Papercrafting Kit #1!

Did anyone make it to my Favorite {Photo} Friday post? Normally they are by far the most commented-upon posts, but this week I got nada. I guess it's because those photos of me from back in the day just distracted everyone? :)

All week I'd been jonesing to make some jewelry, so I laid everything out and tried to design a couple things, and I Just. Wasn't. Feeling it. And if I have learned one thing about myself and this artsy life I'm trying to live, it's that if I try a couple creativity exercises and I'm still not feeling it, then I should just do something else or I will become frustrated and feel crappy all day. So I sat back and thought about what I WAS feeling. And here is what I decided: PAPERCRAFTING KITS.

I'm totally loving mini-books lately (see here and here). I love the idea of making one little book that is outside of your normal scrapbooking routine. One little book that says, "Hey, check this out, I made this and I did this and this is how I feel" (or whatever else you want it to say), and whether or not you are "caught up" in your scrapbooking doesn't even enter the dang picture. And I love the idea of taking a big old mix of different things and putting them together in a semi-cohesive way.

And once I started putting things together, I realized that I really love stamping and inking and punching and designing and printing and knowing that someone somewhere is going to make something cool with it. Or at least hoping that, anyway. I started with just a vague idea to collect some different papers and do a couple things using my myriad of tools, but then I just kept thinking of new things and suddenly I had a big pile of stuff!

All of the papers are 5" by 7", and there are 16 different papers. Two sheets are my own photos with some Photoshop-type stuff done to them so they're more like background papers, printed on linen paper (oh it's yummy!). Two sheets are hand-printed with paint on cardstock. One sheet is cut from an old atlas! The green sheet has six different stamped images on it, which can be cut out to use as accents or can be used as-is. One sheet is faux-notebook paper; I love the look of notebook paper but it's too cheapy and thin, so I designed my own and printed it on both sides of cardstock (and yes, of course it matches up front to back because I have an abnormally high attention to detail). :) One page is an artsy quote designed in an artsy way (it is so cool in person, even Jason was impressed). One page is cardstock with a pretty punched border.


There are two sheets of chipboard, ideal to use as covers. One is white and on the normal chipboard-colored one I hand-punched different-sized holes along the edge for visual interest (on the left in the below photo). The final six pages (from left to right below) are a handmade paper with seed inclusions, a fibrous translucent green paper, two different double-sided patterned papers, a cover-weight translucent vellum, and a totally fun velvet-flocked paper.


I've included a bunch of goodies to use as embellishments, too! Strips and border-punched edges, a selection of flowers, a huge paper clip and a couple of little blue spiral clips, ribbon, a button, a photo hinge and brads, a circle tab and a file tab, some tags, and a strip of silver metallic tape!


The kit is tied together in a clear envelope with some pretty loopy fiber and imbued with love and creativity before I pop it in an envelope and send it out. :)


These limited-edition kits are now available here! If you buy one mention that you saw it in my blog and I'll include some extra goodies for you. :) I'll be working on making and adding more items to the shop this week (and throughout October), so check back! Let me know if you'd be interested in a mini-kit with about half of everything listed above. Or if you have any other ideas or requests for my next items!