredible! It, "features vanilla sponge cake layered with bavarian cream and covered with a thin sheet of marzipan." OMG. Wonderfully light, full-flavored and smooth. Thank you Aunt Cathe for picking this up for the shower! It was devoured!  

 While the photo above isn't the best shot of me, it shows the lovely quilt that one of my grandmother's made for Lennox. She was sweet enough to let me pick out the fabric and design to match the shower and Lennox's nursery. If you look closely, you can see a bit of stitching in white at the border - this is the famous feather stitch that adorns every quilt I've ever seen by my grandmother. This is the stitch that inspired our red feather stitch washi tape, perfect for "stitching" in photos to scrapbooks or into cards and more!

More views of balloons being used as decorations. I can't recall exactly how many balloons were used, but I think it's wonderful how something fairly inexpensive can be used as the primary decoration for an event and can really pull it all together! Also, did you know that latex balloons are bio-degradable? Studies show that they degrade at about the same rate as an oak leaf. How cool! Feel free to check out beve's balloons in our shop.

Not only was the shower super cute, but it was lovely to see family and friends and get a head start on preparation for Lennox's arrival. I'll be posting photos of her pink, orange and yellow nursery and the projects involved therein soon.

Inspiration:

I came up with this first birthday activity after doing a little searching on Pinterest. I came across this party decoration photo wall and thought it was very sweet. When I searched for first birthday activities, one that resonated was creating a time capsule of sweet notes that would be opened on a child's 18th birthday. While I don't have space to keep a time capsule around for 17 years without being able to enjoy it, I thought I could tweak it. Photos of Lennox's first year were displayed and guests were asked to write a little birthday note on the back of the photos. After the party, I put them in a special photo album so we could look through them throughout the years. 

Materials:
Clothespins
Washi Tape
Photos
Yarn
Command Hooks
Scissors
Pens
Album

Process:
I chose about forty adorable photos of Lennox from the past year and ordered them when a 101 Free Print offer came around on Shutterfly. I tried to include a variety of photos, especially some that included folks who would be attending her party.
I purchased a set of forty clothespins and then used various washi tapes on hand (you can imagine that I have quite a collection!) that fit the pink/red/green color scheme of the party. I had a mix of maybe twelve designs, but you could certainly get this same effect with a smaller number.

I "measured" the tape length necessary to cover a clothespin and then used that as a guide for the other pieces of tape.

Don't you just love how you can stick and re-stick washi tape?

I then applied the tapes to the clothespins. I found it simplest to line the edge of the tape up with the side of the pin that the spring sticks out of and then have the excess tape fold down the edge without the spring. If you want to, you can cut down the tape, but I didn't think this fold over was obtrusive or sloppy looking.

I must admit, I couldn't help coordinating the clothespins with the photo content a bit :)

As the porch is covered and the weather was clear, I hung up the photos the evening before the party - one less thing to do on the day of! I used little Command hooks and tied green and coral yarn between them to hang from.

Tip: I tied one end loosely and then put the photos on, adjusting the yarn length as needed to get the desired dip.
I did create a little set of directions that got pinned on too, but unless you have a large crowd and don't think you'll be able to explain to everyone, I feel like this step was unnecessary.
Last thing to do? Hang up a few color coordinated Sharpies (or whatever pens you have that will write on the backs of photos) by their cap and spread the word to guests.

Everyone thought it was a fun activity and enjoyed cooing over the photographs.

Here are a few notes written by Lennox's "big" cousins in elementary school:

Estimated Time:
Photo selection, 1 hour
Clothespins, 30 minutes
Set up, 10 minutes

The hardest thing about this project: selecting only 40 photos!

This party idea could easily be translated into an anniversary party activity or bridal shower too. Like this sweet and easy party idea? See the whole party on our earlier post and follow us for more How To's and party inspiration!

Our little girl celebrated her first birthday this month and we had a sweet little gathering for her. I resisted my urge to do pink, orange and yellow (like her baby shower and nursery) and went for a simple, country feel with a bit of strawberry and watermelon inspiration. My sweet in laws were gracious enough to let us have it on their awesome 40x10 front porch, a perfect setting. (Looking for a lovely, historic home in Virginia? Theirs is for sale! Take a peek and score this sweet entertaining spot for yourself.)

We lucked out and had an absolutely GORGEOUS day - August days in Virginia are rarely this lovely. What a great present! I'll have a few posts on creating the party later and will just focus on the day of here.

A fun confetti of pink and green party colors for Lennox's first birthday invitation. You may note that the "1" was pulled from the candle we used for Lennox's cake (see below). Next year I'll have to get invitations out earlier - August is a busy month for birthdays and some cousins had two other parties that day!

We kept things pretty simple and sweet. I combined a few Pinterest ideas to create a display of photos from the past year, all washi-clothespinned on to pink and green yarn. Friends and family were asked to select their favorite photo and write a message to Lennox on the back of it. I have a special album for these and am contemplating making this an annual activity. The notes written by Lennox's "big" cousins were particularly sweet!

We decorated with light pink, bright pink, red and green beve balloons. I love the balloons in front of the boxwood and the sweet, light pink balloon that Chris tied on to Lennox's wrist.

We made fruit kabobs with our paper straws - you can really see our color inspiration here!

We also had barbeque, corn on the cob and, of course, cake!

To drink, there was minty limeade and sweet tea. Thanks for loaning your cute ceramic dispensers out, Mom!

A cute and easy way to pull in a party's inspiration is through paper straws and washi tape. I think these do a nice job of capturing the vibrant green, red and pink of our strawberry and watermelon color scheme.

We helped bring the simple, country feel in by using mason jars and covering the tops with cloth like old fashioned jam jars. We used these 9 ounce wide-mouth mason jars with metal, cloth-covered lids for the little ones' drinks. These helped keep spills in. We'll look at all the 'how to' details in a future post.

For adults, we used 16 ounce wide-mouth mason jars with fabric ties that corresponded to the small jars. Not only did the ties dress up the cups, but they also made sure that people (ahem, men) used the cute paper straws with washi pennants. I like using the wide-mouth jars as I find them easier to drink out of for every day use and, a new bonus I discovered, the small jars fit perfectly inside the larger ones so storage space is halved! How convenient!

Chris was in charge of making the cake, following my aesthetic guidelines. I got the cute "1" candle from Nikki Crafts on Etsy - love it! Chris used a basic yellow cake recipe and made the cake and icing from scratch. Go Chris! He insisted on using strawberries to naturally color the icing to achieve the ombre pink effect on the cake. While it took Lennox a while to warm up to the idea, she ended up taking a good chunk out of the cake. Hidden gem: Lennox's oldest cousin, Liam, telling her, "You don't have to be clean; no one is judging you." The things kids say! :)

And speaking of cousins, how cute are these three?! Lennox nine cousins all in the area, how lucky is she!

Present time! Lennox had plenty of help opening her gifts from her big cousins. I love wrapping presents, and that's something we'll focus on in a future post. Her invitation shared the that Lennox loves to read, so friends and family helped grow her library with sweet selections of nursery rhymes, Red Truck (from her little boy cousins who love trucks!), and fun Sandra Boynton books. Thank you all!! She's loving them!

Oh what a day! Being one sure is hard work!

Thank you all for checking out Lennox's fun first birthday party! Please feel free to Pin, share and comment!

BOOTH BASICS: $2532

• A 60 SF pipe & drape booth: $1782
• 500W Electricity: $175
• Flame Retardant Fabric for walls (new for 2014: Had to be purchased as FR, not just sprayed): $242
• Grommets: $40
• Paint, one quart:  $14
• Five 150W Halogen Lights & Clamps (we bought adapter clamps someone suggested.. and then they didn't fit - we improvised!): $150
• Multiple surge protectors and extension cords: $42
• 64 SF beve blue foam tile floors (this cut it close. We used every tile!): $86
  

• Foam Board, ten 20x30 boards
• Velcro - lots!!
• Butcher Paper: on hand
• White Duct Tape: on hand
• Almost all goodies on the boards are beve products!

FURNITURE: $390

• Dressing Table, Ikea, $150
• Outdoor Round Table, Ikea, $29
• Cube Storage, Target, $39
• Cushioned Ottoman: on hand from the nursery - so nice to have a comfy seat!
• SPLURGE: cool chairs I've wanted for years: $158

MARKETING: $735

• Catalogs (8.5x11, 24 pages, full color): $700
• Freebies, 8oz waters with a beve straw washi taped on: $35 (These were simple and easy to assemble during the show, showcased our products, were healthy and were a hit with folks - multiple Instagram posts of them!)
• ~75 sample packs of paper straws (one of each design): Laborious, but on hand.
• Cards, on hand
• Pre-show e-mailer: Free!
• Post-show e-mailer: Free!

• Laptop: Free, on hand!
• Quickbooks Desktop: Free, on hand! (And an invoice pad for backup, but we were fine with QB. Most folks didn't request a printed copy either. No point in paying tons for branded carbon copied versions most booths have.
• Printer: Free, on hand! (Inkjet worked fine w/ our 500w power)
• OFFICE SUPPLIES, Incl. tape dispensers, etc, for display: $200
• Ink, Paper, Extra Business Card Paper $30

(My seat was squished between Lennox's carseat and the giant box.. a tight fit for a 7 hr. drive!!)

TRANSPORTATION: $333

• Gas from Virginia to NJ/NYC and back, $150
• Lincoln Tunnel, Tolls, Parking (2x), Bus from NJ to NYC (3x): $183

ROOM & BOARD: $200

• Staying with family friends: Free! (We sent a small care package of beve goodies once we got home)
• Groceries, including dinners for our hosts and Grandba (5 days): ~ $200

Re-usable Material: ~$1200 worth

*This total does not include costs for items we had on hand such as product samples and business cards

Most of our research suggested that booths ran $7-10k, so we were pretty happy with keeping it lower than that. The biggest surprise cost was the catalogs. I had no idea they were going to be that expensive. There's not too much we can do to minimize their cost since the largest cost contributor is being printed in full color.. and our products need full-color! Luckily, they're something that will represent beve long after the show. Next year, we'll have lots more printed, so the cost per catalog will be lower.. and hopefully we won't run out! :) We're also happy that costs should be lower for future shows as we can reuse many of our materials.

Some lessons we learned:

• More catalogs! We ran out on Monday afternoon!
• More cards! We ran out of both our normal cards and our makeshift cards.
• More "cushion" inventory. We ordered in inventory before the show, but still ended up having to put hasty orders in with our manufacturers at the show's close.
• More time allotted before shipping show orders. Based on projected sales, we had estimated 2 weeks, but I should have revised that once we surpassed our projected sales. We were definitely on the early side of show order delivery, so giving ourselves a few more days to prep orders would allow us to ensure everything's perfect before sending orders out.
• No ID#s on product display boards. I have the codes memorized for inputting into Quickbooks, but when a shop owner read off "W-T-N-B-H-B," "W-T-C-H-B," etc it was very hard to keep things straight (Washi Tape Navy Blue Herrringbone, by the way).
• Have a better system for making sure all "to dos" are done during the craziness of the show and its aftermath.
• While all of our 30 press kits were taken, we haven't heard anything in response.. so we won't stress about them as much next year and probably won't include samples like we did this year.
• We'll probably try to eat more at the show next year. Both Chris and I ate one snack bar each day during the show.. but we didn't really have time to feel hungry, so it worked. Don't worry, we had good breakfasts and suppers!
• I'll attempt to get out and socialize more with my fellow exhibitors. We were so unexpectedly busy that the most 'exploring' I did was taking various routes to the bathroom whenever I could run to the ladies' room.

Show Overview

What were folks most interested in? They LOVED our glitter tape, especially in gold! We had this on a dispenser in the booth and people couldn't resist its sparkly lure! We got a ton of positive reviews of our beve-original washi tape like our new ikat collection, marquee alphabet tape and fun cat eye print. Our rose silver tape stood out among the omnipresent gold too. Our antique blue floral paper straws caught numerous eyes from the Best New Product display and our inspiration board, as well as our new watercolor floral straws. We had a fair amount of interest in our beve-designed patterned balloons and our new watercolor letter seals too. My NSS veteran friend Kate of Smarty Pants Paper Co. gave me some of the best advice in preparation for the show: 1) Your booth is like staging a play, it doesn't have to be perfect, it just needs to look good for a few days (SO true!!) and 2) Try to show all of your products because folks just want to point and order, not thumb through a catalog. We made product boards for our back wall showing all of our ~200 products and it made it so easy for retailers to order. Some even ordered directly from our inspiration boards, loving the party suite ideas that we put together. Verdict: Show your products in use and in complementary sets if possible - it gives a great visual effect and it inspires orders across multiple product lines. We've also gotten a number of subsequent orders from folks who took our straw sample pack and how shown it to clients. PaperKuts Studio even stated, "I promise, that was the best thing from the whole show!" and raved about them on Instagram too! People also loved our water bottles with paper straws washi taped on them and washi tape pennants (of our "beve!" tape) and tape dispensers around the booth with washi tape.

Note the tape dispensers on each table, the container of our straw sample packs on the back table and our freebie water bottles on the right table/shelves.

So, to recap, we spent on our catalogs - something that will represent our company to shop owners for long after the show ends - and saved on our booth set up, shipping, room and board, and food. We also did all of our own walls, set up, take down, signage, etc. We're a small company and tried to make this big expenditure of time and money as small as possible. The show was a great experience for us as a business and it was so great to finally meet many of our existing retailers in person and to meet new shop owners face to face. We're looking at doing another show in January (if anyone has input on NYNOW vs. Atlanta Gift, we're all ears!) and I'm already thinking about our NSS booth next year - we can't wait to see you there!

If you're a first time exhibitor (or veteran!) and you have any questions about our experience, please feel free to contact me directly or comment and I'll be more than happy to help!

We're back and we're talking about beve's debut experience at the 2014 National Stationery Show. We were part of NSS, but exhibited in the new #fresh section of the show and were affiliated with Etsy Wholesale's NSS presence. For our pre-show preparations, check out our first blog post (ever!).

After driving into the New Jersey area at about 2 AM to stay with our family friends, we took the drive to Javits mid-morning on Saturday, hoping to finish setting up by early evening. As children under 14 aren't allowed during set up (or take down, which isn't as publicized), Lennox was babysat by our family friends while Grandba helped us set up. It was great having two other people to help set up. I handled the more delicate and detailed items while my husband, Chris, and his father assembled furniture and the lights, etc. I also dropped off our press kits and Best New Product competition displays. Set up surprises? Even though I'd called to verify the height limit, the car garage wouldn't let us in with the cargo carrier on top. We had to pay extra for a VIP spot (but our coupon helped cancel out the extra cost). A more pleasant surprise: Javits provides big, flat bed dollies (and pushers) for folks dropping off their own items (vs. shipping)! I was terrified we were going to get a $200 bill or something after they took our booth number down, but it was free! Go Chris for having the initiative to ask the folks at the door about it!

Here's what our booth looked like when we first started setting up

With the walls up and floor in

Getting close to being show-ready

And right before the show started on Sunday morning

We arrived about an hour before the show started on Sunday to put the final touches on the booth. The show started and it took a while for folks to find their way to the rear where #fresh was located and then, BAM! We were slammed! It was unexpected and great! At times there wasn't even room for interested folks to come in our booth; a hand would swoop in and grab a catalog and leave a card. Given that our booth was only 60 SF before adding furniture, it wasn't too hard to fill up, but still! While this situation wasn't ideal for making contacts, it was great for creating buzz and giving a positive impression. We had many folks come back by the booth later and they were quite impressed with how much interest booth #1468 (our booth) was garnering.

I was so happy that Chris was there with me! Pre-show webinars had mentioned that while it's good to have someone helping, it can be frustrating to just have 'another body' there who can't really answer any questions. As Chris is an integral part of beve, doing the day to day shipping and some customer service, he has a good handle on beve's products and policies. Also, I'd been quizzing him on products, pricing, pitches, current retailers and 'we want to be here' retailers for about a month. It paid off as he wrote many orders with existing and new shop owners, so it was clear that they felt he could answer their questions.

Pretty, on-brand details helped beve's visual quality - and are just fun :)

We were thrilled with our success on Sunday and Monday was even busier. It was probably the busiest day and was quite steady. A number of folks said they did a quick walk on Sunday and then stopped in to the booths that caught their eye on Monday. This shows how important the visual quality of your booth is. I noticed numerous people go to walk by (from the front of the show to the back, fyi), glance at our inspiration boards, slow down, then come in to check them out more closely. That usually led to a nice chat, an exchange of cards and catalog and sometimes an order! I was happy I switched our layout around after making an educated guess at which direction people would be coming - think about that when working on your booth layout. Also, don't be afraid to ask for feedback. One shop owner mentioned she'd been coming to the show for something like twenty consecutive years. I asked if she'd be so kind as to let me know how we compared and she said we did very well - or she wouldn't have stopped in! I had been concerned that our booth was a bit busy, but she said it was enough to draw you in, but not overpower you. Otherwise, folks keep on walking. I'd heard this sentiment in webinars, so I was very happy that we'd managed to keep our 200 displayed products from being overwhelming.

Inspiration Boards showing our new watercolor letter seal stickers, watercolor floral paper straws, black bow washi tape, coral lovelies, antique blue paper straws, lots of honeycomb balls and lots more!

We were so busy on Monday that we ran out of our hard copy catalogs - on day two! - and we had 150 printed! Most information said that 100-200 would be good for a first time exhibitor, so I thought we'd be fine and would hopefully have some left over. Well, we have one or two copies for ourselves and the rest are out there in the universe hopefully working hard for us! I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it, but we ran out of business cards too. We ended up making "ghetto cards," with perforated edges - you know the ones. Not the classiest option when shop owners are going around with beautiful, thick, edge-painted cards like these from Oh So Beautiful Paper printed by the wonderful Gus & Ruby Letterpress! <Side note: be sure to bring good, full-size staplers. We had a number of cards almost kill our medium-sized stapler and Chris got stabbed by our pint-sized stapler. His bandage? Tissue and washi tape, of course!> Certainly better than nothing, though. We also had our info cards from Etsy Wholesale to give out and we wrote our ISSUU url on those and added it to our impromptu cards. Many people were getting weighed down by their catalogs at that point, so they were okay with just having a url for our Issuu hosted PDF.

This is how Chris and I looked (at close on Monday):

Grinning like mad! (and matching!)

Tuesday was steady and we wrote almost as many orders as on Monday. Wow, it was crazy! We had gone in expecting to write 5-10 orders based on my research of first-time exhibitors. By close on Wednesday, we'd written 32 orders at the show! I thought we'd maybe pay for the show by the end of the year through re-orders from new shops - we broke even (in gross sales, not net!) mid-day Tuesday. As we'll talk about in our next post, we kept our investment very low, so that certainly helped in breaking even. We were getting tired by the end of the day on Tuesday, but as we had a free invitation to The Paper Party while most tickets to show parties were $60-$150/each, we had to take advantage of the opportunity. We chatted with the super sweet Sara of our retailer Occasionette who was exhibiting for her line Girls Can Tell and her booth partner Jim of Beehive Handmade and a few other folks, but we headed out early to catch the last Express bus to Jersey. We missed our little girl! We did get our photo snapped chatting with Cambria Evans, seen here on Oh So Beautiful Paper:

I'm in yellow and Chris in in purple; I was checking out Cambria's haircut. So cute!!

Wednesday was pretty slow, but we still wrote two orders, one of which was from a new shop. Things got very slow at the end, which I'd expected as I'd walked the show each day in 2013. Based on the Save The Date we received, it looks like the half day was cut for 2015; not a bad idea, though I'm curious how break down will work. As we were leaving for home from the city, we drove in with my father-in-law and Lennox in tow and they got to explore the show a bit. Bob walked the entire show, something we hadn't been able to do at all due to our steady booth traffic, so it was nice to get some information about other booths and any similar products out there. Lennox found our booth interesting for about ten minutes, then wanted to explore. Thank goodness she hadn't been cooped up there the entire show! Chris took her exploring while I manned the booth. Apparently, she was, "stopping the show" on the 1500 aisle with everyone popping their heads out to check her out. One Gift>It exhibitor was sweet enough to snap a photo and text it to Chris. I'm so thankful because it is one of the cutest things I've ever seen! Sure, I'm biased, but come on! :D

Our daughter, Lennox, at 9 months at the 2014 National Stationery Show

I couldn't believe how quickly booths began coming down once 1 PM hit. Lennox and I headed to pick up our leftover press kits - they were all gone! - and then got caught with a baby. While I'd noted that kids were not allowed during set up, I had completely missed that they were not allowed at tear down. Makes sense, but it threw a monkey in our wrench. It turned out all right as I went with Bob to get the car, parked at a nearby garage and using the same $12 coupon we used on Saturday (keep an eye out for those deals!). We pulled the cargo carried we'd squished in the back of the vehicle (go Outback!!) out and got it ready to be refilled with our booth. Many exhibitors leave parts of their booth at the show instead of hauling them home or paying to store them in the city. Not us! We took everything home and plan to reuse most of it in future booths. Being a small business makes you have to be efficient - and creative! I'm already thinking about how to tweak our booth for future shows!

The boys did a good job of breaking the booth down while Lennox and I waited at the car, packing in items as they were brought out, and we were on the road to Virginia around 3 PM with a quick stop in Princeton, New Jersey for...

VICTORY ICE CREAM!!

If you're ever in/near Princeton, you seriously need to go to The Bent Spoon. It's amazing! And I mean drive an extra 45 minutes on an already 6+ hour trip AFTER a four day show just to have a cup of ice cream amazing. You won't regret it :)

Check back in for Part III of our NSS 2014 adventure where we discuss the nitty gritty of orders, our booth set up, budget and lessons learned. We hope this is informative for all you first-time exhibitors!

Hi All! This is beve's first blog post and we wanted to write about our first trade show experience: the 2014 National Stationery Show. Yes, it's a little late, but we just got our brand new site and blog space up, so it is what it is. I hope this will be helpful for any first time exhibitors looking for some information about the show.

I first heard about trade shows from the super sweet Maryellen Kim of Handmade Happiness Boutique in Chester, Virginia in October of 2012. She suggested checking into NSS and in May of 2013, six months pregnant, I headed up to walk the show. I'm so glad I had this experience to pull from in preparation for exhibiting in 2014. The National Stationery Show has such a different vibe and look from so many industry shows, so this really helped me know how we had to present ourselves: design-forward, friendly and professional. Now, that's our kind of show! 

Pregnant me at NSS 2013!

We heard about the brand new, juried #fresh section in October of 2013, applied and.. got in! So exciting! We started out with a hardwall booth, but switched to pipe and drape after after realizing we couldn't paint or drill into the walls (this was before they had the new, customizable option available). Initially I contemplated building hard walls, but having a background in fashion design, I decided to create tailored canvas walls. Not only would this be an affordable option, it made it so I could drive my entire booth up myself from Virginia. And by 'myself,' I mean with my awesome husband who took vacation time from his full-time job to come and work the show, my sweet father-in-law who embarked on his retirement by coming with us to babysit our (then) nine month old daughter, Lennox, whose first out of state experience was heading up to NSS, and me, beve owner and designer, Lauren Boggs Meslar. Yep, four people and a 60SF booth in one Subaru Outback. We rocked it!

Some of our big to do items between signing up and driving up were:

• Submit photos to Stationery Trends Magazine's NSS/SMM issue
• Have new beve washi tape designs printed (25 new designs!!)
• Apply for a Trade Show Boot Camp scholarship. We didn't get it, but we survived.
• Create our new watercolor letter seal sticker designs that had been floating around my head
• Submit images and information to SMM 365 - We received 3 pre-show orders from this and many other queries!
• Research a ton about NSS (first time exhibitor webinars, blogs, first time exhibitor LinkedIn forum, NSS veterans - and I mean YOU Kate of Smarty Pants Paper Co.!! <3 ) - utilize those free resources!
• Create a professional, consolidated catalog of our products; my first foray with InDesign and Issuu
• Decide whether I was going to continue doing beve (and Mama'ing) full-time or go back to teaching part-time (psst! I chose beve and baby!)
• Contact our current shops and those who had shown interest in beve to let them know we'd be at the show (and our booth number!)
• Enter goodies into the Best New Product competition
• Jump at the chance for extra publicity by affiliating ourselves with Etsy Wholesale's NSS presence
• Order lots of inventory pre-show
• Purchase lots of pretties to fill our booth and repurpose at home (yay foamy floors for Lennox, craft storage cubbies and sassy extra seating!)
• Sew, grommet, velcro and paint the walls and create SIXTEEN product and mood boards for the booth
• Create about 30 press kits for the show
• Tell everyone about our THREE features in Stationery Trends' SMM issue and FOUR (of four!) Best New Product finalists!!

Whew, all of that while running beve and taking care of my baby girl - it was a busy winter and spring!

While we had originally planned on staying at a small hotel near Javits and having Lennox with us in the booth for most of the day, we began to get concerned as she got more and more active and beve got more and more show publicity. We were thrilled when Chris' dad stepped in to babysit Lennox, who is still nursing, during the day and that family friends in New Jersey were kind enough to let all four of us stay with them. The drive and bus trip in from Green Pond, New Jersey took about an hour and a half each way, but this kept our little girl happy and saved us a bundle. It also allowed for an extra set of hands during set up and tear down; thanks, Grandba!!

So, after picking up our catalogs, finalizing our display boards and packing up, we headed out on Friday evening after Chris got home from work (again, what a great guy!), made a quick stop at our favorite Mexican restaurant and headed up to New Jersey looking like this:

Check back in or subscribe to our feed to get all the details about our booth, how our first trade show went, our NSS budget and lessons learned!