Tis the Season...for holiday cards

I love checking the mail box this time of year.  It is the one month that I can expect to find something other than junk mail (a waste of paper) and bills (a necessary evil).  I'm always intrigued to see who we will be receiving cards from as well as the types of cards that are sent.

In the past we've received everything from the homemade, handcrafted holiday 3x5 note cards to the 7 photo photo-paper card to elaborate professionally taken family photo for the triple-ply card stock 5x7 with silver-lined, embossed address envelope.  They come in all shapes and sizes, from friends and families, near and far.  All are cherished and sit in our kitchen during the entire holiday season.

Holiday Cards

However, while I love receiving these festive greetings, I find that I'm at a loss for what to do with them once the holidays are over.  When we first started receiving them, I would keep them and put them a scrap album so that we could look back over time and see the evolution of the families sending us their cards.  But after about the first five years of collecting, while scrapping the cards was fun, it was extremely time consuming and not a terribly efficient way of keeping the cards.

I then switched to a card box, which I indexed by year.  This was great because it allowed me to catalogue them and put them away, but now I just have boxes of cards put away that we really never look at and are sitting in my home office taking up the limited space I have in there.

Over the last couple of years, the cards have just been sitting in piles on my desk, waiting for a place to go.

So this year I'm putting it out there to all my card giving/receiving and crafty friends to share what they do with all the lovely holiday cards they receive?  I'm curious to know as I would love to figure out what works for you and maybe try it too!

Happy Holidays to everyone and I can't wait to see your cards and your suggestions!

Books - Through the Eyes of a Child

I came home from one of my work trips to find my four year old had made me a book.

A Valentine's Day book for Mommy - by A. Myers 

I didn't really take a look at it until the next morning when I saw her working on another one.  Sitting at her art table, she was very carefully folding her construction paper in half, putting a straight line of Elmer's glue down the crease in the paper she just folded and then placing another piece of paper on top of it and repeating with the glue and another layer of paper.

A Sunday art project for Mommy - by A. Myers

While she was doing this, I was sitting in the kitchen with her trying to get caught up on a few emails.  Here she was working in the world of paper, and I was in the e-world.  Now of course this story would be better if I was saying that I was reading an e-book, but then, that would have been too perfect a fit for this blog.  But my point is, that even in this day and age where kids have access to so many electronic devises, including e-books and e-readers - which my daughter has - many of them still like paper.

From the very beginning with her, my husband and I made sure to expose her to the world of books.  We tried to keep her exposure to electronic devises to a minimum in the first year or two of her life so she would develop an age appropriate appreciation for books, which she has.  While she enjoys listening and following along to her books on my Nook and her Leap Pad, she still wants us to read a book to her every night before bed and likes "reading" her baby books to her baby sister in the morning.

But what I find most fascinating is her desire to create books.  Of course these two were for me, but she has created others.  One of them is a letter book where she practices her letters.  Another is her Hanukkah book - a place for her to put her Hanukkah wish list  and the other I'm not sure about, but it is definitely one of her creations.

Hanukkah wish list

She has alway been a creative soul, crafting with paint, beads, clay, paper, rainbow loom, and pretty much anything that you could find in a craft store.  But this paper craft is different than the others.  Not only is she taking the time to make the book, she is then going back and defining it, giving it purpose. While it is not always words on a page, it is her...her raw emotions, thoughts, creativity...right there in multicolor for all to see.  She has titles for her books and I document them so that both she and I can remember them after the years pass by.

I will encourage her to continue with her book making and hopefully over time, she will seek other ways to enhance her books, either through a different method of binding, starting to write stories in them or even using them as her own personal journals.

For now, they will be her simply created paper and glue bound books for her to paint, sticker and practice in.  And I will cherish them as they mark her creative milestones.

1 2 3 Paper books:

1 tube of glue
2 lines of glue
3 pieces of construction paper folded in half

Take the first piece of folded construction paper and put a line of glue in the fold.  Next take the second piece of folded paper, line up the folds and place the piece on top.  Then put a line of glue in the fold of the second piece of paper, line the fold of the third up on top of the second and place it down.  Apply a little pressure so the papers stick, but not to much that the glue pushes out onto the pages.  Allow to dry and then decorate.

Great craft for a 4+ year old.

Elegant Seating Cards for a Fall Wedding

It has been a while since the Paper Princess has posted to her blog.  Let’s just say life has taken over my ability to sit down and write for fun during the last year.  I know I’ve been extremely lazy remiss. 

For those of you who are still following me, I’m pleased to let you know, that I have made it my goal to try and write at least once a month, to get my creative juices flowing again, and also to share some of my more recent paper creations for both work and pleasure. 

To kick off my Fall goal, I would like to share my latest work project.  As many of you know, part of my event planning business entails working with clients on their event invitations, personal stationery and other printed accessories for their special occasions.  This summer, I was fortunate enough to work with a wonderful client on her wedding invitations – a beautifully embossed invitation on ivory stock with mocha ink. *

Regal Touch Invitation

 

The client loved them and was thrilled with the response she received from her guests.  She wrote “I have gotten such great feedback on my invitations.   My guests love the wording.   You did a GREAT job!!  Thank you for all your help.”

As a result, I received a follow up communication from her, asking if I had any place cards that might match her invitation.  She had purchased basic place cards from somewhere and didn’t think that they were “elegant” enough for what she was looking for.  Music to a small business owners ears – we love repeat clients!

I sent her some options from the same company that she ordered the invitations, but she just wasn’t feeling that “crazy” over any of them and was looking for “a[n] ivory colored card, something simple, but elegant.” And then she thanked me for trying.  But I wasn’t ready to give up on helping her. 

I had a flash of creativity and what I thought was a pretty good idea to solve her problem, I could custom design/make them for her.  Here is what I wrote: “M[a]y I make a suggestion?  We could get ivory card stock, print your guests name in mocha ink, in a font you like, and cut them into a 2x2" square. Then we can take those squares and put them in gold or silver place card holders that will stand up elegantly on a table. The guests can then take the holders home and use them to hold either notes or small pictures.  Also, if we make them a little bigger, we might be able to blind embossed the side of the card to make it look similar to the invitation.”

She was game.  I did my homework on what it would cost to make them and prepared a quote for her, submitted it to her and she was on board.

As part of the process, I prepared a few samples for her so she could select which embossed border and location of the border she like most.  Below is the final product. *

I have to say, it was a fairly easy project and of course I only had to make a total of 35 for this very small and intimate wedding.  It just took a little time, thought and creativity to create these wonderful seating cards for my very happy client.

Congratulations to them on their wedding!  Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your special day. 

*Client name used with permission from the client.

I've Got My Hanukkah Gifts, Now What Do I Wrap Them In?



A friend and fellow blogger challenged me to write a blog article this season for #hanukkahhoopla - an opportunity for those of us of the Jewish faith to blog about Hanukkah this holiday season.  She thought it would be fun for me to write something about paper and how it ties into Hanukkah.  Well, in my world there are two ways - wrapping/gift paper and scrapbook paper.

I think it would be more fun to talk about wrapping/gift paper since it is the season of gift giving and figuring out what to wrap all those presents can be a challenge, especially when 98% of the wrapping paper out there is red, green and decorated for Christmas.  (No offense to my non-Jewish friends, family and colleagues - I get it and respect it.) 

So I purchased all my presents and checked my supply of wrapping paper - OUT!  I guess I forgot to pick some up at the end of the holiday season last year when it was all on sale.  So I went to my local bulk club retail store.  Guess what, they didn't have any.  Next stop was my local craft supply stores and all I could find was one or two different pattern bolts to choose from along with clear, blue and silver celophane wrap and plain paper.  They also had bags that were blue and white, blue and gold and other Hanukkah themed colors, but nothing that really stood out.

I wanted something more unique and not necessarily from the Hallmark store or Toys R Us,  so I checked out following places - The Container Store (and if you don't have a store near you try http://www.containerstore.com/shop/giftWrapWonderland/chanukah?N=74655&Nao=0 and Paper Source.  They had nice options, but I wanted something a little more personal.  I thought why not try making my own. 

So here is a quick and simple way to make your own wrapping paper.  If you have brown paper bags from the grocery store (which most of us do), Hanukkah stamps and stickers you have the perfect beginnings of your own green, unique and personal wrapping paper.  To begin, cut the bags down the side and open them up .

Then take any Hanukkah stickers (or stamps) you may have from either your scrapping/craft collection or if you don't have them you can generally find them at a local craft store or online if you search Hannukah stickers and stamps, and randomly place them all over the paper.

When you're done you should have a colorful, homemade piece of wrapping paper that is both unique to you (and or your child) and on the enviornmentally friendly side.  If the box or gift is bigger than a large grocery bag, don't be affraid to tape two or more bags together to make it fit your gift.

If you don't have brown paper bags, you may want to try tissue paper.  My daughter came home with a Hanukkah present she made for us at school and they used tissue paper instead of brown paper bags.  It was really cute.

They even made the card from a piece of construction paper die-cut into a dreidel. 

When you're finished wrapping the package, you can finish it off with blue, silver or gold bows and ribbon.

This is just one way you can create personal and unique wrappings for the perfect presents you spent hours trying to find.  I'm sure many of you have other creative ideas that incorprate paper.  I'd love to hear about them. 

Also, I hope this has inspired some of you to go out and try something a little different this year when wrapping your gifts.  You can even get your children involved - have them decorate the paper and then use that to wrap any presents they maybe giving as gifts to their friends, parents, grandparents and/or teachers.  I'm sure the gift receiver will probably love it.  I know I did.

By the way, #HanukkahHoopla would not be possible with out the generosity of our sponsors.  I would like to thank Streit's and Doni Zasloff Thomas a.k.a. Mama Doni, the lead singer/songwriter of The Mama Doni Band for providing each of the 16 bloggers involved in #HanukkahHoopla with a little cyber-swag. Their cross-promotional alliance is designed to celebrate Jewish culture with the young generation, a mission of both Mama Doni and Streit’s.

How can you win?  Leave me an awesome comment on.  On January 5, 2012, I will select one winner at random.  Be sure to subscribe to my blog or subscribe to the comments on this page so that you can find out if you are the winner!  If I don't hear from you with 48 hours after announcing, I will select another winner.  Please don't make me work hard to find you.

Prefer to be contacted via Twitter?  Leaver your Twitter handle in your comment and I will tweet you if you win.

Not interested in winning?  You can still leave a comment!  I love to read your words.  Just write: "No prize necessary" in your comment.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to your comments.

Happy Hanukkah!

Learning my A, B, C's and 1, 2, 3's

The other day I was shopping for some new educational toys for my daughter as a Chanukah present.  In particular, I was looking for flash cards with just numbers and letters (no words or associative pictures).  Ever since she was able to sit up, focus on things and play with toys, she's had a particular facination with flash cards.  When she was just an infant, she would grab her animal flash cards out of my hands and sort through them all by herself.  I would try to read them to her, but she insisted on looking at them by herself.  Today, she knows every animal and toy on every card and I swear she taught them to herself.
Anyway, I figured, if she could learn all the animals by flash cards, then perhaps it might be the best way for her to learn letters and numbers.  She can sing the "A, B, C" song beautifully, and she has the magnetic letters that we play with in the tub as well as books with letters and words to associate, but she isn't quite grasping them.  We also have electronic toys to reinforce, but she's really not into playing with them either.  So I figure, why not try the old fashion paper way - the flash card approach?  It worked with the animals.

Well, imagine my surprise when I went in search of what one would think to be a common item, I had a hard time finding just plain cards with just letters and numbers.  I went to the usual suspects, and none of the stores had what I was looking for.  Sure they had alphabet and number flash cards

 


- fun and colorful - attractive to a child's eye.  But they all had too much going on.  The closest thing I found was this pack of number flash cards - 1-100.  Just straight up numbers on a card - no words, no images to associate - exactly what I wanted, until I took one out of the box and realized that my daughter would destroy it in about 2.8 seconds.  The cards were fairly lightweight and really designed for an older child.

So, after much thought and debate, I dove into my paper reserves and decided to make my own.  Through the use of my Cricut and Plantin Schoolbook cartridge, I was able to make bright, colorful, yet simple flash cards for the numbers 0-10 and the alphabet.  I cut 3" numbers and letters out of cardstock and mounted them to double matted plain card stock in coordinating colors.  Once the adhesive was dry, I ran them through my laminator.  The heavy weight of the paper plus the lamination, should make them sturdy enough to withstand the abuse my daughter will put them through as she learns her a, b, c's and 1, 2, 3's.