Paper

To celebrate our wedding anniversary a few weeks ago we went out and spent our pennies on some sheets of paper (paper being the traditional gift to give a couple on their first anniversary - see here) from our local art shop, Norwich Art Supplies.

As well as a thick wodge of Zerkall, we also picked up some other printmaking papers - BFK Rives, Hahnemuhle, Somerset (in white and in black) and some Fabriano sheets.

I treated myself to two lovely sheets of paper which I have been coveting for ages, but needed an excuse to splash out -

First, a beautiful sheet of hand marbled paper by Victoria Hall in the most lovely soft shades of green and yellow (difficult to capture in a photograph). It will have to be saved for a special project (perhaps after the bookbinding course we're going on in a few weeks...).

We also got the most fabulous sheet of walnut paper. It looks a bit like the surface of the moon, and is really thick and stiff. Absolutely no idea what to use it for as yet, but had to be added to the collection. Any ideas?

I love the colour of these tulips - a pale creamy yellow, and almost green in places. Today has been gloriously sunny, and full of the joys of spring, so I couldn't resist them at our local greengrocers.

Memorandum

We usually write notes to each other on bits of scrap paper, but we recently picked up this lovely little 'memorandum' block - the perfect excuse to letterpress some nice cards to write lists and notes on!

Although only special notes - they're too nice for something like 'Jon - remember to put the wheelie bin out!'.
On Sunday we printed loads in pretty blue, purple, a lovely sagey-green and our old favourite, hot pink! Tonight I'm going to sit and package them up ready to take to Clutter City on Saturday - the days seem to be slipping away and I still have a list of things that need to be done before then...

Right, we had better think about making a start on our tea - pumpkin tagine tonight!

Finished holly leaves

This weekend we finished a pile of holly decorations ready to take to Clutter City next weekend. Here they are at various stages -

And here they are finished! We're saving most of them to take to Clutter City, but we have listed a pair in our Folksy shop too...

As well as making holly leaves we've also been adding to our pile of concertina books too. They look so pretty, and we're really pleased with how they have turned out. They're very relaxing and therapeutic to make too - must be all that paper folding. This photo is rather dark (it is a very grey day today), and the colours are much more sparkly and vibrant in person.

This afternoon we are going to letterpress some new Christmas cards, as well as baking a cake and lighting a fire!

Christmas Decorations

Today we have been experimenting with printed Christmas decorations and this is the most successful one. Two holly leaves printed with green ink, sewn together with little red buttons and some red ribbon for hanging.

The design needs a little work, and we need more red buttons and thinner red ribbon - I feel a crafty trip into Norwich for supplies coming on...

Finished cards

We have finally finished printing the linocut Christmas cards we started a couple of weeks ago. We printed each one in red, green and gold, and it made us feel very Christmassy...

Especially when I dug out the Christmas tree lights to take some photos! I managed to resist the temptation to dig out the Christmas mugs and tea towels - its a bit early for that yet...

We've decided to letterpress some more Christmas cards using some of our teeny tiny holly blocks - that will be this weeks project, as well as pressing on with my flying ducks (which have been sitting on a shelf feeling lonely for a couple of weeks - I'm determined to finish them this month though!). Sets of Christmas cards are available on Folksy, Etsy and Dawanda now!

This afternoon we're going to make Chelsea buns and plant some last minute bulbs in the garden - we'll have to sweep up all the leaves first though!

Clutter City and new stuff

We had a lovely day at Clutter City today - saw lots of people from the last time round, and lots of lovely new people too - so hello if you've stopped by after picking up one of our postcards!

We made lots of shiny new things for our stall, including the paper flower brooches that I made this week. They were really popular, so I'm planning on making lots more!

We also made a little pile of hand sewn books with hand printed covers, filled with nice drawing paper. I used a mixture of old letterpress blocks and larger wooden blocks, in all different colours. The ones below have got various 1960s 'dinner dance' blocks all over them. The dandy felt pincushion is by Lupin, and is the nicest thing in my sewing box!

Here they are all finished -

There are still some notebooks and brooches left over from Clutter City, so we'll be listing them in our various shops this weekend...