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Tag Archives: weddings
Kitchen Upcycle: Skewers!
It’s no wonder that the upcycle materials for our first products are found in the kitchen! We love food and its always been a central gathering space in our home.
We take skewers from shish kabob to the bejeweled garden where they are transformed into glittering stems for our Japanese Origami Paper Crane Bouquets. The pointed end is perfect for placing paper cranes to create a magical dazzling bouquet that is both stylish and eco-friendly.
I continued to explore creative reuse of skewers for other projects inspiring our very popular Mint Green Handmade Japanese Origami Paper Crane/Clear Beads Chopsticks Decoration. With this piece, I want to capture the minimalistic design and beauty of traditional Japanese art. The spirit of peace, love and hope is embodied in the design elements: the symbolic Japanese paper crane and skewers as a creative representation of chopsticks, a traditional eating utensil in Japan.
Paper Soil Color Splash
We are happy to be featured in some truly stunning collections with other Etsy sellers. Here are a few to put you in the sunshine spring spirit!
featuring our Mint Green Handmade Japanese Origami Paper Crane/Beads Chopsticks Party Holiday Decoration perfect for a unique ecochic wedding or party favor
featuring our Japanese Origami Wedding/Holiday Ball in Blue and White Hand Folded with Peace, Hope and Love perfect for the art lovers in your life or your own ecochic wedding
featuring our Upcycled Loving Memories Folded Book Heart Sculpture with Ribbon and Lyrical Heart Embellishments , a perfectly unique and unforgettable anniversary, birthday, valentine or wedding gift! Say “I love you” in ecochic upcycled style!
Holiday Remix
Have yourself a glitter teal Christmas, may your art be bright!
From now on your hope will be your shining light!
Here we stand in creative wonder and delight!
Have yourself a sparkling midnight garden night!
Your Unforgettable Wedding – Flowers
Your wedding can be magical, artistic, creative, and unforgettable with a few changes to the traditional elements.
Bouquets – Think of your flowers as a work of art, an everlasting garden filled with delicate petals, flowing ribbons, dazzling wonder! Your flowers stay fresh and bright throughout the day and for years to come, a unique souvenir for the bride and groom. Your bridesmaids each receive a handcrafted bouquet of paper flowers, jewels and ribbons to carry down the aisle, turning heads and captivating guests with wonder and delight, flowers that bloom with love, art, life! Your bouquets double as bridesmaid gifts, as a thank you and souvenir of your unforgettable wedding that everybody will be talking about.
Splash in the Strawberry Ocean
Dance in the Midnight Garden
Sing in the Bejeweled Garden
Dare to be different and make a statement with a unique twist on wedding flowers!
Now through December 3, use coupon code CYBER15 at Paper Soil for 20% off all our wedding bouquets including our wedding packages! That’s a steal!
Paper Soil – Organically Grown
You will see a theme on our Pinterest boards beyond images of ecochic upcycled creativity. Each of our boards has a quote as the cover image! As a librarian by day, I know the value of words to add meaning and help reveal pieces of a story.
Here are some of the quotes that help tell the Paper Soil story:
Gifts for Book Lovers – “All who wander are not lost.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
Eco-friendly Holiday Gifts – “If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” – Vincent Van Gogh
Paper Soil Team Treasuries – “If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart, I’ll stay there forever. “ – A. A. Milne
Gifts for Nature Lovers – “Look deep into nature and then you will understand everything better.” – Albert Einstein
Holiday Gifts for Art Lovers – “Art is not a thing, it is a way.” – Elbert Hubbard
Now through Thursday, December 3, use coupon code CYBER15 at Paper Soil for 20% off all products!
Creative Process – Japanese Origami Wedding/Holiday Ball
One of our newer designs is the Japanese Origami Wedding/Holiday Ball. There are many steps that go into creating this beautiful minimalistic piece. We take a lot of care and time to ensure our product is consistent and well made.
The process begins with preparation of cardstock. We have selected a deep rich mediterranean blue and bright white cardstock for our piece that is featured here. We begin with a 12″ X 12″, 80 lb. sheet of cardstock. We cut 2″ X 12″ inch strips. Then from these, we continue to cut the paper into 2″ X 2″ squares. Each piece of cardstock renders 36, 2″ X 2″ squares. For each Origami Ball, we need 96-100 of these squares.
The next step is measuring and marking the squares for an even fold. Each square is measured and marked at the top center of the square at 1″. Using a our favorite bone folder, each square is folded at the top into an even triangle shape. The total time required to neatly cut, measure and fold one sheet of cardstock is 20 minutes.
Next we use size 17 Bridal and Lace Pins to secure the cardstock pieces to a 6″ foam ball. To begin, we take four blue cardstock pieces and pin the top point and two bottom corners of each piece to the top of the foam ball. We apply even pressure using our fingers and secure the pins by pressing them firmly with the top of our craft scissors. In the event that a piece is not well aligned with the other pieces or looks askew, we take out the pins and realign the cardstock piece.
Cardstock pieces alternating in two rows of white and blue are then secured to the foam ball with two pins at the bottom corners of each cardstock piece. When the rows reach the base of the Origami Ball, we repeat the initial process of selecting four blue cardstock pieces and pin the top point and two bottom corners of each piece to the bottom of the foam ball. A final row of blue cardstock pieces encircle the bottom of the ball, secured in the opposite direction, with the points facing downward.
When the cardstock pieces have all been secured, a 16″ length of 2″ sheer blue ribbon is secured with pins and glue to the top of the Origami Ball.
The total time required to secure the cardstock pieces and ribbon to the foam ball is 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Below is a collection of images from different stages of the process.
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- Origami Holiday Ball – $50
Eco Friendly Holiday
“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” – Vincent Van Gogh
One of the principles behind our work is a profound respect for nature. Growing up in New England in the United States, we are surrounded by deep forests, lush meadows and color wonderful seasons. Our family is deeply in tuned with nature and has developed life long pursuits discovering and appreciating nature including bird watching, gardening, hiking, camping and adventuring. We are dedicated to creating art that combines simple beauty and reuse to offer eco friendly alternatives for holidays, weddings and special occasions.
This month we became the new captain for the Recyclers Team on Etsy. This is a great opportunity for us to meet like-minded shoppers and sellers as well help promote some truly unique finds which include upcycled denim jeans, vinyl record art, eco friendly wine stoppers and much more! We have enjoyed exploring the many wonderful shops on our team and have been inspired to create online galleries on both Etsy and Pinterest to promote eco friendly holiday shopping.
Take a look at these fabulous finds and give a gift that helps keep our world beautiful!
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