Mushrooms and Kittens

New things to share! Two are made of paper, and one is covered in fur.

First off- mushrooms. A few weeks back my husband picked a couple of mushrooms growing in my mom's yard and decided he needed to know whether or not he could eat them. Yup. After some online investigating he found that one method of identifying mushrooms is to create a spore print. Directions, if you're interested, are here. So he went about some fancy business with a cup and some other stuff, and what resulted was actually really, really awesome!

Unfortunately the mushroom in question was not a mushroom you'd want to eat, but I really loved the print it created and besides plans to frame it and hang it on a wall forever, I also thought it could make a supercute pattern. So now we have the Mushroom Print Note Set and Notebook.


Nice collaboratin' Johnny! And while I wish we could take credit for the cuteness of the following item, we cannot, because it's not art, it's a cat.


And his name is Ivan! Full name Ivanhoe Martin, actually. Let's hope he's more well-behaved than his namesake. Have you seen The Harder They Come? If not, do! Immediately.


We adopted the little one Thursday and we're in love. His mom was feral and left him and his siblings under a porch, but a local shelter scooped him up and then I scooped him up and now he's sleeping on my lap as I type this. All 1 1/2 pounds of him. Sigh.

For a Friend

Hello again. I'm back and it hasn't even been six months since my last post! My my. I'm really growing as a person over here.

Just wanted to share some stationery I made as a gift for a friend's birthday recently:


I had already made a silhouette of her as part of a project for her wedding last year, and it was just so cute, (doesn't she have a lovely profile?) that I decided to change up the color and repurpose it for a personalized note set. I paired the cards with (my favorite!) kraft envelopes...

...and added a little cover design to the box.


And she liked! Thank goodness.

Oh Boy

Um. Yikes. Just stopped in here for the first time in months and I was shocked, SHOCKED! to see that I haven't posted since last October. That's about a year, folks. Or should I say, "that's about a year, NO ONE," because I'm pretty sure that anyone who visited regularly probably gave up on this blog very, very long ago. My apologies, of course- I was never very good at this in the first place, but I plan on being back in a very casual, inconsistent way. Fingers crossed.

But while I'm here, I may as well show you what exactly I've been up to. It all started with this:


A wedding invitation! Some good friends of mine decided they were getting married and then they decided to ask me to create their invitations. At my previous job I had a lot of experience helping customers design/order their wedding invitations, but I'd never actually designed any myself, so this was a kinda new thing for me and to my great surprise, I liked it.


Sooo, I started making more invitations.


And more...


and more...


And even more than that, but you get the point. (I have everything I've photographed so far on my flickr, if you're curious.) So a proper website is in the works, which will include all the paper-related things that I do, and I'm very excited that The Paper Apartment Invitations will be a part of that. There will be customizable options aplenty, and in probably very limited availability, (because I'm just a person, with two arms) I'll also be offering completely from scratch, custom orders.

I don't have an exact date set yet for the launch of the site but if in the meantime you, or a friend, or someone else entirely, is interested in invitations, please feel free to contact me at hello@thepaperapartment.com.

Happy September!

xo

A

Goings On

Well, it's pretty cold. Like 40 degrees in October cold. That's one thing. Also, I have a new item to share!


It's yet another note set. I had a hard time naming this one because the design is kind of abstract, and usually I'm dealing with very specific, recognizable objects- buttons, feathers, you know. This time around I was doodling and thinking about parasols and flowers and those paper rosettes you see used as party decorations, and this is what I ended up with. So Floral Burst Note Set it is.


And a funny thing about the color: they're printed in a deep orange color which I would describe as burnt orange. And apparently, according to Wikipedia, this shade "ranks in the bottom 10% of preferred colors according to a Newsweek poll." Yikes. That's pretty bad! Have I made a mistake here? We'll find out, I guess. But for now I'm sticking to my guns.

I should also mention that the trunk show at Topaz in Cambridge that was planned to happen last week on October 9th was postponed and is now set for November 13th, from 6-9pm. I also should have probably mentioned this before October 9th. But I didn't. Sorry! The trunk show is actually part of an event called An Autumn Affair in Harvard Square, which also includes some other boutiques and restaurants in the neighborhood. Here's the flyer:


A classy crawl, of sorts. I will not be crawling, though, as I'll be stationed with my goods at Topaz, along with jewelry designers Amy Casher and Sara Danielle Designs. If you're in the area come on down. There'll be snacks!

And my last piece of business! As we speak there is a box full of goodies on its way down to Young Blood Gallery and Boutique in Atlanta, Georgia. They'll be carrying some of my note sets, notepads, and notebooks. So what that means is that in just a few days you can buy The Paper Apartment goods in Atlanta. Hooray!

More and More

And more. A few new items to share...


Seashells! Just in time for...fall? Yes, unfortunately. It took me longer than I had hoped to get these guys on the street so here they are in late September. But it's warm and beach-like somewhere, right? These are the same concept as the Ruffles Note Set- 6 folded cards with kraft envelopes, and hand-cut edges that are stupidly time-consuming to produce, but pretty.


And birds! Another note set, this time a set of 6 A6-size folded cards with rounded corners and kraft envelopes.


And an Aflutter greeting card. A single folded card, blank inside, with the Aflutter image printed on the front.

Also, October really snuck up on me so I never got the chance to mention until now that next week, on October 9th, I'll be part of a trunk show at prettypretty shop Topaz in Harvard Square, Cambridge. Fun fun! I'll be there along with a couple of jewelry designers for a few hours in the evening. I'm actually not sure exactly what time it starts, but from what I've been told Topaz's trunk shows are a fun, kinda partytime event with music, etc. So if you're in the area please do stop by because I'll be there selling my wares and I think it should be a good time. When I get more details I will most definitely share them.

Also, if you happen to be in Canada- Hamilton, Ontario, specifically- you can now find The Paper Apartment at White Elephant Vintage. Excitement! A box of goodies is on the way up there right now, so technically it might be a few days before you can really find them. But then! Then, you can totally find them. I'm really excited to be working with the White Elephant ladies, Jane and Hollie, because besides their various online endeavors all being really great, they just seem so sweet and cute! Have a look at their blog- they're just adorable. So thanks to them, and to Canada.

That's all for now.

Hey!

You! There are a couple of new notebooks in the shop. As of about 10 minutes ago. And more are on the way, too.


And I'm also very pleased to announce that I'll again be selling my wares at the Bazaar Bizarre in Boston this year! How fun. I've got a lot of new stuff planned and I hope you stop by and say hi. The festivities are back at the Cyclorama this year on December 6th. So you should probably go.

Let's Catch Up

So again, it's been a long, long time since I've updated so here is some stuff that has happened/is happening/will happen soon. Also, I've been very busy so this time I'm not going to apologize for not stopping in here sooner. Things needed to be done and I did them!

First off, I never got to mention that Daily Candy Boston did a little feature on me about a month ago, and that was pretty sweet. You can read it here, if you please.

Also, I'm way excited to share that The Paper Apartment goods are now available at the newly opened Flock in Boston's South End. Flock is a really lovely little boutique with amazing clothing and accessories and I'm absolutely thrilled for my stuff to be sold there alongside such beautiful things. So thanks again to Danielle and Maegen for the opportunity, and if you're in the area you should definitely pay them a visit at 274 Shawmut Ave. in Boston.

I've also got some new paper goods to share today. I've been building a pretty solid inventory of notebooks for the last couple of weeks (as well as new arm muscles, I'm pretty sure, from hours of cutting, scoring, and folding paper!) and here are a few of the designs:


They are all soft-cover, staple-stitch notebooks with 24 unlined pages. The larger versions are 5.5" x 8.5" and the smaller ones are 4.25" x 5.5" and come in a pack of 3. I have a couple of these already available on Etsy but the rest are on the way just as soon as I can photograph them. Also keep an eye out for a few new prints and note sets in the next couple of weeks. Bye for now!