Stationery Scoop

Beauty of red

After the tulips are past their prime, I love how the petals start to randomly fall off and gather on the counter around the vase. The contrast of the black to the intense red is especially pleasing.

Speaking of contrasting colors, we're doing some wonderful photo invitations these days through our Absorb Creative line. Look at these wonderful reds:

In fact, I seem to be surrounded by red these days. We had dinner yesterday evening with my parents who just returned from three weeks in Turkey and they brought back with them wonderful kilims and purses in many different shades of red.

Red figures significantly in the card that we received last week from Kal Barteski, and I even took this picture on the weekend after I was overcome with the beauty of my bran flake breakfast:

I love that beauty can come from unexpected sources, like the strawberries in my cereal, or the design of an invitation, or petals falling from dying flowers. May we all look for the beauty in our every day, starting today!

These will grow on you

Our thanks to The Star Ledger for featuring Botanical PaperWorks' Butterfly in Flight plantable cards and favors in the article These will grow on you.

Photos from Friday

Here are some pictures from move-in day yesterday. Everything was unloaded by about noon and went very smoothly. Thanks to Portage Cartage and Storage for their hard work and to everyone at Botanical PaperWorks for a great day! Here are the pics:

Toni and Janelle taking orders and helping customers. Proper desks will be arriving in several weeks.

Selam setting up the pigmenting station in the papermaking area.

Donell setting up the dryer systems in papermaking.

The mayhem mid-morning with the movers, the plumbers, the security system installers and all of us Botanical PaperWorkers getting things set up so that we can be back at work on Saturday.

Last minute packing

Last night, everything was packed except...!

Thursday move day

It's Thursday and it's move day. We're preparing and shipping orders until 4 pm today, so don't hesitate to contact us. By Friday morning 8:30 am Central Time, we'll be up and running with (hopefully) nary a hiccup! Here are some recent pics of Priscilla packing up the shipping crate, and the view from the front of our new place. Makes me think that we need to wash the windows!

Desert Living Feature

I'm looking at the April 2008 issue of Desert Living and love the feature that they did on Botanical PaperWorks' plantable cards. See page 124 in the "Spaceship Earth" section. Also check out page 42 for a great Mint Julep recipe (you can read the entire magazine online by clicking here). I'm growing a big old pot of mint right now, so this recipe is the perfect use for my crop.

Me and Sandi Genovese

When going through my files and stuff here at  I came across this photo of me and Sandi Genovese of the DIY Network's show Scrapbooking. It was too funny not to post - mostly because I look SO YOUNG (and I'm wearing my old glasses)!! The pic was taken several years ago at the Craft and Hobby Association show. It was fun to meet her, and fun to have the photo to remember that day.

Happy customer, Earth Day & a Minimalist Home

Lovely, lovely comments received from Andrew Tomko of Committee for Children. They recently hosted a huge event with the Dalai Lama called Seeds of Compassion. Here's what Andrew had to say:

We just got done with our huge event down here in Seattle with the Dalai Lama. I just wanted to let you know that I plan on mailing you some samples of the pieces that we created with our generous paper gift. People loved it and went completely nuts!

We love to hear when Garden Greetings™ plantable paper is used for a great cause. When planning a special event, you want to make an impact and be remembered. And that's exactly what was done with the plantable cards given out at Seeds of Compassion. As the participants of Seeds of Compassion return to their homes in whatever corner of the nation, they'll plant the paper and honor the memories of that special week. As wildflowers germinate and grow, each participant will have a symbol of the beauty and growth that is resulting from the event. Wonderful!

Tomorrow is Earth Day, so check out these crafts from the Nick Jr. website.

My thanks to Ali Edwards for her post today that linked to A Guide to Creating a Minimalist Home. Maybe it's because I spent Friday purging old files at Botanical PaperWorks and Sunday purging the basement at home that this is especially appealing to me today. It's a good reminder to go through the STUFF on a regular basis. That's my mid-year resolution - to do a purge 2x per year. That means that my next purge will be October. I'm marking it in my calendar now....

Glitter galor

We had fun recently going through the boxes and boxes of old craft supplies that aren't coming along with us when we move Botanical PaperWorks into the new building. I'm talking about the unneeded supplies from discontinued product lines - stamps, ink, paper, brads, shears, beads, yarn, you name it.

BPW team members went "shopping" when one by one they loaded up on whatever and however much they wanted. Let's just say the people who take the bus had to arrange for alternate transportation because their boxes were so large. And, there was enough left over that I took 8 LARGE boxes to the art teacher at my kids' school. She's planning on distributing it to art teachers in the school district, to share the wealth. I'm so glad that the supplies are going to good use.

I brought home glitter. I LOVE glitter! These clear tubes of glitter are only the tip of the glitter iceberg that I brought home, which included very large bags of white iridescent glitter, a cool thin-tipped glue applicator and an assortment of brushes for sweeping away extra shimmer.

The glitter was from a card line that we launched in 2004. It was a line that was dear and near to my heart, but alas, we couldn't find a market for it. So instead, here we are having fun with the glitter:

These picture were taken out of doors, the key (I find) to working with glitter unless you want your house to be permeated with the stuff. It has a pesky way of getting into everything and into the strangest places. So I decreed "out with the glitter" and we set up shop on the back deck. Fun, fun, fun! Do you glitter?

Plantable boxes - pack n' grow

If you love their cakes, you're going to love the latest edible eco-offering from Lilyfield Cakes. Isca Shortbread (part of the Isca eco line) is two pounds of organic, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread made from a cherished family recipe of founder Heather Stewart.

Each order comes packed in a plantable, wildflower-seed embedded box made by Botanical PaperWorks which grows wildflowers when planted and is made with 100% post-consumer waste.

And a great thing about supporting this product is that a tree is planted with each package sold and a note sent to the recipient from the Manitoba Forestry Association as part of the UN Billion Tree Campaign.