Martha Brook Stationery Social 2019

I received a gifted ticket for this event and all thoughts are my own

It says a lot about me that I’ve only left Cornwall twice this year – and both times were for stationery events. I headed to London in April for the annual Stationery Show and again earlier this month for Martha Brook‘s second Stationery Social.

Hosted at Beach Blanket Babylon Shoreditch on 7 September, Stationery Social 2019 featured four creative workshops, a panel talk and Q&A, plus networking opportunities, across the course of the afternoon.

The attention to detail for this event was incredible, from the invitations to the decor. The floristry was by Dove & Myrtle, the origami backdrop was by The Origami Boutique, and the balloon backdrop was by Mimi & Lu.

(That pic above was taken by Cristina Ilao, the official event photographer – I didn’t get a decent shot of the stationery social sign)

The food was pretty epic too. We were served tasty canapes and the cake display (centrepiece by Richmond Cake School) was almost too beautiful to eat.

And how cute are these cupcakes?!

I was all about the workshops and was so excited to attend a brief intro to brush lettering with Betty Etiquette. Tombow supplied a fantastic selection of pens and the worksheets were really useful.

Attendees were encouraged to start out by tracing strokes and letters and then have a go in the stunning journals supplied in our goody bags (more on those later).

I was also interested to see a session on creative gift wrapping, as I’m terrible at wrapping presents; I definitely felt inspired to try something a bit different next time. It’s amazing what you can achieve with some brown paper, an ink pad, and a eraser-topped pencil.

The envelope addressing session was interesting too. I love receiving fun snail mail but I rarely make an effort myself. It doesn’t take much to add a few personal touches and I’m now looking forward to Christmas card writing this year.

The panel talk and Q&A was so inspiring and empowering; someone really should have recorded it as a podcast. Martha (centre) was joined by (l-r) Geraldine Tan (Little Big Bell), Steph Douglas (Don’t Buy Her Flowers), Kay Suppamas (Leafage) and Ellie Kime (The Enthusiast) to debate the all-important “side hustle vs full-time career” (again, picture by Cristina).

All of these women have built successful businesses and careers from scratch and are fantastic examples of what you can achieve when you work your ass off. Girl power!

Another highlight of the day was being able to see the new products which launched on the website just a couple of days before. Martha’s new mindful collection is truly stunning and it was so satisfying to stroke the soft covers and swoon over the personalised diaries and notebooks.

Customers have been asking for a bullet journal and Martha has delivered with a dot grid journal, which can be personalised.

I think the gratitude journal is my favourite.

And that’s not all! I was finally able to put some beautiful faces to lovely names, as I met some online friends IRL: Milly from Blink Lettering, Katie from Find the Good Everyday, and Sarah from Stationery Magpie.

Oh, and did I mention that all attendees were gifted these lovely goody bags? I’m so in love with this notebook; I want that slogan on a t-shirt. And a tote bag. And a pencil case. And maybe on a pin badge… The bags also contained some Teapigs samples, a pack of pencils from Sass & Belle, a Biscuiteers biscuit (already scoffed but shared to Instagram moments before), some postcards, and a beautiful decoration which we used as part of the gift wrapping workshop.

I was disappointed to miss the first Stationery Social last year and I’m so glad I made the effort to travel up this year. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for future events.