holiday paper – custompaper.com/blog

January 2, 2015

End of the year recap – Looking forward to 2015

This time of year always has us scrambling; rushing to pack and ship orders in time for the holidays, rushing to get gifts wrapped for friends and family, rushing to complete our end of year inventory, rushing up and down I-5 to visit our loved ones.

Now that the new year has begun the next rush is on. Our annual local bridal show begins next weekend at the Washington State Convention center which was built right over I-5 where it passes through the center of downtown Seattle. We have new designs to add to our existing line of plantable invitations. We have new equipment going into this bridal season that we bought at last year’s Stationery Show in NY. We have just 7 more days to put the finishing touches on the invitations that we hope resonate with our Seattle customers.

Once that show is over we begin building a new (sturdier) crate for the NY Gift Show that runs Jan 31 – Feb 4 at the Javits center. At the end of February we are excited to be participating for the first time in the largest show of its kind in the nation: The SewExpo http://www.sewexpo.com/. We are excited to be part of the show and look forward to meeting many of you there.

We are excited to see what these next few months bring but want to give a quick shout out to a couple of our 2014 customers who shared their photos with us.

Here is a photo of our Earth Silk ribbon that Heather Edgar sent.

She runs her own business: Evergreen Flower Co. of Columbus, Ohio and was kind enough to send these beautiful photographs. Thanks Heather!

One thing we love about the Seattle Wedding Show is the special connections we make with our local brides. We met Rebecca and Thomas at last year’s wedding show along with Rebecca’s mom. They were that couple you meet who you can see married forever, their shared energy and enthusiasm were infectious. We had a great time working with them on all of their wedding plans, this pair was doing it all! They loved that we offered so many do it yourself options as they were planning to do just as much as they could (including making their own rings). After their event they shared their wedding web site with us (which is where this photo is from). You should take a look!

Seattle couple assembles Of The Earth invitations at home.

Lastly we were excited to work on these holiday cards with a great creative team from Darien, Connecticut. Thanks for letting us share your project Jim! GW Hoffman

December 17, 2013

WRAP IT UP

Our green flower print handmade wrapping paper was included in a round-up of holiday wrapping options in Artizen Magazine.

“Artizen magazine’s goal is to spread the love with inside scoops on the artisan and handmade industry.” The magazine is free to readers and offers myriad of inspiring images and projects. We love seeing the creative holiday uses for our papers and we also love being recognized by our fellow artisans – what a compliment!

While we don’t like to contribute to the frenzy of the season, we know there are only a few shopping days left and hope you consider using handmade, beautiful packaging this year. A thoughtful and lovely finishing touch to even the most practical or impractical of gifts – you can check out our selection of papers here.

Happy Holidays!

November 22, 2013

COVET GARDEN HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

We were pleasantly surprised to discover our handmade wrapping paper included in a list of “Fantastic under $50 finds” on the front page of Etsy last week!

The list was curated by Covet Garden, an Etsy Tastemaker and online publication based in Toronto that “peek(s) into the homes and lives of some of the city’s most interesting people”.

We love the concept behind the magazine, profiling “spaces that have not been styled by interior decorators”, focusing on the “inspirational not the aspirational”. That is a mantra we can get behind!

We also love the selection of wrapping papers we are offering this holiday season! The extra touch of packaging a gift in something beautiful and handmade not only adds a lot to the presentation, it illustrates the time and thought that went into every last detail.

At least, that has always been our experience.

September 12, 2013

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.

Handmade paper tool kit — Tools for paper

Don't try this at home — Watch those fingers

Paper pulp closeup — Paper pulp – Recycled lotka fibers

August 30, 2013

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!

November 14, 2012

Standard magazine features Of The Earth holiday gift wrap in their latest issue

Last month we got a call from the feature editor Mallory Hamel of Standard magazine, a prominent, celebrated design powerhouse. They found our seed embedded wrapping paper and asked if we would send them samples to photograph. We were flattered and excited and of course sent the stock and hoped for the best. The feature turned out so much better than we had imagined. You should have a look here

We love how our wrapping paper can be used and saved, reused and finally planted to add oxygen to our environment, closing the circle of life by nurturing new plants from the embedded seeds. Not only is our paper tree free and recycled, it is decorated with vegetable dyes and just right for the holidays. You must have that one (just one?) family member that is hard to shop for. Wrap their gift in our paper and like that kid who plays with the empty box, your friend will spend more time with the paper than what was inside. Come spring time this wrapping paper can be potted or planted outside and with constant watering will produce a garden of wildflowers to celebrate the next season. You can order the gift wrap here