Sandra, who is behind the fine blog and Etsy shop zsazsazsu put all her heart and skills into handmade crochet jewelry. As she puts it herself it all started when she saw a woman wearing a beautiful necklace some years back, inquired about the piece and soon found herself immersed in colors and structures – and in her own workshop.

In all of Sandra’s jewelry pieces her love for colors is reflected and her amazing crochet skills can be seen. But it’s also obvious that she loves to work with more unusual materials like our paper yarns and seemingly effortlessly incorporates unusual finds like coins and stones into her work.

For this beautiful red necklace Sandra combined fine, soft red merino yarn with our slightly stiffer finest paper yarn in natural to give the piece more texture. The necklace was crocheted in loops with a crochet hook (thread hook / EU 0.75 / US 13 / UK 5 or 6) over a fine steel cable – and with lots of patience!

Btw, this necklace can be bought here – it’s one-of-a-kind so if it’s sold it’s sold.

Sophie Baumgärtner: peng, paper twine, tissue paper, stainless steel brooch needle

How to better start into the New Year than with a lovely New Year’s cracker? And even better: a cracker you can actually wear the whole year?

But to start at the beginning let me explain that late last year we got a super-urgent order by German Jewelry Design student Sophie Baumgärtner for a “suprise”. A couple of days ago I found these great pictures in our mailbox of the “suprise”: Sophie’s recent side project of “peng” brooches.

Handmade out of paper twine and sometimes a lining of colored tissue paper the brooches are carefully mounted on a stainless steel, nickle-free brooch pin. Sophie’s inspiration for these pieces – by now there are four different lines – are indeed New Year’s crackers and the sound they make then exploding: peng!

Besides the “peng” brooches Sophie is currently working on her diploma at the Kunsthochschule Burg Giebichenstein (Good Luck!) and is also co-curating the Schmuckkantine, a platform for contemporary jewelry.

KNOT can be worn as a necklace as well as a bracelet

We introduced out new KNOT jewelry line in August this year (here and here) and it has become a huge success. In fact we sold so many that our supplier ran out of the beautiful, matte latches we used to add even more options in the style you can wear the necklace/bracelet. But now the latches are back in stock and because they were made especially for us in Germany we now do have a lot of them in the studio!

If you’re looking for a Christmas present for one of your loved ones (or for yourself) then this versatile piece might be what you’ve been looking for. KNOT jewelry is made of paper twine and it can get wet though to keep the pieces in pristine condition we recommend to take them off before washing the dishes or going for a romantic walk in the rain! All pieces are packed in clear gift-boxes and if you need them wrapped as gift just drop us a line and we’ll whip up a fantastic, papery gift for you. Buy it online in our etsy shop.

Also we’ve been working with our Nordic agent Stjernestunder and there are now a lot of shops in Denmark and Norway that are selling our KNOTs – you can find a complete list of our stockists here (please note that not all PaperPhine retailers have the KNOTs).

Florence Jaquet: Necklace and Bracelet “Majesté”, 2011, paper, tagua nut

Luckily we live in the digital age – and in the age of Pinterest in this case – though it took us quite a while to find the website by Swiss jewelry maker Florence Jaquet after stumbling upon the first pictures of her work. To call Florence a “jewelry finder” would not do her work justice though natural, found materials are incorporated into a lot of her pieces. The literal translation of her website “bijoux organiques” would also be “organic jewelry”. Florene herself explains that “I named my work “organic” with reference to the word “organ”. A jewel is meant to be worn and then becomes an extra organ on the body : it influences the body’s balance, movements and functions. It is vital and yet so fragile and can be altered during the course of its life. As an organ, it can also have an effect on connections with other people.”

Florence Jaquet: Bracelet and Necklace “Je me livre … et vous?”, 2011, paper, linen thread

We’re only showing you the paper and hand-twisted paper twine related jewelry pieces here but Florence uses a wide range of organic materials for her sculptural pieces. Some of them are installations – like the “Le tea-shirt, 2011″ shown below that was made as a entry for the 70e Biennale d’art contemporain de La Chaux-de-Fonds. This colar and a lot of other pieces do remind us strongly of traditional art from Africa and the South Pacific.

Florence Jacquet: “Tea-Shirt” (top) and Necklace “Perles insolites”, 2007, price tags, cotton (bottom)

While on Florence’s own website you’ll find more pictures the texts are all in French. For some information in English as well as information on points of sale and upcoming exhibitions head to her Klimt02 website.

Air Tattoos: Wearable Art for the Neck by Logical Design

What stunning paper jewelry pieces – we’re already waiting for ours to arrive in the studio!

But to start at the beginning: Logical Art is a London-based design studio run by Hanhsi Chen and Yookyung Shin who started to work together after graduating from the Royal College of Art. The duo just launched a new project – Air Tattoo – on the crowd funding website Kickstarter. You can still support the project on Kickstarter by pre-ordering your very own Air Tattoo until September 9, 2012.

Some stills from the Kickstarter film explaining the design process

Air Tattoo is a collection of wearable delicate drawings. The original material that was drawn onto – paper – becomes the piece itself in the transformtion process from drawing to piece of jewelry. The idea behind this project was to convert delicate hand-drawn patterns into air-like “tattoos” or in other words to produce stunning paper-cuts that can not only be framed and put onto the walls but that you can wear every day.

One of the questions the PaperPhine studio faces most often is if paper and paper yarn weren’t to fragile to be worn as jewelry. The Logical Art studio faced the same question so they set out to find a suitable paper for their purpose because they absolutely wanted to use paper to keep the quality of the delicate drawings. They say that “We managed to find a kind of special eco-friendly paper. The paper keeps all the great quality of normal paper (soft texture, light weight, beautiful tension), yet it is very strong. It is water-resistant / tear-resistant material as you can see from the video. We completed material tests already. Strong enough to wear, even for rainy days. You can wear Air Tattoo multiple times unless you try hard to tear it.” And once more it has to be added that the toughness of paper should never be underestimated.

Definitely a project all paper-lovers should back on Kickstarter!

KNOT can be worn as a necklace as well as a bracelet!

We talked a lot about our new KNOT jewelry lately and yes, it might be that we’re a bit proud of the new pieces. If you read the last blog articles as well you know that there was a long and laborious process behind finding the perfect design. Today we want to share some picture of the KNOT pieces worn as necklaces with you – and yes, it’s the same piece that can also be worn as a bracelet!

When worn long you have the choice between extra-long or you can make a big “knot”/loop to slightly shorten the piece. When worn short you can use the latch that is available in shiny as well as in matt to hold the strands together. And of course you can find your personal way to wear the necklace as well!

The good news are that our agent Helle from Stjernestunder found a lot of shops that loved our KNOT pieces at the Formland Fair she attended. This means that there will be a lot of shops that will stock our KNOT pieces in Northern Europe (and other places!) soon. For the moment you can get the KNOTs at feinheiten… in Innsbruck or you can send us a message and we’ll send you your very own KNOT bracelet/necklace!

Made by PaperPhine: the new KNOT Bracelet (with and without latch)

In our last blog entry Linda talked about the design process behind our new KNOT jewelry line. Today we share pictures of the new pieces with you (you might have seen some of them on PaperPhine’s Facebook page before). It took us a long time to find a perfect length so you can wear your KNOT piece both as a bracelet and as a necklace – and not only in one way but short, long, with a huge knot in front and with or without a latch. More about these possibilities later this week.

Made by PaperPhine: the new KNOT Bracelets (with and without latches)

Our Danish agent Helle from Stjernestunder is taking our new KNOT series as well as some of our paper twines and other paper yarn jewelry to this autumn’s Formland Fair. Visit Helle and Marie at booth H6018 and have a chat with her!

Prototypes for the new KNOT Paper Twine jewelry line

The process to arrive at a finished jewelry design can take quite a while. Usually I start with an idea for a piece, sometimes sketch, sometimes the idea for a new or simplified technique. For the newest pieces in the PaperPhine collection the technique was found quite easily: knots. The knots take advantage of the paper twines’ “body” – the knots form nicely and make little bulbs – and allows to combine different colors in one piece. The technique is simplified and tuned down to its bare essentials and therefore gives the pieces a modern edge.

Made by PaperPhine: Red-Orange Knotted Paper Twine Necklace – a unique piece

The early prototypes are all one-of-a-kind and I tested a lot of different color combinations. The knots already showed beautifully but I was still looking for a simpler form that would allow the wearer to wear the necklace long, short or with a decorative huge knot-like loop. I like wearing bracelets myself a lot (ask the boyfriend about the collection of bracelets and bangles…) so I saw the possibilitiy to wear the piece not only as a necklace but also as a bracelet as a definite bonus.

Made by PaperPhine: Blue Knotted Paper Twine Necklace – another one-of-a-kind color combination

By now the design of the KNOT line is refined and we’ve made a couple of pieces in different colors. Our Facebook fans already got a first glimpse of the finished designs and in a few days I’ll talk about them right here on the blog.

A sidenote: Yes, it’s paper. BUT it’s strong paper, or rather strong paper twine to be exact. This means the KNOT pieces can not only get wet but theoretically you could even put them into the washing machine and not much will happen except some entangeling. Nevertheless we recommend to keep paper jewelry out of the wet so you can enjoy it for a lot of years (and perhaps the pieces even become heirlooms).