meet and greet at Athenaeum

It was a slightly soggy Monday evening when fans of UPPERCASE gathered at Athenaeum for a meet and greet, but that was ok—I had time to have very nice conversations with new friends. Thank you to Anneke and Reny for organizing and promoting the event—and for the excellent front window display shown below. Thank you to Maarten Asscher, the director of Athenaeum, for cultivating such an inspiring bookstore which supports quality publishing both big and small.

UPPERCASE next to fellow Canadian magazine, Inventory. And we're always happy to be in proximity to the sophisticated Kinfolk.

(I don't think we've ever been stacked next to Vanity Fair or James Bond before!)

A wonderfully colourful selection of nibbles included blueberries and pink marshmallows.

Nice presentation of sprouts by Reny. (If you have time, you could roll up an old newspaper or phone book like this, soak it and plant seeds along the top, letting the sprouts anchor into the paper roll.)

I brought some paper garlands, as well as the little mini pencil crayon sets I posted about earlier.

Athenaeum also stocks UPPERCASE's books such as The Suitcase Series Volume 1: Camilla Engman, The Elegant Cockroach by Deidre Martin / Stefanie Augustine and Lisa Congdon's Collection a Day.

And such an incredible selection of magazines in a very small space. If I lived in Amsterdam, I would be a frequent visitor. In fact, I remember visiting Athenaeum back in 1996, the last time I was in Amsterdam. I was just out of college on a two-month trip to Europe. Despite being on a tight budget and backpacking, I remember splurging on some magazines in Athenaeum.

This time, I purchased the launch issue of The Alpine Review, a hefty 280+ page tome published in Montreal and printed in Barcelona.

In particular I'd like to thank the gals from Flow magazine for coming to the meet and greet (post about Flow coming up), to Hagar for gifting me with a wonderful artwork (this one!), to Giovannella (below, left) who was also at Hello Etsy and made me a lovely embroidered sign (I still have to photograph it) and to Ping (below right) for her creative enthusiasm. Also to Canan, it was nice to meet you (and thank you for all your tweets!) I also look forward to seeing what Naomi of Pretty Unexpected does next and reading through her blog.

It was nice to chat with Marieke, an editor at Jamie Oliver's magazine, Netherlands edition. She shared this Instagram. Great evening! Thanks everyone.