NORTHWEST WEDDING & EVENT TOUR

northlakeweddingandeventstourimage

We will be exhibiting at the second annual Northlake Wedding & Event Tour on Sunday, November 10th!

Spend the day “cruising around the Northlake Area in limos and party buses while visiting an array of beautiful venues and talented wedding vendors along the way”.

Tickets are $20 and include transportation to each venue, a sampling of the amazing featured catering options and gift bags for the first 50 guests!

The Tour will begin at UW Center for Urban Horticulture with registration taking place from 10:00am – 12:30pm. Transportation will be provided from 11am-4pm.

Be sure to stop by our booth at the first stop on the tour – the Center for Urban Horticulture (where our earth friendly goods will be fittingly displayed).  Say “hello” and check out a few of our favorite invite samples and the most popular designs of 2013.  OH, we will also be offering a sneak peek of next season’s collection – something you will not want to miss!  See you there!

WEARABLE RIBBON

It appears we have officially segued into the fashion industry: we have launched our very first silk ribbon wrap design!  This is a one yard length of our hand dyed silk that is finished with two pointed ends and a seam stitch along the entire length.

wrap ribbon

Our modern take on the classic “fairy ribbon” design is available in over 150 color options.  These Earth Silk ribbons are made by hand in our Seattle studio. We measure, mix, dye, rinse, wash, dry, fold, iron, stitch and sew to bring you this great wrist accessory.

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The wrap is a thoughtful, eco-gift idea and an easy and affordable accessory option to elevate any ensemble.  After years of inquiries, we are excited to offer to offer a hand dyed silk ribbon option to our jewelry-designing and accessorizing clients worldwide!

THE GOOD EARTH CANDLE COMPANY

We often write of the custom orders we create for clients’ worldwide, commissioned projects remain to be some of our favorite and most memorable endeavors.  Recently we had the pleasure of working with Jeanette Maurer of The Good Earth Candle Company.

“The Good Earth Candle Company features a thoroughly sustainable product, it is carefully crafted in the US in collaboration with a number of skilled artisans and small companies. All candle components are made of natural and renewable materials.”

Jeanette discovered us at a trade show and worked patiently with us to create the right combination of petals and seeds to pair with her line of soy candles. The paper we make for her acts as both a label and a protective cover for her product.

“The last touch to her candles is the unique cover. Jeanette partnered with a creative “eco” printer Jen Merrill, and Kevin Graham who handcrafted the beautiful paper. The paper is infused with real flowers, ferns and seeds that can be planted into the soil to beautify our wonderful planet even more. Jeanette has passion and pride in everything she creates and is very excited to pass this on through offering high quality, very special, “Eco Elegant” products to her customers.”

Upon completion of the project we chatted with Jeanette about her experience working with us to create unique packaging for her candles.

“Kevin and his team have been amazing!  When I came to him with my custom project I was impressed with his ability to seamlessly design and execute the elements for my candle covers.  He continues to be gracious, generous and helpful even after our project has technically been completed.”

Thank you, Jeanette!  We so enjoyed working with you!

Summer 2013: A Recap

The end of summer always marks the winding down of our busiest season, and this year was no exception. There was no shortage of productivity; in addition to the usual fervor of the wedding season, we moved to a new location, continued working on our website redesign and found time in the sun with our kids.  Whew!  We are exhausted just talking about it.  We cannot wait to “officially” share our new space with you, but until then take a look at highlights from the last few months:

In June we made it on to the front page of Etsy!  As you can imagine it is the dream placement for any crafter/maker selling on the site.  Our hand dyed silk ribbon is featured above.

Here we are again in July!  This time our ribbon was included on the craft supplies browse page.

Finally, a lovely feature by Canadian blogger Janick in mid- July had us blushing; it is always an honor (and an exciting surprise) to receive praise from fellow designers and crafters.

We hope you enjoyed a lovely AND relaxing summer; keep an eye out for news on our open house to showcase our new space!

We can’t resist sharing this image from our summer fun.

Lake Dorothy - North Cascade Mountains
Looking for mountain lake trout

 

Scout Mob

We have been getting ready for a new partnership with a company looking to promote our papers.  You may have heard of them; scoutmob.com.  They find companies they like to feature their goods and tell their story which hopefully leads to selling their products.  We are excited to see what the response is from their customers.  They have asked us to share a bit about our work which triggered an impromptu photo shoot.  I thought it would be fun to share that shoot here on our site so you could see what they do with the raw files.  I will add a link here to the scoutmob sales feature when it is online.  They will be offering discounted retail prices off of the handmade paper and bags they have selected.

Here’s the link  –  They are now live  http://scoutmob.com/seattle/of-the-earth

They chose some of our seed papers and some non-seeded lotka papers, some papers that we make here in Seattle and some from our facility in Nepal.  We are looking forward to see what the scoutmob customer finds interesting.

Floor mats
Somewhere to put your feet
Handmade paper tool kit
Tools for paper
Paper trimmer
Sharp steel
Don't try this at home
Watch those fingers
Paper pulp closeup
Paper pulp – Recycled lotka fibers

New Holiday Handmade Papers – Eco Friendly Gift Wrap

Here is a look at our latest additions to our lotka paper line. We hope you like these new designs. These should just whet your appetite however as we are looking to add many more designs as we stock our new retail store in North Seattle! We are excited to keep taking small steps to our grand opening celebration.
We will keep you posted as we creep closer.

The papers below are all ready for the holidays. We have them in 20″ x 30″ sheets in our light weight (20g) material. These papers can be used multiple times if you are one of those people who carefully lift the tape rather then tear your packages open.

Let us know what you think!

lotka golden print

SONY DSC SONY DSC

orange poppy paper

gold and red floral print paper

Red with silver branch print paper

Hydrangea Silk and Flowers

We just shipped this custom ribbon to a happy bride.  She wanted to order our pressed hydrangea flowers but she needed a silk ribbon to match the hue of the flowers.  We have over 150 colors in our hand dyed silk ribbon line but none that were quite the right shade, until now!

silk ribbon and flowers
Pressed blue hydrangea flowers with dyed to match silk ribbon

We offer custom dyed silk ribbon with a low three spool minimum purchase. Once we have your color matched, chances are it will become part of our growing line of silks. For those customers looking for an exclusive ribbon for product packaging or a signature line we can offer you a five year license of your custom color if you pay a $400 development and licensing fee. We will keep your design out of our product line while it is under license.

Relay for Life of Westminster is this weekend!

Kevin and I love to support great causes so when our family friend, Lydia Grosso, asked for a paper donation from Of The Earth we happy obliged.  She is head of Team GI-JOE and their team has been working hard to raise money to support people affected by cancer.  Her team will be running in the Relay for Life this weekend in Westminster, California.

We shipped Lydia packs of our seeded computer paper which she turned into bookmarks and cards filled with information about breast cancer, for their fight back cancer give away.

If you would like to donate to her team, you can find them at this link:

http://m.main.acsevents.org/site/TR?fr_id=49168&pg=team&team_id=1396751

Here is some information about this event from her Facebook page.

RELAY FOR LIFE is this weekend!!!  It is an open event, so please feel free to stop by even if you aren’t walking!  Teams have great things at their booth, there will be food and entertainment, and a kid’s camp with activities!!!   Event runs 9am-9am so come by anytime!!  Survivor lap is at 9am and Luminaria Ceremony at  9pm on Saturday!
Please support TEAM GI-JOE!!!! Even if you haven’t signed up, you can just show up that day!!!
Come visit!
http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLCY13CA?pg=entry&fr_id=491

Go Team GI-Joe!!

Written by Lori Graham

Angry Clown! Clown Terrorizing Seattle Shopkeepers – Demands Balloons!

Okay, so we have not updated this blog in a while.  This time of year with everyone getting married we should have so much to write about (and we do) but we are just too busy to add a well thought out post with beautiful pictures and links to the great items we make and sell.

Too busy!  But I just could not stop myself from sharing this story.  We have invitations to make, programs to assemble, place cards to print and favors to pack but this little story was too good not to share.

Two weeks ago, on the first day of our week long summer break (makes no sense with the preceding set up, but that is what happens when you vacation with family that only has July off – thank you Mr. Principle *congratulations by the way) an angry clown burst into our new store.

I just heard the story today when I finally got to visit with Axia who handled things for us so brilliantly while Lori and I were out of town.  She saved this one so she could tell us in person.  There were many challenges she overcame during our absence but none so memorable as the fully suited, makeup wearing, six foot plus clown that high stepped into our newly redecorated store looking for his balloons.

This giant angry clown actually cursed when he discovered that his balloons were not to be found in our store.  He looked at Aixa in a way that made her inch closer to her desk as she tried to remember if there was a knife in a drawer she could use to fend off the brightly colored fiend.

After demanding where his balloons have gone and getting a shaky little “I don’t know, we sell paper” in reply he stormed out into the sidewalk, slammed the door in his oversize shoes, bound to terrorize some other poor shopkeepers.

It seems like the previous tenants of this great space used to sell their goods to literally any clown off the street as they were (and hopefully still are for the angry clown’s sake) a wholesale balloon business, you can still see their sign if you Google maps our location and checkout the street view.  I guess they did not send out flyers announcing their move, or perhaps this angry clown just drives around in his little car and does not own a mailbox.

Thank you so much Aixa for helping us out.  You really and truly never know what the day will bring do you?

Kevin

PS.  This would be a great time to introduce our latest silk ribbon colors which include a fantastic new clown print, but really, who has the time?

 

 

 

Woven works of art created with our bias cut, hand dyed, Earth Silk ribbon

One of our clients, artist and teacher Mary Klotz,  is creating beautiful woven works of art with our hand dyed Earth Silk ribbon. The variegated color combinations combined with the intricate woven pattern create an optical illusion of depth and rich tones of color.

bronz_irid_triax_C_KLOTZ_forestheart_SM

Mary Klotz is developing some new project kits and working on a book at her studio located near Frederick, Maryland.  She has given seminars and workshops on triaxial weaving at regional and national conferences and to various guilds.  You can find her at www.forestheart.com.

Our biased cut, silk ribbon blend #058 was used to create this beautiful piece of artwork.  This blend can be found at   http://www.custompaper.com/earthsilk/ribbon/058.html

Of The Earth’s, hand dyed silk ribbons come in an array of solids and blends, 5 different widths and 2 different finishes.  You can view our entire collection at http://www.custompaper.com/Shop/Ribbon/ribbon.html and on Etsy at http://www.etsy.com/shop/flowerseedpaper

written by Lori Graham