Monday Morning

Good Morning!

I hope you are all enjoying the bank holiday weekend in the UK! Today I will be having a day of planning a few things for Christmas and putting a few finishing touches to the August Mr Yen newsletter, which will be sent out on Wednesday. As it's a bank holiday, I thought you might like to have a read of last weeks posts if you didn't have time to read them earlier....

Inspiration Tuesday

I posted about my Flickr Favourites.

WIP Wednesday

A new papercut that I created in a Papel Picado style for an Exhibition piece.

Thursday Finds

Paper craft and music videos with Petra Storrs & Paloma Faith.

Feature Friday

Five From The Ground - great photographs, styling and wire sculptures.

(the image above is of the new Letterpress thank you cards included with every Mr Yen order!)

By the end of this year...

While I was on twitter the other day, I mentioned how quick this year is going already and how there are still so many things I want to do before the year is out...which then got me making a list of things I want to achieve before the end of the year.

I thought it would be a good idea for me to make a public note somewhere of these things - to keep me on track and to keep me motivated, so...

By the end of this year I want to achieve the following: (which will probably get added to!)

* A papercut window display (preferably a Christmas one!)

* A papercut book cover design

* A papercut illustration for an advert for a cosmetics company

* A few papercut illustrations for some editorial work (such as magazines, newspapers etc)

* To exhibit/display my work at a craft fair/trade fair

* Create a papercut installation.

* To have my work stocked somewhere outside the UK.

* To have my papercuts on display in some local businesses (as installations)

* To work with a paper company to promote their paper and business.

I will make a blog post about each goal, to explain more in depth about what I would like to do and how I plan to achieve it, but for now I just want to get them written down and make a start on them!

If you have any information on how to go about creating/doing any of these things I would appreciate any help I can get...you can send me emails here - and if you would like me to create any of these things for you, you can see my portfolio website here and get in touch here.

Wish me luck!

WIP Wednesday

A little photo set up that I've been working on this week...

{Monday Morning}

Good Morning!

I hope you're all having a nice day on your last day of the long weekend! Today I will be making a start on designing and planning all the Mr Yen Christmas products for this year. I have given myself a deadline of just a week to get everything designed and ready to be made up for photographs. This year I have a few ideas for some letterpress items, some prints of some detailed papercuts and lots of festive papercut products - with maybe even a 2012 calendar! (I'm thinking letterpress mixed with papercuts)

Oh, one last little thing....the Mr Yen Newsletter should be sent out today (I know, a day late), with a free desktop calendar (using an image of some of my experimental papercuts) and a gift tag tutorial! If you would like to sign up, you can do so here.

Anyway, I have a busy day ahead of me so I best get on with it - I hope you can have a more relaxed Monday than I will be having!

{Valentines Give away winner!}

Thanks so much for all your entries to the Valentines give away but it has now ended and I can reveal that the winner is..........

Congratulations!

Thank you everyone for entering and keep an eye out for the next mrYen give away!

Valentines Cards

I thought I would check in and let you know that I now have Valentines cards available in both my shop and my etsy shop! plus I would also like to say thanks to the people over at LivingEtc, Kristen at PaperCrave & Emily at The Daily Smudge for featuring my Valentines products!








I also thought it would be a good time to mention that if money is an issue, but you would still like to buy papercut pieces, then greeting cards are a great way to do so! After they have been sent (or before) you can frame them as mini artworks and my Valentines cards are the perfect size (and price) to do so. You can see below, how they all look framed - even the 3D pop up heart can be framed - if you have the right frame (I bought this box frame from IKEA)...so giving a mrYen greeting card this Valentines day is also giving a piece of art.

I always consider ways to make my products & papercuts accessible to a wide range of people - and what a sentimental way to re-use a card instead of just throwing it away or storing it in a drawer for years!

Happy New Year!

Well I hope you all had a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!
I started the year with the flu, which means there will be a delay in both my etsy and big cartel shops re-opening....but! when they do they will be full of paper goodies for Valentines day, plus lots of brand new notebooks, notepads, greeting cards and other bits of stationery!

This year I am introducing printed goods to my shops too and will be listing some thank you cards as the first printed designs for sale. I am also ready to start accepting custom papercuts again, which make great personalised presents for loved ones - making great presents for Valentines day!

Here's hoping 2011 will be a great year for us all!

{Monday Morning}

Good Morning!

I just thought I would let you know that the blog will be quiet for the next few weeks as I am taking some time off over Christmas to recharge and get all my new designs finished for the new year. I will be back here on the blog, on the 3rd of January with new designs, new products and new blog features. A new year, with a truly fresh new start!

I would just like to say a big thanks to all the amazing people out there who have bought, blogged, tweeted, and spread the word about my work, I could have had nowhere near as much success in my first 'year' (well, few months) without you!

Hope you have a great Christmas and a happy new year!

{Monday Morning}

Good Morning, I hope you have had a fun filled, or relaxing weekend!

I was so busy again last week, that I forgot to blog about the Xmas tape I have available and all the ways you can use it....well I might just leave that for now as I am designing some more tape to go with next years new products, so I will show you how to use both lots of tape at once.

I have decided that I really want to explore printed products as well, such as notebooks, diaries, journals, postcards and more - so I have been creating a basic design for all these products that I can have in my shop all year round. I will then be using this basic design to influence the products I bring out that season (as I mentioned before...I will be bringing out two seasons of products at a time - Spring/Summer & Autumn/Winter)

I have made a start on some designs for Spring 2011 already (for the basic printed products I will have in store) which will influence the designs of my papercuts I will bring out next year, alongside my new printed products. At the moment I am still in the fun stage of looking for inspiration and testing out ideas, sketching away and seeing how things will look once finished.

I know it's only just got to Christmas and I'm already designing products for the new year...but for products to be promoted and advertised (which needs to be done way before the actual even the products are for!) you need to make things months in advance - which I am only just figuring out, so I am way behind!

I will definitely have some work for you to see on Wednesday - maybe some sketches, some mock up notebooks or some digital designs, but I hope you will come back to have a peek!