Sending the gift of flowers from seeded paper since 1995
We are smitten with this DIY jewelry tutorial (featuring our hand dyed silk ribbon) from Brittany and Carrie of lifestyle blog, That’s Pretty Ace.
You can find the complete tutorial here, but for now we will leave you with a sneak peek of the finished product:
Thanks to Brittany and Carrie for including our ribbon in your lovely project!
Natalie Pirveysian blogger at Crème de la Craft contacted us looking for flower stickers for her garden themed bridal shower invitations. Our purple larkspur botanical stickers were the perfect addition to her special event. Congratulations Natalie on your upcoming wedding!
Check out the entire DIY tutorial here
http://www.cremedelacraft.com/2014/04/DIY-Bridal-Shower-Invitations.html
Of The Earth offers a variety of botanical stickers in various sizes.
They can be found by following the link below.
http://www.custompaper.com/Shop/Stickers/flowerstickers.html
We are excited to announce our involvement in a fantastic new project! A few months ago PlanToys asked if we would be interested in collaborating with them on a new product in development for Earth Day. A long-time fan of their toys, we were eager to partner with them on their Earth Kit campaign!
Every year, PlanToys holds a national contest for the best Earth Day Window Display at its participating retailers. Stores in over 30 states submit display entries, with a grand prize winner receiving $500 worth of Plan Toys merchandise and two runner up winners receiving $300 in merchandise.
This year however, PlanToys has partnered with Eco-Kids USA, Of The Earth LLC and Action Print Center Inc., to create the best Earth Day kit yet! From Missouri to North Carolina, retailers embraced the importance of sustainability and eco-mindedness with colorful window displays, games and fun activities for the whole family.
For this year’s contest, participating stores will receive a PlanToys® Earth Day kit for their customers that will include a sheet of seed paper with a choice of 4 different designs to choose from and color, a multi-colored eco-crayon, a souvenir pencil made of rubber wood, and a fact card about Earth Day, neatly packed in a PlanToys® folder. Once the child colors the picture printed on the seed paper with the eco-crayon they can then take it home, and with a the help and supervision of their parent, plant the colored seed paper and watch it grow! We hope that this can be a fun and exciting activity kids can do with their parents and instill a deeper appreciation for the earth.
Today is the one month mark from Earth Day and a fitting time to share the video launching this unique and innovative educational campaign. Spread the word, share with your community, and most importantly: educate your children on the importance Earth Day!
I just wanted to drop a quick note to those folks considering using seed paper for their wedding or promotional items. When was the last time you bought a seed packet and started a garden? For some of us the answer was just last season we pushed our seeds into the soil for our garden veggies. For many of us, we have not held a seed for years. When we wanted to add flowers to our window box we bought starts from the grocery store, when we wanted that indoor plant we bought a mature plant from the big box home store. Many of us have had sunflower seeds at a baseball game or pumpkin seeds from our Jack-o-Lantern but have not touched a live seed nor potting soil since elementary school.
As papermakers who embed our paper with seeds, we often are asked about how our paper grows. The easy answer is “that depends on the gardener”. We test our seed paper extensively as we understand that people need to know that when they tell their family there invitation will bloom – it has to bloom! The problem with this situation is not the viability of the seeds but rather the inexperience of the gardener. We would love to offer a guarantee that you will have a beautiful garden of flowers when you plant our paper goods however there are just too many factors out of our control to offer such a guarantee. We can guarantee that our papers contain viable seeds that have the potential to grow but as you supply the conditions under which those plants are starting their tender lives, we cannot guarantee your success.
Our seed papers do have live seeds that can sprout if you properly care for them. If you cut the paper into escort cards or business cards; you will find enough viable seeds in the trimmed pieces that have the potential to sprout. That being said we have heard from people over the years who stopped watering their seeds in frustration after just three weeks when nothing pushed through the soil. With our paper there are seeds that can take six weeks to germinate. These people who expect immediate results and tire of caring for the seeds, letting them dry out; effectively killing them before they have the opportunity to sprout are more often then not disappointed with the paper (rather than their gardening). For this reason we do not offer a guarantee. We would be happy to mail you a free sample that you can carefully test under your own gardening conditions before you decide to use seed paper for your wedding or business event. Most people these days are very removed from soil and seeds. Most of us buy our plants (and vegetables) that have been started (or fully grown) by professionals under optimal conditions. If you are considering offering your guest or client the opportunity to start a flower from the seeds you send them keep in mind the challenges they will face.
The bulk of our seed paper contains the following seeds:
Perennial
English Daisy
Perennial
Tussock Bellflower
Annual
Lilac Godetia
Annual
Monkeyflower
Biennial/Perennial
Foxglove
Annual
Dwarf Spurred Snapdragon
Perennial
Showy Evening Primrose
Annual
Red Corn Poppy
Biennial/Annual
Catchfly
Perennial
Creeping Thyme
Well we did it! We battled Super Bowl hotel prices, a slushy snow storm that shut down parts of the city and empty propane tanks (burrrrr!) in our efforts to put our Earth Silk ribbon line in front of an East Coast audience.
Here is our latest effort at creative film making (video #3)
http://www.custompaper.com/Files/OfTheEarthEntersNY.wmv
We would love to hear your thoughts.
Kevin
In this incredibly busy week as we gear up for the new bridal season and work on last minute plans for tomorrow’s flight to New York to set up our booth at the National Gift Show in Manhattan I was stopped for a moment, long enough to sit down even to enjoy a piece of mail that the dripping wet postman just delivered. It was a hand written thank you note from a woman in North Carolina who runs her own Calligraphy business. She sent us one of our own seed embedded envelopes back in the mail with beautiful hand lettering on the front and a business card and note on the inside.
I think this can stand as a clear testament to the power of the personalized mailing. I know everyone is busy, I know I am busy, and yet this simple act of handwriting really can stop someone in their tracks for a few moments and draw their attention to the message you are sending.
For all of you brides out their considering printing your guest’s names instead of hand writing them, don’t. Just take the extra time to let the people (you care enough about to invite to one of the most exciting days of your life) know that you really care. You really want them there and your own handwriting spells it out for them. It is that personal touch missing from so many areas of our lives today. Your extra effort will be noticed and appreciated. It really does make a difference.
Okay so clearly we don’t all have amazing handwriting like the image above, but still you have family you can enlist to help, you can pick up a book or watch a video demo for pointers and tips on improving your own handwriting. Start early and it will be manageable, and worth it.
Mary Andrews contacted us this week to share photos and details of her wedding via her Real Weddings post on The Etsy Blog.
The gorgeous affair took place in Richmond, Virginia where Mary, a Merchandise lead for Etsy, and Tim, a freelance writer, blogger and food stylist work and live.
All photos by Marvelous Things Photography via The Etsy Blog
Mary used our seeded paper to create her save-the-date, featured in the invite suite above. We love working with all our brides, but this was one rather special considering she works for and sourced many of her wedding elements directly from Etsy. For a list of all Mary’s resources, check out her My Etsy Wedding page. And to follow Mary and Tim’s love story and their adventures in creating a sustainable life in Richmond, check out their blog 17 Apart.
We just returned from the 2014 Seattle Wedding show two day event that was a remarkable success! The show was very well attended, with aisles full of smiling brides and their retinue of sisters, friends and family in tow. We displayed several new invitation and paper designs along with our timeless styles that never fail to please. Here is a five minute video that takes you through our booth from top to bottom.
We hope you have an opportunity to visit us in our new store in this new year and view these designs and more in person. Our shop has hundreds of papers, dozens of invitation styles, wedding invitation assembly tools, guest books, seed paper by the sheet and much, much more.
OREEKO (Organic, Green, Eco, Blog) is a trusted resource on the web for “reviews, how-to guides, current news & ideas on how to simplify green living”. We were listed amongst a group of hefty competitors (7 to be exact) as resource for Eco Wedding Invitations in their Green Wedding series.
“The invite allows you to establish a direct line of connection with all your guests. Use it to make a statement that can be both memorable, personal and green!” We could not agree more!
Our excerpt from the post:
“OF THE EARTH
Soft colors and delicate nuances give these wedding invitations a very romantic and natural feel. They use Lotka paper made from the bark of the Daphne bush, a renewable resource from Nepal. All lotka envelopes and paper are 50% recycled and 100% tree free. The paper is also acid free and your purchase will benefit the economic enterprise of rural craftspeople in Nepal. The company also makes a cotton & abaca paper, created without chemical resources and with special attention to water conservation.”
Our only surprise was that our greenest product trait – that our papers generate oxygen when planted – was not mentioned in the flattering description of our goods.
You can read the entire post here and follow the OREEKO blog, which covers everything from weddings to style to food and health, here. It is a favorite read in our world – many thanks to OREEKO for the nod!