We are delighted to be highlighted as a Featured Retailer by our friends at Elum (click here to see.) Thank you for the honor and for eight years of a relationship that has beautified our lives and that of our customers.

We attended the National Stationery Show in late May and have come back with a fully loaded trunk of exciting new lines and products for GREER Chicago. We hope you'll keep checking back over the summer as we add these new offerings to our website and store.

Walking the show helped reinforce why we believe what we do at GREER is important. The talent in this most positive of industries is deep, passionate and in some cases, daring and groundbreaking. It has always been our pleasure to support it and provide an enthusiastic and beautiful showcase for it, especially for the smaller companies who don't have the name recognition or sales representation that some of the larger firms do.

When we bring a new line into GREER we feel we're making a promise to merchandise and describe and represent it to the absolute best of our abilities. We're delighted with the fact that many of the companies we were the first or among the first to carry either in Chicago or even nationally have gone on to great success -- Jill Bliss, La Familia Green, Art School Girl, You Send Me, Russell and Hazel, Snow and Graham.

One of the things that struck us as we talked to designers at the show was how many of them run these businesses "on the side" while working full-time jobs. Knowing what it takes to run and grow a business it was awe-inspiring to see how passion, drive, belief and creativity give them the strength it takes to pursue their dreams in what little free time they have. These are hard-working people, but we didn't hear a single complaint about the hours they must work. They love what they do and are committed to it.

Another thing we noted was the number of spouses and partners who were at the Show, standing by their women (and it is mostly women who are doing this stuff.) Actually they were literally standing by their women, working the booths just as hard as anyone. And we tell you, there is no better spokesperson than someone who's crazy about the product and its creator. These guys were talking up their wives/girlfriends and their work like nobody's business.

During our trip to NYC we paid a visit to the fabulous Greenwich Letterpress in West Village (39 Christopher Street between Waverly Place and 7th Avenue.) We had heard great things about this store and wanted to see what we could learn from some folks who are apparently doing things right. Well, they certainly are.

The shop was an indie design paradise reflecting the owners' desire to nurture this segment of the paper goods market. We saw a lot of things we've never seen before and, when it comes to stationery, we've been around the world three times and back. Greenwich also has an eponymous, really unique and well-crafted line of letterpress cards and wedding invitations that they print on a couple of presses in their studio; we're hoping to bring some of their work to GREER.

And talk about civility. When we introduced ourselves to Beth, who owns the shop along with her sister Amy, we were ready for a reception we've received in the past, the "What is this competitor doing in my store?" reception. Instead, she couldn't have been more warm, welcoming and gracious even going so far as to point out things she thinks we should carry at GREER! Quite a lady. If you live in or visit New York, pay Greenwich Letterpress a visit, you'll love Beth and her store.

Last month Chandra Greer participated in a panel discussion entitled "Off the Beaten Path" as part of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business' Women in Business Conference. The annual event, a "comfortable place" for female GSB students "to talk to corporate women about their jobs, lives and interests in a non-threatening environment" was attended by 200 students, essentially the entire female student body of the Business School, and twenty-five alumnae.

Our particular discussion included four panelists, three smart, articulate women from the not-for-profit world and Chandra (from the hope-for-profit world) there to speak on the rewards, joys, difficulties, experiences of foregoing the more conventional and far more lucrative paths of investment banking and management consulting (two professions receiving a healthy infusion of new GSB grads each year) for the less impressive financial rewards of not-for-profit and fledgling entrepreneurship.

It was a stimulating discussion. There was general agreement among the panelists that the benefits of stepping off the path were more emotional, intellectual and spiritual than financial. Everyone mentioned enjoying a more flexible schedule and greater organizational accommodation of life outside the workplace. Interestingly, some of the panelists juxtaposed our current careers with previous positions at mega-corporations and felt our impact on society was greater now than when we wielded multi-million budgets within multi-multi-million departments. Perhaps it is more satisfying to touch a few deeply than many lightly.

A few weeks after the conference a nice woman, a GSB student, visited our store. She mentioned she liked our quote in the school newspaper's review of the conference. We hadn't seen the article and were highly amused when she told us what it said because it was a comment that had proceeded directly from our gut to our mouth, bypassing our brain.

You see, upon arriving at the conference we thought we were on the set of "Women in Black." Just about everybody in attendance was draped in either a black or deep grey formal business suit, not a color in sight, not even navy or brown. Highly visual in our assessment of every situation, we were fascinated by this startling uniformity. So here's what we said that apparently caused quite a stir on campus (from an article reviewing the conference in the November 1 issue of Chicago Business:)

"And what was the [conference's] best advice from an alumna? Chandra Greer (GSB '90) Founder of Greer, a boutique stationery store in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood, had a tough time thinking of what pearls of wisdom to give all of us eager women. But looking at the sea of black and gray suits in front of her said, "You all need to buy a red suit."

We were kidding, of course. Sort of.

We're always slightly, gratefully surprised when folks take the time to write us lovely notes such as this one:

"Thanks so much! I must say, I am a little in love with your company and was so excited when my order arrived wrapped so beautifully. I lived in Chicago for two years and am sad to say that I never even knew about your store. At least I can still continue to support Chicago businesses such as GREER and Snow & Graham, from the city of New York."

Sarah, NYC

Thank you Sarah.

If there are two things we have in abundance it's paper and an enjoyment of helping out wherever we can. So, we're starting a program that allows your not-for-profit group -- school, church, service organization -- to hit us up for the odds and ends that are piling up in our basement but that we can't bear to throw out. And let me tell you, we got some good stuff.

Here's how it works. Every Friday, we'll gather up a few packages of decorative paper, cardstock, envelopes, ribbon, greeting cards, etc. for pickup in our store anytime between 11:00 am and 6:30 pm.

To keep this tidy, organized and on the up and up, there are a few rules:

1) You need to be a legitimate not-for-profit outfit. If you use your donation for commercial or personal purposes that would be not only decidedly uncivil, it could also negatively impact your karma.

2) By end of day on the Tuesday before you plan to stop by send us an e-mail with your name, the name of your group, your relationship to the group and your phone number.

3) It's first come, first serve. We'll put 2 to 3 boxes aside a week and let you know when you contact us what is or isn't available but when it's gone, it's gone. Try again next week!

4) If your organization creates something groovy, make us happy by shooting us a sample, a photo or a copy of it.

And on a personal note, earlier this year I donated a staggeringly large pile of paper to my daughter's class. A couple of months later I had an unfortunate incident that required hospitalization. During my stay, my daughter brought me a get well poster her class had made -- using the same paper I had given them. I cried like a baby. But I felt a lot better. Until one of the nurses thumbtacked a sheet of paperwork right in the middle of it. But that's another story.

We receive a lot of boxes at GREER. A lot of boxes. And a lot of boxes go out. A lot. When we first launched GREERchicago.com, every order was packed in a crisp, new, pristine box...as pristine as cardboard gets, anyway. Meanwhile, the boxes kept arriving and piling up, arriving and piling up, arriving and piling up; still quite serviceable yet wastefully dumped in the trash bins behind our store.

It drove us crazy to throw out these perfectly fine boxes and it did occur to us we could reuse them, but we're fanatical about presentation and weren't exactly comfortable sending out orders in a box that was obviously, as we might say, pre-UPSed ("Mar-tha...there's a package here from a Snow & Gra-ham!")

Finally, we had an idea that would allow us to reclaim the large volume of boxes bringing merchandise in by using these same boxes for shipping merchandise out, all the while letting you know it was intentional and not just some tacky effort to save money (although it does save money as we'll tackily admit.) The idea was to design a seal, printed with the soon-to-be-trademarked phrase "Packaged in a recycled box for your environmental protection," a slightly skewed take on the old "Sealed for your protection" manufacturing phrase, and slap it on every reused box.

So, there it was, a tiny step we could take to minimize waste and spread the word that there are tiny steps we can all take to help conserve resources.

If you've ordered from GREERchicago.com you may have noticed the House of Greer seal that secures your tissue-wrapped purchases.

The whole notion of a House of Greer began as an internal source of amusement that came out of a difficult situation. Shortly after Hurricane Katrina we, like everyone else, were searching for a meaningful way to help with the catastrophe and cash just didn't seem enough. Then, through our doors walked Jen, a New Orleans resident who had fled north after the flood. She explained her situation and asked, simply, "Do you have any work for me?" At the time we had no openings but we hired her anyway. She called herself Fugee.

Fugee, a wildly creative, idiosyncratic personality had a marvelously strange influence on us. She was struck by our own rather idiosyncratic ways and deemed us to be "The House of Greer," a weird amalgamation of civility and funk that, to her, was a sort of urban aristocracy.

We fell into a deliciously bizarre mode of communication at GREER which, for lack of a better phrase, can only be characterized as pseudo British-aristocrat-speak. Profound statements were answered with a single "Quite," and the highest compliment paid a colleague was "I salute you, you magnificent bastard." The gravest insult was met with "I bid you good day, Sir!" We perfected the art of smoking air-pipes.

The decision was made that any respectable House needs a crest. We designed ours featuring lions engaged in the twin joys of having a martini and writing, a Latin translation of "We are optimistic because we are stupid," our "civility is not a sign of weakness" motto and a rendering of an envelope floating beneath the Chicago skyline.

Fugee's back in New Orleans now and to her, we say, "We salute you, you magnificent bastard!"