Wonder Plans for Scriptus, the Toronto Pen Show

It's coming down to the wire! Here are a few of our big plans. We've got Brad, Myke and Ana coming to the main shop on Saturday, October, 27th, from 1-5 pm and we're pretty excited for an afternoon of pen talk and and tasty treats! I can't wait. And while we're getting the shop ready for their visit, we're also organizing and re-organizing for Scriptus, which is the pen show taking place on Sunday, October 28th, at the Reference Library at Yonge and Bloor. As always, these last few days always seem to leave us scrambling - price tags! stamps! order more cardstock! raffle tickets! receipt printer! we've run out of lighter fluid! You know things are getting real when we're holding Skype meetings mid-day between the shops. The show opens at 10 am and closes at 4 pm. If you arrive at the Reference Library, there will be signs directing you where to go, or you can probably follow the stream of people in the right direction. If you're interested in hustling for a specific pen or treasure, come early, as close as possible to 10 am, and be prepared to squeeze tight through the crowds. If you're interested in avoiding crowds, a few hours in, things start to peter out, so I might advise coming closer to 1 pm or 2 pm, which still leaves you a good amount of time to look at all the tables. The scene from last year's show. We're going to be in the same tables as last year, so you know where to find us (along the back wall - if you're looking at the windows, like in the photo above, we're along the walls on the right side). We're also going to have Brad, Myke and Ana pitching in at our tables, so please stop by to hang out or say hello or show off your new treasures. We are going to have a few special things, including some prototypes from our friends at Franklin-Christoph (!), some pens from Opus 88, a few Superior Labor pieces, Edison pens and more. Alas, we really got hit hard by the recent Canada Post strikes in Toronto, which was bad timing, as we were hoping for a few specific shipments to arrive in time for the show, but we're nothing if not scrappy. If you buy something from our table, you'll be able to draw from our yellow ticket raffle. If you were at our last day at our old Carlaw shop, you might remember the big glass vase where you drew out a yellow ticket with a wax seal to find out if you won something. This was a real hit, and while I swore I would never do a wax seal again, I couldn't stay away. We've got a ton of prizes, including notebooks, pens, inks, ink samples and discount cards to our shop. We're also going to have a completely free, no purchase necessary raffle. The prize is a leather pouch from Superior Labor. You enter with your name and email address, and you can indicate on it if you're already part of our email newsletter, if you would not like to be signed up, or if you would like to be added. Our email newsletter goes out once every week or two, and is filled with all kinds of good stuff, like events, new products, re-stocks or blog posts. Stop by anytime to fill out a ballot. We'll be drawing the winner and notifying after the show. At our tables, almost everything is going to be 10% off - exceptions are only for a few brands that request that we don't discount in order to maintain consistency. So if you're looking to stock up on paper or consumables, or pick up a few early Christmas gifts, please stop by and take a look. And of course, we're going to have lots of fun freebies, Scriptus postcards, blank postcards, buttons. Please come by and say hello. Every year, it is my favourite thing to say hi to customers who have just found us or who have been with us since the beginning. There's nothing like an enormous gathering of so many of the people people who keep your business alive and your babies in diapers and food on the table.*  

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  In other news, you can really tell fall is in the air because Super, our trusty doggo, has begun his frolicking play attacks onto Chicken, the cat. Chicken will be casually sleeping on the floor, and Super will leap and pounce and growl and nuzzle with his forearms down on the floor in a bow, also potentially on top of Chicken, and Chicken will be pathetically on his back, rolling around, ears flattened, batting away helplessly, meowing for help. Eventually Chicken either runs away or Super gets tired, or else a human rescues Chicken. Chicken has been a real pain lately, meowing, scratching the carpets, doing his own attacking of human ankles except with sharp claws, so I have to admit to occasionally sipping my cup of tea and watching for maybe an extra five seconds or so before calling off the dog. Ten if I'm comfortable on the couch. With the dropping temperatures, for us humans, comes all the headiness of the holiday season, and it's sort of a good jump start, Scriptus, to freshen up our shelves, and get the team together, and to re-energize us for the coming months ahead. There seem to be a lot of balls in the air: another shop, another baby, getting the cottage ready for winter, getting that flat tire fixed on the Subaru, Christmas trees. The idea of "just making it through" the season is sometimes what I end up with around the end of December when the fridge is empty and the laundry baskets are overflowing, but I always hope it's more than that. With the babies being babies for such a short time, I want it to be about slowing down and embracing the snow, and the moments when the apple cider is still hot, and the new boxes of things coming in, and helping people finding something someone else will just love, while a baby is crouching underneath the table, munching on a granola bar. These days when we've got our tiny new studio shop, and Naomi is learning to walk, and Caleb is watching the construction vehicles through the window.