Tickled...

I have grown quite passsionate about paper - in particular book paper.  I have learnt that each page has a grain, some pages are firm and flexible, while others are fragile and brittle and I am fascinated by the way books age from white to deep cream.

We have started to dye book paper with red ink.  These variations in colour have made such beautiful results.  Same ink bath - different book pages- many delightful shades :-) 

We have made some large proteas from this paper and are busy with a batch of pink buttonhole proteas  at the moment too!

Freshly Found is definitely in the Pink!

Heart Leaf Heart

Every year, when the trees are finished using their leaves, they throw piles of them onto the grass in our garden, I like to pick some of them up and use them again!

This year I made some goodies for friends.

I cut heart shapes out of the leaves, before pressing them under a pile of books.

In this momento, I layered 3 pressed leaves, with a heart shape cut out of the top one only, and the rich rust-red leaf in the middle showing through.  I used a little wood glue to keep everything together and tied it with a ribbon.  

I attached a handwritten tag and gave it to a friend for her birthday.  She invited us to breakfast, and specifically asked for no gifts, just a message from each of us.

I made this wedding card for other friends.  The background was a watercolour print I found in a book waiting to be recycled. 

I wood-glued the leaves into position and layered it onto the front of a card.  What a wonderful wedding it was, with a wonderful story.

Autumn is a second spring

when

every leaf is a flower

Albert Camus

Gentle Gentian

Today we are going to be making up a large batch of paper boutonnieres or buttonholes.  It reminded me of some we made a while ago.  We had 2 weddings with a similar colour theme, and used gentian violet to dye the paper.  

Gentian violet has a few medical and scientific applications, but did you know that it can be used in solving crimes too? More about that later...  

It's always fun and a privilege to be part of the excitement of a wedding. We made up the musical origami lilies for the men at delightful Barbara's wedding.  And then we had a batch of proteas for Jan's wedding too. We're looking forward to the pics from both.  [We so appreciate the brides who send us pics.] 

It was so rewarding to work with a solution of lovely gentian to dye the different papers.  In my search to see how others have used this liquid lavender, I was intrigued to find that it can be used to pick up latent finger prints.  So if you are a forensic investigator at heart, have a look here to see how it can be done!

Vintage Composer Tapestries

This gorgeous duo are for sale in the Freshly Found online store.  Lovely vintage finds, they are mounted, but not framed, so will mail easily! 

Ok - so I am going to own up to being a real phillistine.  I know that the guy on the left is Schubert. But any ideas on the name of the muso on the right?  
[By the way Durbanites, don't you love the vintage view of Durban from the Berea on the postcard in the middle!]

My view of Pots, Paper and Orange

This gentle poster is on display in my studio.  It came from a large vintage book.  I am not sure who the photographer was.  

This work of art really resonates with me because of:

1. The collection of white jars and vases.  I have my own quite large collection!
2. The piles of paper - It's what I work with almost every day.
3. The touch of orange - I've had a love-hate-love affair with that colour.  I'm in love with orange at the moment.  So much so that I have bought an orange jacket for this winter.  [Lets see if I'm still passionate about this larger-than-life colour by the time Spring arrives!]

Paper Teapot Trio

I am a collector of vintage How-to books.  I love the hand drawn diagrams and antiquated pics. I love to catch glimpses of the history of modern crafts and I guess I am hopeful of perhaps rediscovering a forgotten craft.

What a great find the Book - Secrets of Origami has been.  The edition that I have was printed in 1971, but a reprint of the same book is still available today.  It was one of many books written and illustrated by South African born Londoner, Magician and Origami artist Robert Harbin.  

My first project from this book was a number of these sweet paper tea pots.  I used squares of pretty vintage hand lettering paper.

Lovers and collectors of books are known as Bibliophiles. Perhaps I should join the vin-diy-bibliophilia subset [Love of vintage do-it-yourself books!] [I may be the only member]

Old Books - New Covers

I so enjoyed this public holiday project on Easter Monday.   I finally got round to covering a very old, unused, but sentimental set of World Book Encyclopaedias.

 

I decided to update them with a Bauhaus font.  Each book was covered in a light white cardboard sleeve, sourced from my local printer, who keeps the waste printed-on-one-side-only paper for me.  The letters were printed onto white sticker paper, and stuck onto the spine of each book.

I had covered my set of Golden Hands craft books a while back, but added stencil-print numbers to them too.  I like the calming rhythmic repetition and the fact that they now all add white bright white light to a darkish room in the house!

As soon as we got back from the Design Indaba, we had 2 weeks to get some orders out, before heading to our timeshare in Mpumalanga.  We had a wonderful family week away.  
But now we are back into full swing - cultivating paper flowers.

Design Indaba Wrap Up

What an incredible experience - our first Design Indaba Expo! 

Pictured above:

• the badges we wore to gain access to the halls, 
• the buyer's guide - full of amazingly talented people, many from KZN [Wonderful to have talented Genevieve Motley as our neighbour]  
• roses - part of a much appreciated welcome home bunch from my husband.  [He's not used to being the one who stays at home] 

Here are some iPhone shots taken by Christy - from set-up to break-down.  You may notice that we changed our stand layout after the first day.

Christy Kiggan and I had an amazing time.  Thank you to:

• friends and family for your amazing support and enthusiasm.   
• customers who appreciated and enjoyed our product
• fellow exhibitors who we got to know and learnt so much from.

Design Indaba Expo

Freshly Found will be at The Design Indaba Expo later this week.

See you there!

Strelitzias

I've been working like crazy to list all the paper flowers in the online store before leaving for the Design Indaba Expo.  

The range of  strelitzias are going in this morning - 
Hand painted, 

Natural Rooibos and red cabbage dyed, 

as well as a batch made from packaging. 

Packaging Proteas.

A bunch of these were delivered to Nampak Sacks this week, to thank them for passing on some of their packaging waste, so that we can make beautiful proteas.  

 

A whole bunch of these will be at The Design Indaba Expo next week too. 

 

Prehistoric Proteas

The paper proteas that we have been making have been such fun to design.  This ancient flower, which has been around since the days of Gondwanaland is also known as the Sugarbush or Suikerbos, because of the sweet syrup that can be harvested from some of them.

Using sticker backing paper, which is unrecyclable, because of its paper and plastic layer has been a challenge, as the plastic wax side resists all glue and paint. 
But the paper side has been a wonderful canvas to work on.  Some of the proteas have had their petals painted pink.
Christy Kiggan has worked to colour the petals of others in a different and more exciting way too.  She has used beetroot to make dye, and has dipped the petals in this dye, until the colour shows right through to the wax layer. In this closeup you can see the difference between both treatments [and the faint logo on the recycled paper]

These are all part of the new Freshly Found Recycled Paper Flower range, which will be launched at the Design Indaba Expo at the beginning of March.  
And this is where it has all been happening.  Here's the work table.  Although it could be classified as messy, I had to take a pic .  I found the colours and rhythm of the petal shapes quite pleasing.