FALL PREVIEW

Our Fall '07 line will premiere this weekend at The Stationary Show in NYC, but I will give all 8 of my faithful readers (the numbers just keep going UP!) a sneak peek at NEVER BEFORE SEEN items and reveal the inspiration for them. Starting with this one: our new FRIEND FOR LIFE mug.

I am fortunate enough to know a lot of wonderful people, but two girlfriends in particular came to mind when designing this mug.

The first is my friend Cary-whom I have known since I was 8 years old--who has the distinction of being the friend whose parents SENT HER TO BOARDING SCHOOL TO REMOVE HER FROM MY SPHERE OF INFLUENCE. All because I taught her to smoke cigarettes at age 15 in the woods, and we happened to do it in a patch of poison ivy. I should mention that I am not at all allergic to poison ivy and can, in fact, handle it like a bouquet of flowers--it is one of my many superpowers. Cary, on the other hand, developed poison ivy over 95 percent of her body. Including inside her ears--which is supposed to be all kinds of painful, and her entire ass, since we were bright enough to actually SIT in the stuff in shorts. Her dad went to where she said she thought she may have had contact with the plant in order to destroy its rampant growth, and discovered the 30 or so half smoked Marlborough Reds we had scattered carelessly on the ground. Next thing you know they shipped her off to a swanky campus upstate, and we could only be together vacations and summers, which left me little time to teach her to DRINK WHILE UNDERAGE and SNEAK BOYS INTO THE HOUSE WHILE HER PARENTS WERE SLEEPING. But somehow I managed.

The second is my friend Karen, who now lives such a different life than I: having signed some sort of pact with the devil and remaining a size two, beautiful and graceful, and always carrying the latest pocketbook. She jet sets all over the world, has homes in New York and Vancouver, and recently christened a ship. K and I are like old buddies bound together eternally because we survived great hardships together--in our case, it was DATING IN OUR THIRTIES. Oh the stories we could tell about married Russian men and ex-models. But that's another blog.

Both of these gals are a FRIEND FOR LIFE which means that we will still be best buds when we are blue haired and stooped (even though Karen will most likely still be brunette and a size two, damn her.)

By the way, some friends are not Friends for Life; Some are just "Friends For While You are Renting the Summer House" or "Friends For The Duration of This Birthday Party Until Next Year's Birthday Party." But a FRIEND FOR LIFE is a No-Matter-What Friend. Send one you know an email today. Then take her out and encourage her to get a tattoo.

A portion of the proceeds of the sale of this item will go to a great organization called The Creative Center, which brings art to people with cancer. You can find more info at www.thecreativecenter.org. Because when you are blessed, pass it on.