Recycled Writing Paper

September 1 was World Letter-Writing Day. Receiving a handwritten letter is a rare treat made even more special by beautiful stationery. There is something very elegant about having notepaper and envelopes that match.

I have a couple of sets of stationery made from recycled paper. I’ll start with the older one, an Alte Schule set I am guessing dates from the 1970s or 80s. Alte Schule means “Old School” in German and it was made there from recycled paper. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find out anything about the manufacturer. Germans seem to have learned how to make good quality recycled paper as it is smooth and fountain pen friendly. The slightly grey tone suggests to me the paper is unbleached. The envelopes are a quarter the size of the paper (about 21 X 29.5 cm) and both are decorated with the same fantastical landscape. The set was packaged in a simple glassine wrapper.

The other set I have is also made of recycled material but is handmade and, as such, a little harder to write on. The paper was made in India out of recycled cotton with flower petals incorporated into it. The paper (about 14 X 20 cm) and envelopes are beautifully packaged in a purple paper folder which is itself wrapped (unnecessarily) in plastic. This set is from The Village Artisan, a Minnesota company, established in 2012 to create opportunities for artisans to sell their wares for fair prices.

If these stationery sets were people, although they come from different backgrounds, they share the experience of having major career changes in their lives. They both treasure the personal touch of a handwritten letter.

Happy Mother’s Day

Today is Mother’s Day so hats off to all mothers and anyone who plays a nurturing role in life of a young one. I have been making cards for a long time and the above card is a little booklet made up of poems written by my grade six class on the topic of mothers. We each made our own cover and the poems were printed in blue on the school’s Gestetner machine. Then we bound the pages together with yarn.

When I was in grade three, my teacher Mrs. Nelson, assigned each of us the job of being her assistant for one week. A highlight of that responsibility was running off worksheets in the small room upstairs (literally in the high school of our grade one to twelve school) that held the Gestetner machine. I can still remember the intoxicating smell of the methylated spirits and the cha-chunk sound of cranking the drum.

I encouraged my own daughters to make cards too. Greeting card company products just can’t compete against handmade gems.

If handmade Mother’s Day cards were people, they would be smiling children with a smear of marker on their face and glitter in their hair.

Hand Carved Stamps

I had some fun over the Christmas holidays hand-carving a stamp with my daughter and I’ve been meaning to post about it ever since. We used a Speedball Speedy Carve Block and lino carving tools. Speedy Carve is a pink, rubbery substance that feels a lot like pink erasers. I have tried lino carving in the past and this is much softer and easier to work with. The hardest part was deciding on an image to make! Carving is quite engrossing so I forgot to take pictures of the process. I carved the butterfly and my daughter made the little bear.

We used pencils to draw directly on the Speedy Carve but according to the manufacturer, “you can use a slightly warm iron to transfer images of pencil drawings, newsprint and freshly printed ink jet and laser print images”. Once the image is drawn, we used a Speedball Linoleum Cutter to carve the block. A variety of tips are conveniently stored in the handle of the tool. We started with the fine cutter (#1 tip) to go around the image and then used a larger one to remove more of the Speedy Carve.

I checked a couple of books out of the library for tips and inspiration but the internet has loads of ideas for carving stamps too.

Here is another one made by my daughter.

Carving stamps was a lot of fun and I would like to do it again sometime.

If hand carved stamps were people, their unique personalities would make quite an impression, one-of-a-kind.

Leather Journal

Last year when my husband and I visited Camden Market in London, he bought a beautiful handmade leather-bound journal which he gave to me last Christmas. The Stalogy Notebook I started in August of 2018 for my daily journal lasted just over a year so I only started using my new journal this August. They are as opposite as two journals could be. The Stalogy was minimalist with very thin paper while the leather journal has an embossed wrap-around cover with a substantial brass C latch closure and thick, creamy paper. The cerise coloured leather shows some colour fading where it has been exposed to the sun.

Leather journal and Stalogy notebook side by side

Although there are no markings or labels on the journal, I am pretty sure it came from a company called Paper High. It specialises in selling Fair Trade paper products handmade in India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal using locally sourced sustainable and recycled materials wherever possible. I found a very similar journal to mine on their website so I believe it was made in Rajasthan, India. The khadda paper (also known as “kaddi” or “khadi”) is handmade by a charity in rural Rajasthan that promotes women’s education using recycled cotton leftover from the Indian garment industry. I have been writing in it using my Noodler’s Creaper pen with Higgins Sepia ink and Zebra Zensations fountain pens as well as Crayola markers and have had no trouble with feathering or bleed-through even though the paper is not as smooth as the Stalogy paper.

Crayola marker and Zebra fountain pen

The journal is bound together in what bookbinders call signatures, a group of papers folded together and sewn in the middle. There are five signatures made of between nine to twelve sheets of paper each folded in half so altogether the journal has 104 pages. I was surprised all the signatures weren’t the same but handmade often means irregular. The thread used to bind the pages is a thick black cord that makes a decorative X pattern along the spine. Because the binding is fairly loose, the journal can easily accommodate ephemera glued into it.

I like the look of this journal and its substantial feel. Although it appears to be a big journal, the pages are thick so I am already over two thirds of the way through it. It would be nice if I used it up right at the end of the year so I could start 2020 with a fresh journal. It’s rare for me to end a journal in a convenient place but I hate wasting paper by starting a new journal before I’ve written in all of the pages of the old one.

If this journal was a person, they would be a nouveau hippie who loves free writing and sketching. No bullet journaling for them as they have little interest in time management or efficiency.

Birthday Cards

It was recently my birthday and, following with tradition, I received a few birthday cards. Two of them were handmade and all of them were from women which confirmed a Carlton Cards statistic that claimed that 70 percent of all card purchases are made by women. I tried to find out when the custom of giving birthday cards began but all I could find was the history of greeting cards in general. Even the Hallmark Cards site only made special note of Christmas, Valentine’s, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day when discussing the history of their company. Maybe because birthday card purchases happen all year round, card companies take that market for granted even though it is estimated to be 60 percent of all greeting card sales.

I couldn’t even find out when celebrating birthdays began but I, for one, am glad we take a moment to give thanks for another successful trip around the sun. I have a sentimental streak so have kept a stash of old birthday cards. The ones from my parents mean the most to me now. 

 

I also get a real kick out of seeing how graphic design has changed over the years.

 

While designs change, the personalities of the givers stay the same. The same friend who gave me the kittens card when I was nine, sent me a text birthday greeting with a photo of her cat this year. 

I love penguins so have received a lot of penguin cards over the years. I mustn’t be the only one who loves penguins as Hallmark even had a “Penguins” line for awhile. 

 

So here’s to birthdays and to those who keep the birthday card tradition alive!

Handmade Paper Valentines

Many years ago, I took a course through the Edmonton Weavers’ Guild on paper-making. The link between weaving and paper-making may not be obvious but they are both made of fibre and involve creativity. I still have a large supply of paper that was made that day because as it is very porous, it is difficult to write on so really only has craft potential. I have mainly used it in card making.

I am glad I had the opportunity to try out making paper in a studio because unless you have a blender you don’t mind wrecking, sinks you don’t mind clogging, and lots of space, it is not a great activity to do at home. As well, the brightly coloured pages were made from pulp that was dyed with Procion dye which should always be used with caution.

As there is no point in keeping a stash of paper unless you are planning on using it, I decided to make some valentines. The designs of these ones were inspired by a delightful little book called I Love Stationery by Charlotte Rivers, featuring beautifully made stationery from all over the world. One great thing about handmade paper is that it is sturdy enough to hold up to sewing so I incorporated stitching in three of them. I hesitated in posting this blog before Valentine’s Day because some of my dear readers will be the lucky recipients of them but they won’t know which one is meant for them until February 14 so there will still be some surprise.

If these Valentines were people, they would be chubby cupids showering their love on the beloved recipients.

Coming up next week:  Travel Journals