Monday Morning

This morning I will be taking photos of the Mr Yen Stationery, last week I started to take new photos of my papercuts and all because I feel the black and white images are confusing for people. I've been asked several times to see the images in colour - even though all my items and props are black and white, so I decided to introduce some colour to make things a little clearer. The shop should have a brand new look by the end of the week!

While I'm on the subject of stationery, I thought I would let you know that until the end of August you can get 10% off your whole Mr Yen Stationery order! - just use the code AUGUSTSTATIONERY2011 as a coupon code at checkout.

***

I have also listed the first of my Recycled & Rescued framed papercut off cut pieces, listed here - the first design using some off cut feathers from my other papercuts. These will all be framed and will all be different - with each framed piece being one of a kind (you can see the first one above) Once this one is gone, there will be no others exactly like it, but there will be more framed feathers (just of different feathers and compositions)

The frames I've used sandwich the feathers between two pieces of acrylic and are held together by steel screws. The steel screws and 'feet' can be unscrewed to rearrange the composition too, so you can have them anyway you want!

I hope you have a productive Monday and I will see you back here tomorrow for an Inspiration Tuesday Post!

{WIP Wednesday}

Today I have been finding, cutting, folding, photographing and playing with paper. Below you can see the start of my Recycled & Rescued papercut books. I will be creating some mini artist books, such as the ones below, at A6 and made of Recycled & Rescued paper from my huge collection of waste paper. I have also created some small A6 notebooks using recycled/rescued paper which will have papercut front covers.

These small A6 notebooks include graph paper, coloured paper, lined paper, plain paper and will have papercut front covers, or in the case of the artist books, such as the rainbow book below, will have papercuts running throughout, such as my spirograph designs.

The notebooks and the rainbow papercut book will be listed in my etsy shop in the coming days, so keep an eye out for them as they are one off designs/products

I will not be able to make the exact same design once the notebook or book has sold due to the Recycled & Rescued paper, so get yours while you can!

Recycled & Rescued

I mentioned a while ago that I was contemplating a mini challenge for myself, which I left at that and explained no further. I have been thinking about it for a while now and have decided to go ahead with it!

During my time at University and in my personal work that I sell on Etsy I have accumulated a huge amount of paper too small to create a whole papercut with, that I didn’t want to throw away, but didn’t know what to do with. Now I have left University I don’t have immediate access to paper and papercutting supplies so I thought it would be an interesting challenge if I focused in on this left over paper and I have created a challenge for myself that I have called "Recycled & Rescued” which I will explain below:

• “Recycled & Rescued” will be a range of papercut illustrations within book formats that I will create with all my current stock of paper. I will also create blank notebooks without papercuts that can be used for doodling, sketching, illustrating etc and these will be for sale in my Etsy shop here.
• I will buy no extra paper for this challenge; using only what paper I have available.
• All books and notebooks will be hand cut, hand sewn and will only use my current paper thereby recycling/rescuing existing paper.
• Each books/notebooks contents will vary, having a mix of lined, squared, plain, coloured and textured paper, within them, and some will also include old maps, vintage newspapers and other ephemera I have in stock.
• Each notebook will be a one of a kind, as they will be made solely from my recycled & rescued paper (that would have been thrown away!) and each book will have papercuts throughout based on a certain theme, with the notebooks having a themed papercut cover.
• The themes I am planning on creating papercut books for are;
- Using the silhouettes of my A-Z of Birds I created last summer
- A book of papercut leaves
- A book focused on geometric shapes and patterns

The books will vary in size as I am only using the paper available and once all the paper is used up and all the books have sold, I will no longer carry on this challenge, so if you see a book/notebook you really want, then you should snap it up quickly as they will all be originals and will never be able to be made again!

I will let you know when the first one (or batch of them!) have been made and listed in my etsy shop so you will not miss out on any of the recycled goodness!