I felt like we were more prepared than ever for our first big trade show in New York. But let me just start this post by saying... can one ever really really really be prepared for one's first NYC trade show? In typical Will + Betsy fashion, we pulled a straight up all-nighter (as in --> not one ounce of sleep) the night before we left for New York. We had crossed every T and dotted every i (literally, in the case of our printed logos for the walls). Will had graph paper and spreadsheets and iphone reminders coming out of his nose; I had designed and made the last few stragglers additions to the newest betsy & iya jewelry collection; we made some of our finest versions of each piece in the collection; We packed all the jewelry samples along with all the tools, the business cards, the clothes, the boxes, the displays, and the plans for what we would do for the two days we had to set up our cute fake shop. It was all ready and we were already exhausted. I'll let my grainy iphone pics tell the story from here: 
Sun setting on the way to our first trade show in New York. Scaaaaary. Exciiiiiting.
We decided to create a crazy awesome shadow of the wall triangle in our FLOR floor. Overachievers much!?
Betsy starts painting the charcoal corner triangle while Will starts cutting the floor.
Chaos moves about the booth from corner to corner as we get things set up.
The floor is down, the projector is set, the paint is on the walls and we're about to set the logos. Now for the furniture...
This is the start of the FLOR floor puzzle we created.
Back from Ikea shopping. Second (and last) day of set up. We're feeling extremely tired and a bit pressed for time as the sun is definitely going down and this is what our booth looks like.
Oh my, are we going to make it? Time is seriously running out at this point and we are TIRED.
Our paint on the "hard" walls was compromised when we pulled up the sticky parts from our vinyl logos. No worries! I fixed it with some sneaky hand-painting.
OH MY GOODNESS, WE DID IT. Sweet victory. Our first NYIGF booth was complete. And we really really liked it. We even got some professional photos of the booth taken and we'll post them here when they're finished!
A walk home in New York after a very hard day's work.
Best and most expensive eggs we've ever had in our lives.
Awake! ...and emailing new and potential customers--amazing shop owners from all over the country!
Asleep! ...and writing our new customers and potential customers. ...When I came back from the bathroom, this is the position I found my husband in. He was determined to write emails to all of our contacts before the day was over. SUCH a hard worker.
The Whitney Museum ceiling and lights on our NYC day off.
I found it hilarious that when I went downstairs to get coffee at the Whitney, it was none other than Stumptown from Portland.
All this hard work... it's really nothing without the love from friends and family. That's what we're really here for. (Our good friends pictured here, the lovely/amazing/talented team that are Make it Good and Nell & Mary...also lines we carry in the shop AND George--our amazing photographer friend.)
Day off in NYC after a very successful first-time trade show go! Here you can see my Subway head.
At the end of it all, we gained around 30 new and 60 potential accounts around this amazing country (and a few beyond), we made new friends and celebrated with old friends, we landed potential reps for outside of the US, we found new amazing goods for the betsy & iya local Portland shop, we finally met shop owners who have been selling our small batch handcrafted Portland jewelry for years, we learned so very much, and we left the contents of our booth there to do it all again. WOW, thank you New York International Gift Fair (now called NY NOW, the Market for Home + Lifestyle)... in this case, our hard work has definitely paid off. It was such a huge scary hurdle to jump over, but we did it and we will be back!!! SHaaaawhew!! Seriously, thank you to all who have helped us get this far. It feels kind of crazy to be showing our work in NYC. We feel blessed. Big love to all. ~Betsy ***Song of the Moment: Visitor, by Hundred Waters***