Scribe

Hi.

Well, I've been consuming a lot of books. I think I've read like 52 books so far this year.

It's a lot of books. I don't, I didn't even realize that I'd read that many until I counted them in my planner. I'm like, I'm really crazy OCD about cataloging the books that I read. I write them down by month and then in their number of pages because that's how I count them at the end of the year is by how many pages I read instead of by number of books, because that's really intimidating. And the only goal is to beat last year, but I'm never going to be able to beat this year at this rate. So I might just not count this one. But yeah, I've been reading a lot. I just finished our book club book, which is called the Elegance of the Hedgehog. It came out about, about 10 years ago. It's translated from French and there's a movie made of it a few years ago, I think that I've not watched because I can't find it anywhere. But it was a really, really, really fun read. If anyone wants to participate in our shop book club, the Orchard Street Reading Society, this is the book that we're reading this month, so I highly recommend it.

A concierge in a really fancy apartment building in Paris and her observations of what goes on with the people in the building. And kind of. Well, it's kind of juxtaposed against the observations of one of the children who lives in the building, and then they become friends, the concierge and the child. It's a really fun read. But, yeah, that's the book I finished most recently. And speaking of books, I saw last week the movie called the Wife, which is based on a book written by meg Wolitzer about 15 years ago.

And I think it comes out this week. I saw. I went to an advanced showing of it. Glenn Close is in it, and it's amazing. It's about a woman whose husband wins the Nobel Prize for literature and about her struggles, kind of being the wife in that situation and being the support system for him. There are a couple of twists. I can't spoil it for you. But, yeah, it was really awesome. Everybody should see it.

Yeah. She's so cool. I belong to a women's club here called the Wing, and they do a lot of film screenings there. And I went to do. It was last Monday. Yeah, just on a Monday night. They did a screening of this movie, and then they had a Q and A with Meg Wolitzer and Glenn Close afterward. And she had just come from Jimmy Fallon and was wearing this suit. She was wearing a black suit with, like, chunky Swarovski crystal stripes down the side.

She looked unreal. And she was, like, fully made up because she just come from, like, shooting nighttime television. And she said that they had made her do, like, some sort of, like, little skit with puppies, a Cruella skit. So she wore this, like, crazy black skit suit with crystal stripes. But it was really cool to see her in person.

I guess. And while I'm on the topic of movies, we are doing a pencil lady movie night soon, and we're going to see three identical strangers about this documentary.

For anyone who doesn't know, it's a documentary about. About three men. I don't know when it was. Was it in the. In the 80s and the 70s, I think. I'm not sure exactly.

Yeah, totally. And they. Their triplets. And they're. They're identical. They look exactly the same. And it's about them. And they were split. It's about them kind of finding each other through the media. And there's like a. And I. Obviously, I wasn't born when this happened, so I have no idea what happens. And apparently there's some sort of, like, crazy twist, something like crazy that happens in this real life story. Yeah. The documentary has been very, very popular at the one at the main movie theater that it's showing at here. And we're all going to see it together, though it's been very hard not to Google anything and spoil it. Yeah. So that's what I'm looking forward to. Oh, and what I'm writing with today, I am writing with one of my favorite favorite pencils that doesn't exist anymore. And it's one of the 150th anniversary Fila pencils, which I think I maybe have talked about it on here before. I really love this pencil. It's half round, half hexagonal, and it's just a natural finish. And it has little. It's capped in red with like a little white stripe and a little green stripe. Like an Italian flag.

They're really cool. And I've only ever owned exactly, I guess, four of them. Two of which I bought in Italy when they first came out. And I didn't really know what they were. And then I got home and realized what they were and was really angry that I didn't buy more. And two of them were given to me by a customer recently. Well, two different customers who brought them.

Oh, yeah. Okay. So there must have been five. Yeah, five at one point. Wow.

It's a really cool pencil. And I finally sharpened one. I had one that had, like, a little bit of a nick in it, so I thought I might as well just sharpen it and try to use it. And it's. Yeah, it's a really great pencil. It's kind of comfortable to hold, too. I like the shape. Yeah. Oh, and I guess I have to be writing on something today. That thing is this tiny jotter pad that was also gifted to me by a customer slash university professor from the uk. He brought this beautiful gift to me when I hosted his students for a little visit a couple months ago. It's like a little leather, tiny leather Smythson thing with a little refillable jotter pad and a tiny little hole for a pencil. And then a little folder which I shoved business cards in because I went to a trade show this morning. So that was the easiest thing that I could carry around. It was really, really great.

I didn't notice that it's in the

It's like the FBI guy or something, isn't it?

Wow.

Yeah, that's when I quit. Was the fourth one I was in. It was the summer between third and fourth grade though. I think I was a little young too.

Wow.

my

I have never heard of this. Am I missing something?

Yay.

Yeah. So I struggled coming up with things today because I'm a little brain dead because I got up very early to go to a trade, which is always an exhausting day. Today I went to New York now, which is. I don't know how to describe it. It's like a home and gift and lifestyle show that happens at the Javits Center. It's very big and it's a lot of stationery, though most of the big brands are there, and there were a few brands that I work with who are from other countries. And so I went mostly just to say hi and visit some people. I didn't really. I didn't really find anything new. I just kind of walked the show.

Yeah, Blackwing was there. Their booth was really good. I've actually never seen them at a trade show because they don't do the stationery show and they do some of the other, like, gift and lifestyle type shows that I've not gone to. But Ann Marie was there and Alex was there and a couple of other people who I'd met for the first time whose names I do not remember.

Yeah, I would have had to bribe them. Yeah. That's a long day for them at the trade show. I don't think I could do that talking to strangers in a booth all day. I think I would get exhausted and annoyed.

But, yeah, it's. It's a fun show. I like walking trade shows, but you really have to go with a strategy. Like, I. There's a. There's an app for most trade shows these days, which is good because you can go in and, like, see search vendors and, like, see them all in a list and save the ones you want to go to, and it kind of like maps it out for you.

So it's not that complicated. I didn't even walk a lot of it because there was just like one of the floors was like pretty much at least a quarter of it was pretty much just candles. It's like candle land. It was really. It was really weird. It was just all these candles and the smell was so strange because it was just like the combination of dozens and dozens of candle vendors with all their candles out. It was very Weird. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, there are so many good napkins at Paper World. Yeah, I mean, I know quite a lot about the napkin industry now and especially at the American shows there. There's nothing really new there that I haven't seen because I'm a napkin person. But yeah, this show was fun. I saw some cool stuff, actually. I don't know if you guys are familiar, present and correct. The amazing shop in London. They did a set of note cards for Chronicle books a couple years ago that are just kind of those like really cool flat lays on gray that they do on their Instagrams a lot. And they are, I guess I've never seen them before. I'm assuming that they're new. They're coming out with some more stationery products, including this really cool set of envelopes and this thing that's kind of like. It's kind of like a paperclip sampler. It was really cool.

Yeah, that's really cool. They do that sort of thing on their website with like stuff sourced from all over the globe and like vintage envelopes and stuff and they. Yeah, they've found a way to do that in a mass produced form with Chronicle. They looked really cool. I hadn't seen those before, but yeah, I got to see a lot of people. Got to see the guys from Papier Tigre. They came from Paris to show. It was our first time at New York now, so that was cool to see them. And I saw a new vendor I'm working with in Japan. This is a little bit of a spoiler, I guess. There's this brand called Trinis in Japan. If anyone saw our Instagram story today, I posted some video or boomerang and a picture of it. They make pencils that are co extruded and their shapes. When I first saw them, I was tipped off by a customer a couple months ago and when I first saw them I thought they kind of looked like those. Do you remember those cherry blossom pencils that Sun Star made a couple of years ago that were really expensive?

Yeah, they kind of look like that. And they do a set that is, I think, five pencils and they're all different colors. They're colored pencils and the color of the actual pencil is the same as the color that's inside it. And they're all five different flower shapes or plant shapes. And then they introduced another set that's Snowflakes and they're coming out with another Christmas set for this year also. But I had been tipped off about these months ago and didn't really think much of it. And then got an email from them recently and placed an order for Holiday. And they happened to be at this show. It was their first time as well. And I went and met their team. They're lovely people. And tested out their pencils and I was shocked. For a co extruded colored pencil especially, that's not even super expensive. They actually were really nice to use. I'm really excited to get them because, yeah, they're really cool and the shavings are beautiful. Yeah, so that's a fun thing. So it's been. It's been kind of a long day.

Oh, yeah. Adam got into a little bit. We were trying to meet up all morning. We kept like missing each other. We kept texting each other, like where we were in the show, but it's just so big. And then I just happened to run into him, but he. Yeah, he got in trouble for drawing all over his badge with Sharpie. The people who scanned the badges were not happy about that. But, yeah, he's smart though, because they really try to sell that stuff to you at those shows. At least with an aggressive Sharpied name badge, no one bothers you. But yeah, those things are so much more fun when you run into people, you know, or when you're there, like kind of seeing part of it with a friend. It's. Yeah, a lot more enjoyable and feels a lot less like work. So I was happy to run into him. Yeah. So it was a good day and I guess. Well, so this year we have a lot of really cool products coming out, which I can't really tell you about.

You can say it's all right that's such a lie. Popular. Yeah, I'm just. I'm really excited because we, as everyone I'm sure knows, we are in a shop that we moved into last October. It's not our original shop. And the past year has been really tumultuous. There have been a lot of changes, a lot of crazy things happening. And it's been a nice summer because we've just been kind of able to come to work, do our jobs, have some fun and leave on time, which I don't think has ever happened for a length of time. Since we opened. And we've been spending a lot of our time this summer working on a lot of big projects, which Meredith, who is our designer and illustrator, has worked really, really hard on. And we are especially excited because we designed some packaging for these things and got the packaging the other day. We, like, lost our minds. Our UPS man thinks that we're crazy because when boxes come, I can hear the sound of his scanner from behind the curtain where the office is. And every single time I'm like, oh, it's package time and run out behind the curtain. And he always knows that that's going to happen. We immediately cut open all the boxes. The customers must think we're crazy too, but. Yeah. Anyway, our packaging came and it was our first time, like, having, like, actual packaging made that wasn't just kind of like DIY'd by us.

So that felt like a real milestone, like having real packaging made for something. But I can tell you that in. Within the next, I guess, two months, we will be having a set of pencils that we have been working on with biking coming out. And we also have a very special pencil with Generals that's coming out that required. Yeah. Required some arm twisting to make happen.

Yeah, we're excited. They used to, when we went to their factory, they showed us they had like this like, really old archive of, like, private label and custom projects that they'd done decades ago that they let us look through. And it was really cool. But they. Yeah, they're a little bit set in their ways and just, yeah, like to keep it all in house. But I'm grateful that they let us do this. But this, this particular General's pencil will come out very soon, like within the next few weeks. Yeah. And another project, the other project that we're working on, this one I'm okay with spoiling. And it's. I think, I'm afraid people are going to be really confused by it when it comes out because it's kind of off brand. We have for holiday a very, very, very small collection of clothing items coming out which were made with my very best friend Jackie, who I went to college with. She's a very talented designer and works for a knitwear company here in New York. They make really, really amazing sweaters. And she approached me about doing. Because they have a shop in Japan. They're really popular in Japan. And of Course in Japan, they're really obsessed with stationery. And so they wanted with their Japan store to do a little, like, tiny collection for holiday of pencil things. So we're doing a sweater, a really fancy, like, crew neck sweater that's just covered in pencils. Like it's knit. The pencils are, like, knitted into the sweater and they're just covered in. They look. They're ridiculous. I got the sample and tried out, and I will tell you it's ridiculous, but they're really, really cool. We're doing it in men's, women's and children's, and they're doing a T shirt and a little like. I think they're doing like a little beanie that looks like. Like a little, like eraser. Yeah, it's kind of insane. I hope people don't think that we've, like, really lost it.

We actually now have two. We originally did one in Cambridge that opened. That store opened last year. And they came to us because when they decided to rent this space in Cambridge, in the back there's like this little tiny room that I think there's like. That's where like, the elevator. There's some sort of, like, handicap entrance. Like, that room has to exist and has to be accessible. But they wanted to come up with something cool to do with it. So it doesn't seem just like, weird that there's this tiny room in the back. And so they came up with the idea of doing pencils with us to put in there that all of them. All the pencils say, like, really Harvard things or like current events things or just funny academic things. And it's been really popular. So they were going to. They were planning a store in Ann Arbor, another university town, and decided that they were. That they wanted to recreate this little pencil room, but on a bigger scale and actually, like, make it intentional. Like, they built it into the shop.

Yeah, it's cool. They even have like, their sign is even a pencil. Like when the. Matt, the guy we work with, he's really wonderful. He's in charge of, like, dealing with all the stores. And he months ago originally sent us, like, the rough mock up of what the store was going to look like. And everything was kind of like a pencil reference. We didn't think he'd actually do all of that, but turns out he did Turns out, I think the only thing that he didn't do was make there are these big air vents on the ceiling and he was talking about painting those to look like pencils, which may have been too much. I don't think they did that at the end. But yeah, they're really fun to work with. But I have to give all the credit for that to Alex because she's the one who actually physically stamps all those pencils and does all the coordinating and all of that. She's. Yeah, she deals with the logistics of those big projects.

Yeah, she's awesome.

Oh, yeah, yeah. You can be our liaison.

I'm ashamed that I haven't even gone to visit the one in Cambridge. It's not even that far from here.

Need to visit. Yeah. That's the deal with that. Lots of projects, lots of little brands. I mean, for me, when it comes to like collaborating with these brands, as long as the, I guess the vibe of the brand and as long as like their values are aligned with this, it almost doesn't matter so much to me if they're directly stationary related or directly pencil related. I just think it's. Yeah, I'm just happy to collaborate with other brands who are like minded and who just make cool stuff.

So even if it's, even if it's a sweater, like that's. People always like, oh, you should make souvenirs for your shop and have T shirts and stuff and like, I would never do that. But if my best friend's going to say like, oh, let's like do this really cool limited edition thing and sell it in Japan for holiday. I'm not going to say no to that. Yeah.

No, I think that's all I got. My life is pretty boring these days.

Reading all those books.

Petting my cats way more than I should.

I haven't. I don't think you are.

I know, it's. No, it's the best anyone follows my personal Instagram man. It's just cat videos all the time. I'm so obsessed with that.

Yeah. Yeah. The only. Well, one of them is much shorter than the other and he only has half of a tail. Oh, wow. Yeah, he has a really short tail. I haven't been able to get like, a good picture of, like, just his tail. I'm working on that. It's really cute.

That makes sense. I can see why that would be weird.

all lasered off to accommodate your tattoos.

No, I'm not.

Yeah, it is.

Yes, I am, and I've never tried one before.

She really hooked you up.

Oh, they're ever hard Faber ones that are made in Colombia.

Yeah, I've got some of those. I can send them to you.

that probably is. According to my boyfriend's Colombian, according to his parents and his uncles. That's like the standard. There are these Eberhard Faber branded Mongols. They're everywhere in that part of South America.

All right, yeah.

Caroline, do you know it's the same just after Labor Day.

Yes.

That's a good question. And I don't. I mean, this is our. I guess. Goodness. How many years have we had back to school? This is the third back to school season for us. Fourth back to school season, anyway. Yeah. It's just really. It's challenging because it changes so, so much depending on what week it is and also if it's online or in store because the kids go back so late here that like, those parents start shopping when the rest of parents in the rest of the country are done.

Like, have been long done. So like. So every year I realize that I need to start putting this stuff online. All the special things we do for back to school, like two weeks earlier than I did the year before. And this year I did it the second. Second week of July. And I don't think that was early enough. Yeah. So, I mean, and that seems so early too. But a lot of kids, especially, like a lot of schools in the Midwest, they go back at the beginning. Like really beginning of August.

So I mean, it's back to school season when we try to cater to all the schools in the whole country. Ends up being very, very long. Just because we have to cater to all the back to school dates.

So right. Right now, huh?

Yeah, it's. It's so early. I guess I went to school in Ohio and we went back around this time, so it shouldn't be that strange to me. I guess I've just been in New York too long. But the. Yeah, it's. Right now it's kind of a weird period because we're kind of done with most of the rest of the country because they've done their online shopping. They've been in New York on their summer vacations. That's all pretty much finished. And now we're starting to see a lot of the. A lot of the New York City parents coming in to get things. Yeah. And the kids go back to school right after Labor Day, but so many New Yorkers leave town for Labor Day weekend. So we always think that's gonna be a really busy weekend. And then it ends up just not being bus. Yeah. But we're gonna run A couple promos in the next couple weeks for any last minute supplies or. Yeah, people going back to school kind of late. But yeah, it's weird. I'm just. I'm still confused about when back to school season actually is.

Well, we. I mean, this is another thing that's challenging because it's really hard to do the buying for back to school because I'm not a kid, I'm not in school. I know what I would like to use if I was in school, but oftentimes that's not what kids these days want to use, especially because they just keep getting pickier and pickier, if I'm being honest. But yeah, we have a lot of really snazzy pencil sharpeners right now, and those have been more popular this year than they have in the past. Started stocking this Faber Castell sharpener that looks like a parrot that we can't keep in stock. People love it. They're losing their minds.

It's cute. It's really, really cute. And I didn't, I didn't stock it for the past couple of years because it used to come in a pack. You had to buy them in a pack with three different animals. One was a ladybug and I think one was a falcon. And I just really didn't like the other ones. And buying the. The hard part about buying for back to school season is that all the brands are trying to make everything in like a variety of colors. A lot of times quite unfortunately they try to gender these things, which is really frustrating. And I try not to buy anything that's like that. But yeah, they, they always do them in different color variants because they're trying to appeal to more types of kids and their favorite colors and everything. And almost always you have to buy them in like a pack with a set number of colors. And so there's so many things that by the end of the back to school season we have like one color left and it's like the weird color that no one wants or it's like all the pink ones that no one wants. But this year it's been, it's been good. A lot of the colors I'm noticing are better than they have been in the past of these Kum 4 in 1 sharpeners that used to come in like neon colors and now they do them in these nice kind of like jewel tone metallics. And I think that's the first time we've ever stuck something in color variants. And each color has been equally as popular as the next.

Yeah.

Let's see. I mean there's nothing really new this year that's different. The ones that are usually really popular are the Kitaboshi academic writing pencils. Because they're just cool and they say academic writing on the back of them and they're like that nice burgundy color. And those are always popular. We sell those during back to school season as a dozen, not just individually, which is not something we list separately any other time of the year. And the Mitsubishi 9852s are always really popular too because they're just, they're basically like. Well, they're just like a cooler version of a classic number two pencil. And so the older kids tend to like that, that it's not like super weird, but it's a little bit different. And the erasers are just kind of nice and spongy. Yeah, those are, those are always really popular. The Futuras that we brought in last year have been really popular too because they're really good quality for a cheap pencil. I have to say that Moon products did a really nice job on those. Yeah, so we have, we've had some issues with the finish or especially the embossing on some of them. And that was a whole hole. That's a longer story. When it came to producing those, it was very challenging. But yeah, they, they made them out of cedar and they sharpen nicely, they write nicely, they hold a good point. So those. Yeah, and they're just really pink. So people tend to really like those first just to have something like a little bit crazy and a little bit different for back to school. So I'm happy we have those.

Yeah, I haven't seen those. That sounds nice.

Yeah, that sounds cool. I haven't been to a real Target yet this back to school season, which I'm a little bummed about.

We're starting to get more of them. We've had a couple open in the past few months. There's one that just opened a few weeks ago that's like two blocks from my apartment. It's really close and I've kind of made it a habit of like doing late night Target runs there, because I can, and that's something I've never been able to do before. There's one opening right by the shop also later this actually next week I think it opens, which is going to be weird and kind of awesome. But their stationary selection is terrible. Everything else about these little urban targets are actually really good. Like the grocery section is really impressive. All of like the personal care and like drugstore type of stuff is good. The home goods stuff is nice, but man, they really haven't hit the mark with the stationery. I'm really bummed about it, but I need to go to a real Target. I'm going to be in Ohio for a wedding in September and I know exactly which Target I can go to. On my way back to the Columbus airport before I turn in my rental car. It's right off the exit. It's a really good one. And I think by then they should have all of the random cheap back to school stuff on sale in the back of the store, which they do at this particular Target. So I'm kind of looking forward to that. I think I'm going to do my personal back to school shopping then.

Yeah, I mean, with kids it's often the fight between what the kids want and what the parents want. But as I'm sure you know, we see a lot of that in here. But the Musgrave finger fitters are always really popular because they look kind of weird and kind of cool, but they're also just really chunky and easy to hold. That's. That's been a really popular one. Some of the mini jumbos have been doing well this year. Too. Like, the Big Bear has been doing really well, which is surprising because that's usually one that we don't sell a ton of. But a lot of times, honestly, like, so many of those jumbos, like the. I mean, I mean, so many of them are made by Musgrave or Moon products, and they're all pretty much the same. The shape is just different or the design is different. So a lot of times it's just up to whatever the kid thinks it's cool on whatever that day is. I mean, a lot of times kids want the choo choo one just because it has a train on it. And that's cool too. That's totally okay.

Geez, she's fancy.

Oh, yes, we love those. We will always sell them. They're really nice to write with.

Yeah. And that's such a weird one to just find.

Yeah, it's tacky in a really awesome way.

Yeah.

Ooh, that's a good question. I mean that's. It's funny to see what kids like about erasers because every kid has a different opinion. We had a kid in the store yesterday who was, he was like. I had asked him, he was like, definitely shopping for stuff for school and he just really wanted a kneadable eraser. Like it didn't matter that he wasn't using it for drawing or anything. That's just like the only thing he wanted and he got one. But yeah, kids, I mean, mostly pick them based on what they look like. So I mean, for us it's not that big of a problem because we don't really sell any not great erasers. The only one is probably the Koh I Noor thermoplastic one. Those ones aren't great but. And I tell, I'm very honest with people when they ask if it's a good eraser. I usually tell them like, not really, but they're so people like them because they look so cool. Sometimes that's okay, sometimes it's okay. But yeah, that's the only one that when a kid asked me about, I tell them like, do not buy that one for school. Get something else. It looks equally as cool.

Like that's totally what it is. That's funny. Yeah, that's. I mean, I'm afraid I can't really give you much on erasers because yeah, it's just what the kids like. But you know, actually what always surprises me is how interested kids are in all of the varieties of the laufer erasers. Like the really German ones and they're all like really. They feel, they all of them feel very firm and I don't know if it's something about the way it feels or the way it looks. I'm not sure, but we stuck four different varieties of these laufer erasers, and they've been really popular. It's very strange, and I haven't quite figured that one out.

Yeah, that's one of them. And then they make. They make one that's like the really gritty blue, but it's a normal. Like, it's the shape of a normal plastic eraser. And the other side is a plastic eraser. It has, like, a little cardboard.

But the one that is really awesome, that kids also really like because of the way it looks, is a plastic one that is very, very firm, and it has a plastic holder on it that's blue. It's like Smurf Blue.

Yes. And that as far as, like, Deep Cut erasers go, that one's my favorite. It's actually really, really good, and it works really well. And, like, very hard to erase things like colored pencils. I mean, maybe that's why kids like it, because they find it in the test station and realize that it can kind of erase a colored pencil. But they're good for kids because it takes forever to wear them down. So you can just, like, abuse it and it'll be totally fine.

Oh, yeah, that's one of those brands. Here's a little inside scoop about how shops work. If nobody. They come from Germany. We import them directly from Germany. They don't have a North American distributor, and their minimums are really high. So when we sell out of one, I wait like a month or two until we're kind of sold out or almost sold out of the other ones, because I just can't justify buying 5,000 of that one eraser to put in an order.

And the. The other hole, the sharpener holes. Are plugged by this, like, little eraser that's like its beak. That's what the little, like, lime green bit is. It's really cool. You know what sharpener I'm really loving right now that we got specifically for back to school, but I think we're going to keep it permanently. And this is one of the ones that comes in two colors which are blue and pink. And I don't love that, but it's called. It's made by Sun Star, which is a Japanese brand. They're the ones who make the cherry blossom pencils. And they make a lot of just like, cheap stuff. Their website is not good. It just. Yeah, it's very tacky. But they make some really good stuff. And this sharpener is one of them. It's really inexpensive. I think it's $3. And it's like the. Like the Muji ones or the uni palette, like the little super tiny enclosed ones where the little lid just snaps shut. But it has two holes, one for a regular size point and one for a slightly long point. And I've been carrying around one with me. And I always keep one colored pencil and one regular pencil on me. And it's nice because I can use the longer blade for a regular pencil and then I use a shorter one for my colored pencil. And it works brilliantly. And it holds enough. Holds enough shavings for probably like five or six sharpenings, which is about enough if I'm just out for the day.

Yeah, it is. And it stays shut really well too. If I could make my dream sharpener, would probably be like a better looking, higher quality version of that with replaceable blades. It just functions really well. I really like it. I think we'll definitely sell those for as long as we can get them.

Yeah. We actually have a lot of pencil cases right now. A lot of good ones that. I mean, none of them are particularly kid friendly because, I mean, because it depends too, how old your kid is, too, because you're in high school, you don't need a lot of stuff. But for younger kids, they need a lot of supplies. They need all the crafty things, too. And. And there's just nothing great for that. But. And I'm sure you guys have seen this, the new Nocco pencil case.

Do you know about this?

Yeah, it just came out a few weeks ago. I think we have it in the store right now. It's in the physical store. I have not put it online yet because I've been meaning to. We only got it last week. I've been meaning to email Brad to see if we're allowed to, but it's really cool. He sent me a sneak peek of it a couple months ago. And it's cool. It's yellow. It's kind of big, too. I wish I knew the exact dimensions of it.

Made specifically for pencils. And even on their little branded label, there's a tiny pencil on it, too. It's adorable. But the. Yeah, the whole thing, like, the actual body of the case is pencil yellow. The zipper is pink, and the little, like the little grippy loop thing on it is like graphite gray. It's really cool. And they. I think they retail for $15. They're not that expensive. Yeah, that's the one that I've been resisting the urge to take home with me at the end of the day. I probably will eventually. Probably this week. But yeah, it's really cool. I was thinking, though, like, for an adult, though for practical purposes, like, that's the perfect size little pouch to put all the things I need to write postcards. When I'm on vacation.

You can fit the postcards in there, your stamps, your stickers, your washi tape, your pencils. Like, it all fits. It's, yeah, it's a great size. I love it.

There's jealous. Yeah, I'm jealous too.

Yeah.

Everyone should check it out. It's really awesome. It's just such a nice size because it's just a little bit big, a little bit deeper than most of them, and it's just simple. And it's washable, which is always something I'm looking for. There's so many beautiful cases that are leather, but they're so hard to clean.

And I'm kind of messy when it comes to this stuff. I don't want to have to be, like, fussing over making sure everything has a cap on it all the time. I want to be able to, like, throw it in the washing machine.

And that's why. Yeah. This one too. Especially for, like, yeah. Non elementary school kids. I think it would be an awesome case for kids.

Oh, yeah, those are always popular. We just got a shipment of those.

Thank you. They're fun to work with because they, they don't really keep like, inventory of things there. They just kind of let Us pick our colors every time and they just make them to order. So over the years we've gotten like crazier and crazier with the color combos. The. Yeah, the last couple of ones I've just kind of made up.

We order, we usually order 40 per color, but we've been ordering really frequently lately. So he's let me. And now that we have so many different colors, now we sell a really giant one which is just black. And then we sell like a three pack of just like normal size black and white notebooks. And we sell four different colorways of the larger version of the cloud print notebook. And now we sell two different ones of the size, smaller ones which come in particularly wacky colors. And those, those weren't meant to be permanent, but they've been so popular that we're just going to keep getting them until people get bored and then we'll come up with a new color combination and get those ones instead. But they're fun. I love those. That was the first notebook that I chased when we first, first first opened.

Yeah, they're. They're my personal favorites. And they're, I mean they're not cheap notebooks but those bigger ones, they're. They retail for $26 and they're really good quality for a $26 notebook. Like the paper quality and the way that they're bound and they're made by a small company in Portugal that's been around for almost 100 years. They're just cool. Yeah, I love them. But they, I mean, they originally appeal to me because they basically look like, like really like fancy European composition notebooks. And that's why I love them. But yeah, I love that aesthetic. And the comp notebooks, the ones that Erin Fay designed that had a Kickstarter, I guess it was over a year ago. Those are popular during back to school season. We actually had a dad and his son come in yesterday and they bought I think like five of them for school. And yeah, he was a really cool dad. Like the kid was into it too. They were just a cool family. But I mean those would be really. I wish I had a parent who thought it was important to use those instead of a regular composition notebook for

But the thing about those notebooks, though, is that they're heavy.

Those comp notebooks, they are really heavy for a notebook. I'm not sure that I want to carry that around in my backpack. Yeah. But those, anything that's like nostalgic and like school looking is really popular this time of year. Especially like the Iron Curtain press notebooks that are spiral bound. Those are. Those have been really popular this year. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. And they kind of recently moved into a bigger shop, too. Yeah, I'm dying to visit them in la.

Yeah. Yeah, we love those. People go nuts for those. They're coming out with a planner. Oh, yeah. I think it's either available soon or it's available now. I know I ordered it on my last order last week, but it's an open date planner that's the same size as their. They call it the standard notebook. It's like the kind of squarish one, the bigger size. We sell it in mint green. Yeah. But it's an open date planner and we've never really stocked planners before, except for those little Calipino pocket notebook ones. Because I just. So many of the good ones do not come open date. I would stock them if they were open date, but I mean, so few people actually start their planner in January and stick with it. And it's frustrating to me. And I can't imagine, like, if you're a manufacturer, it would make sense to make them open date because then you don't have to worry about unsold inventory.

Anyway, I have a lot of gripes with planners. Don't get me started. But yeah, their new ones are really cool. Yeah, I love them.

Oh, man, that's a good question. I guess the really popular ones for the past couple months have been the Mazuri planner stickers. They are. I think they're Malaysian. They actually make a really cool academic planner for kids that you can get customized. They're awesome. And they're shipping to the U.S. i don't think is that bad, all things considered. And I don't think it changes by weight. I think it's just flat rate, if I can recall correctly. But their planner stickers are really, really cool. And that's. I mean, that's a thing that we don't really stock a ton of. Not because I don't like them, but just because like so many of them are really like scrapbook looking, if that makes sense. Like they. And they're made for things that most people don't do in their daily lives. And some of these ones are kind of like, kind of specific, but they have ones that are. It's like a tiny. It's a whole sheet of like tiny pencils and tiny fountain pens. It's so cute.

It's adorable. But they make ones that just say like, good job. And they make ones that are like little shopping carts with faces on them. And yeah, they're really cool. Those have been really popular, especially because a lot of them are like back to school applicable. People have been buying them with their school supplies. But we also just started stocking some stickers by an illustrator named Rainy Chen who has an Etsy store called Johan Studio that Alex actually found a few months ago. And the stickers that she does are so cute. And almost everything is pencil or stationary themed. Everything that she draws. And there are all these little people who have like pencil heads or they like. I can't even describe it. Or they have. There are a lot of things that are like little people in cars that are actually erasers. It's very cute. And we recently got a lot of her stickers delivered.

is still an in store thing? Yeah. Which I know a lot of people are kind of frustrated about. But I mean, it's one of those things that we're not the only place that sells cool stickers. There are other places that sell them, but I mean, I just wanted it to be like a kind of just like little in store surprise. Because as we get older as a shop, the harder it gets to get people to still come to the store. Once they start learning enough about these things to kind of fend for themselves or once they start discovering other places to buy them. It's always a challenge to get people into the store. And so it's fun having a little sticker room because people have started to know that it's here and they come here really excited to see all These stickers and they have no idea what we sell because none of it's online. And it's always changing too, because we just kind of buy what we like. We're always finding new illustrators or finding like people on Etsy who we can talk into wholesaling. To us, it's always different. Yeah, I mean, if there's ever something really specific that you're looking for, you can email us and we might have it. We can do a sneaky internal order.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, he's our number one sticker customer.

Oh, yeah, yeah. We see them every weekend. They're the best. But they can go in the sticker room and point out exactly what's new. They know the lay of the land very well. Chris and Jess.

You know, we didn't do something like that this year because if I'm being totally honest, that is one of those ideas that we were obsessed with. But no one bought them except Johnny.

They were really cool. And Meredith made this really great sticker sheet of like, not necessarily like school supplies, but just kind of like back to school type things. Like there was a cootie catcher on there and like a lunch bag and a carton of milk. It was really cute. And yeah, that was one of those things that we put so much time into having Meredith do these stickers and assembling these and nobody bought them. I think maybe they were a little bit too expensive. But we really just priced them at like what they are retail. So we decided not to do those this year, which was very sad. But we did do a few weeks ago we did a freebie. But these are actually really nice Japanese pencil tins. And we included a back to school sticker that we've been giving away in the shop that Meredith made. That looks like a little like pencil kaleidoscope.

Yeah, they're really Cute. That was our kind of like compromise this year. We still had did a sticker, but honestly, Meredith has been working on so many other projects right now for all of this new stuff coming out this year and all of our subscription box stuff that I just can't. Yeah, I only ask her to do so much.

Meredith needs her own assistant.

Oh goodness.

That would also be kind of scary. Not that Meredith is scary, but because

Yeah. We actually had a new intern start about a week and a half ago who reached out to me just kind of out of nowhere. And she lives nearby and she's really, really wonderful and she's actually very talented illustrator. When she came to meet me, she pulled out a folder of drawings to show me and I was just completely taken aback. She's amazing. So I'm hoping that we can get her to do some fun things for us. Maybe some stickers or some postcards or something this year because she's really talented.

Yeah. She can be Meredith's protege.

Oh, yeah. So our book club meets every other month. We pick a book for every two months just so that people don't feel like they have to rush to read it, especially if it's a busy month for you or you're already reading something you love. And we meet on the last Wednesday of every other month. So our meeting is coming up on August 29th after the shop closes from 7:30 to 9:30. But we also have an email list. There's no easy way to sign up for it because we're not super tech savvy here. But if you send us an email or DM me on Twitter or Instagram or wherever, that's kind of where we're collecting email addresses and then we pop it in the system. Because we do send a couple of emails periodically just to kind of like check in at the end of the month. We always send some suggestions of activities to do, which are things that we're probably also doing at book club. But our meetings are fun. We try to run them. Not so much like we're all going to Sit in a circle and talk about it. We try to set it up so that people kind of feel encouraged to have conversations amongst themselves. And we have been going really, really hard on the book specific snacks, like very specific. That's been really fun. When I'm reading the book, I keep a list in the back of the book of every single food that is mentioned and what page number it's on. The next one is going to have some good snacks. And we try to come up with activities that we can do at our meetings that we can suggest to our remote readers to do that have to do with the book. And then we always do like a follow up blog post about it or an introductory blog post about it. But yeah, everyone's welcome to read along with us. We want lots of people to participate. And we've been hashtagging Orchard street readingsociety on Instagram so we can see everybody's posts. We sell membership packs online. We had Meredith made an adorable little member pin.

And we have bookmarks. We have a lot of good swag for book club. We went a little bit nuts. Alex and I were really excited to have our own book club. We kind of lost it on the book club swag. But yeah, if you're interested, send me an email or send us a message somewhere and we'll get you involved.

I don't think so. This was fun. Thank you for having me.

Oh, in person. Well, you can find me at 15 Orchard street between Canal and Hester. Nearest subway stop is the East Broadway. F or usually I'm behind the red curtain. I feel like I'm the Wizard of Oz sometimes back here just yelling at people from behind the curtain. When I hear something exciting,

Yeah. Well, no, even sometimes I can hear everything that happens at the shop. So if a customer is asking a really complicated question or they say something that really makes me excited, I just like shout from behind here. And I forget that to like Olivia or whoever's out there, that's normal. But to customers in the shop, it just sounds crazy. Who is that? I come out from behind the curtain. Yeah. Anyway, don't be afraid to shout for me. I'll shout back. Yeah. So I'm here most days. But you can also find our shop website online at cwpencils.com on Instagram @cwpencils. And I'm why am I blanking on my own social media? On Twitter at cwpencils. And if you want to see a lot of videos of my cats, you can follow me on Instagram Adygraphite.

All right.