I met Mary Kramer at the National Stationary Show back in March* and was pretty smitten with her designs. She founded Overdue Cards, a cheeky greeting card and paper product company. They currently have two product lines: Overpass cards imitate “Will work for food” signs scrawled on cardboard, and her Overdue cards (the company’s namesake) are pretty backgrounds paired with old fashioned library catalog cards – some real, some made up, and some that look like a cross between the two – that coordinate with the greeting.

Mary has agreed to give one reader a box set of her whimsical cards. Just leave a comment below to enter – since it’s fall, share your favorite fall activity! I’ll draw the winner next Monday.

*I swear that I’m going to blog all of the wonderful people I met there EVENTUALLY, probably right before NEXT March when I meet a whole slew of OTHER people and have to start going through the stack of wonderful business cards yet again. So goes the life of the busy blogger.

For two years I’ve sighed with great envy (yes, great envy) reading other bloggers accounts of the National Stationary Show. There it was, right here in New York City, and I was shut out, a mere wishful blogger, and not an “industry insider”.

NO MORE, my friends. No more. This year Amber was going to the NSS.

Ok, I know. It’s not that exciting. But it totally was for me. I walked into the Javitz center the angels went “Ahhh!”

There are three pages of notes, stacks of cards and a handful of press kits to go through. My desk has literally become infested with pretty paper. I’m not going to do any major, in-depth coverage of it because there are so many others who are doing that way better than I could, but I will be highlighting the handful of beautiful, wonderful things I’m really excited about, both here and over at the Sideshow

The experience was new and I might not have done it “right”, for instance, I felt pretty awkward asking to take photos. I had my camera, but I just couldn’t bring myself to ask. I figured websites would have better photos anyway, but in retrospect, I think I’d rather have my own shots. Lesson learned for next year.

Winning the award for the nicest person in a booth (because in the end, it’s all about the humanity for me) is La Familia Green. This husband/wife duo makes cards, some out of cut paper and some that are printed.

“Who would buy an ‘I love Michele Obama’ card?” I asked.

He shrugged. “You’d be surprised. Who would buy a ‘James Franco, you’re so dreamy’ card? But people do.”

I started to laugh. “I know exactly who I’d buy that one for!”

“See,” he said. “There you go.”

They also had a card that featured their beloved Stickers. It read, “Hooray for rescue dogs!”, which I imagine you would send to someone who has acquired a new dog via adoption. Clearly, these are my kind of people.