The Alt Summit is practically THE conference of the year. A perfect meeting place for all bloggers, design-minded people, and companies hoping to connect with them. After missing out on their summit in SLC, I was so lucky to find out their new NYC summit was happening at the same time I was in town for NYIGF. Yet another perfect coincidence.

Here’s some highlights:

We started out very early in the morning doing some crafting at the Martha Stewart office (of all places!).

The first talk was by Tina aka Swissmiss aka Tattly aka Creative Morning founder aka Teux Deux app creator (phew!). What an inspiring speech. We then listened to Pilar Guzman, editor in chief of Martha Stewart mag and founder of Cookie magazine, and Kevin Sharkey, Martha’s right hand man, give an amazing insider’s view of Martha’s magazine and what goes into making an issue. I was able to speak with them during cocktail hour and Pilar was already familiar with Petit Collage! (gasp).

Look who showed up unexpectedly. MARTHA!

After lunch was a blogger panel. I met a couple of new forces: Jenny of Little Green Notebook and Katie of Matchbook Magazine who talked about blogger etiquette and much more. There was another panel featuring the art director of West Elm, the CCO of Tea Collection, and Etsy on “what the cool brands are doing” in today’s social media. So much good stuff.

Yours truly and Michelle, CEO of Land of Nod!

A rooftop party closed up the day’s events where I met my long time idol Jodi Levine. She created Martha’s kids magazine and worked there since 1994! I believe she’s editor at large for crafts now. She also knew our line well. I almost fainted.

What an absolutely fun packed day. I’m so glad I was able to finally attend! I hope to go again next year.