PaperPhine

Paper Yarn Shamrocks by Giuliana Primavera

PaperPhine — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:04:55 +0000

Aren’t they absolutely adorable? And who doesn’t need some extra luck from time to time?

These stunning little lucky charms were crocheted and colored by hand by talented Italian craftista Giuliana Primavera and can be found in her Etsy shop ThinkSpring.

Giuliana crocheted the shamrocks out of PaperPhine’s finest paper yarn and afterwards carefully colored each single leaf with water colors. The shamrocks are sold by Giuliana in mixed packs of 5 and make a wonderful addition to your stash of scrapbooking, crafting and gift wrapping supplies – or put them into a small frame and onto the wall for your daily dose of extra luck and a smile!

Even Giuliana’s packaging is adorable – “good things come in small packages” – we could not agree more!

Mother’s Day Special in our Etsy shop

PaperPhine — Sat, 11 May 2013 11:28:56 +0000

Today and tomorrow in our Etsy shop. A very special weekend to all the Mums and families!

DIY Kits: Paper Twine Knit Baskets

paperphine — Fri, 03 May 2013 08:28:39 +0000

Round ‘n round … and finished is your paper twine basket! After the big success of our knit bangle DIY kit you can now also make your own paper twine knit baskets – fun and easy and no knitting skills required!

Our Knit Basket DIY Kits are availabe in three sizes and include everything you need to make your own baskets:
- A round knitting loom (diameter 13.5cm / 5.3 in)
- Hook tool
- Strong Paper Twines
- Detailed instructions on how to make a basket, shape it and possible finishing touches
- An extra postcard for you to keep our give away with one of the baskets

and you can even choose and personalize the colors for your very own DIY kit. A total of 24 colors are available and 5 of them a exclusively available as part of our DIY kits. All kits are packed in a beautiful cardboard box filled with fun paper frizzels to protect the precious contents.

We need to warn you though: the risks are high that you’ll get hooked! Luckily paper twine baskets make a beautiful gift as well so keep knitting and all your friends will love you for it! Just get some more strong paper twine and keep knitting and knitting…

Paper Twine Baskets & Water:

Our strong paper twines are also used for the manufacturing of carpets and are very sturdy. They’re colorfast and do not stain when wet. It’s no problem to wash them gently by hand or to rinse them from time to time. You will need to re-shape your baskets after the washing (instructions found in the DIY kit).
To keep your baskets in perfect condition for a long time we suggest to nevertheless avoid contact with water when possible and to never leave them humid for long (let them dry!).

The DIY Kits: Knit Baskets are also available in our Etsy store.

Made by PaperPhine: DIY Kit Knit Bangles

PaperPhine — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 18:53:09 +0000

After putting lots of time and effort (and love) into it our first-ever DIY kit is now available. Knit your own chunky paper twine bangles and no worries, no knitting skills required. With the knitting loom and our detailed instructions with lots of pictures it’s easy and fun.

Our Knit Bangle DIY Kit includes
- A round knitting loom (diameter 13.5cm / 5.3 in)
- Knitting hook tool
- 3 x 17m (18.6 yards) / 6 x 17m (18.6 yards) of strong paper twines
- SIZE MATTERS: 1m / 1.1 yard transparent elastic cord to adjust size if necessary
- Detailed instructions on how to make the bangle, adjust the size if necessary and possible finishing touches
- An extra postcard for you to keep our give away with one of the bangles

and you can even choose and personalize the colors for your very own DIY kit. A total of 24 colors are available and 5 of them a exclusively available as part of our DIY kits.
All kits are packed in a beautiful cardboard box filled with fun paper frizzels to protect the precious content.

We need to tell you though that making these bangles is very addictive and you’ll find it hard to stop before having them in each possible color. Luckily all of our strong paper twines are suitable for these technique. And not only you but also your friends will love to get their hands on one of these colorful bangles making them a great gift as well.

The Paper Bangle DIY Kit and the refill kit with more paper twines are available in our shop and in our Etsy shop. Happy Knitting!

Paper Jewelry by Paper Statement

PaperPhine — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 07:30:10 +0000

The PaperPhines have long been big fans of Paper Statement‘s beautiful paper jewelry and book art. It’s wonderful to see how Paper Statement is slowly but steadily growing and another paper dream seems to become true.

Dorisse is the creator behind Paper Statement and as she told us it had been her lifelong dream to earn her income with her paper jewelry and paper art. After studying art history and Italian literature and working as a tour guide and teacher Dorisse plunged into the adventure of becoming a full-time paper jewelry and book sculpture maker and as it seems with lots of success.

One of Dorisse’s preferred materials are old books that she uses not only for her book art but also to cut thousands of disks out of them for her necklaces and bangles. Combined with paper disks cut out of different shades of colorful paper these disks are combined to create stunning pieces – or to make beautiful DIY-kits. So if you want to make your own paper jewelry statement piece have a look here. But this is not the only special service that Paper Statement has to offer: you can also get your very personal piece of book art by getting in touch with Dorisse and ordering a book sculpture made out of your favorite book!

Dorisse shows her work in progress and sketch books (pictures originally published as part of this interview on Etsy).

The PaperPhine workshop and the Paper Statement studio are nearly neighbours – the one being located in Vienna/Austria, the other one in Ingolstadt/Germany. But the mere 500km make a huge difference in the tidiness of the workplace with the PaperPhine desks usually disappearing under heaps of paper twines, paper and a general chaos of supplies and finished pieces… A longer and inspiring interview with Dorisse can be found here where she also talks about her inspiration (“ornaments, structures, textures and patterns — the repetition of identical elements” that you can also see in her pieces) and her most cherished handmade possession (socks her grandma knitted for the whole family).

Summer feeling with beautiful earrings made of cardstock by Paper Statement

We’re wishing Dorisse lots of luck with all her undertaking and hopefully we’ll be able to meet our nearly-neighbour in person one day.

Note: The personal homepage of Paper Statement / Dorisse can be found here .

The collector’s syndrome

PaperPhine — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 14:14:05 +0000

Sometimes we’re sorting through a box of old bobbins straight from a mill and find bobbins unlike any we’ve ever seen before – unique, beautiful, with lots of history and flair. And that’s a hard thing to say because all of our bobbins are beautiful, with lots of history and flair but some have a really rare design that makes them even more precious. Of course it’s not said that there are not more of these seemingly rare bobbins hidden away somewhere but after a couple of years in this business you get to know a lot of designs and old manufacturer’s marks.

In these moments with exciting finds under grease and dirt it gets very difficult sometimes not to hide these treasures away and to keep them. In fact the whole team is suffering from a bit of collector’s syndrome and only a lack of space keeps us from hoarding old industrial implements, tools, etc. Even though we buy these bobbins specifically to put our paper yarns and paper twines onto them and sell them again I can tell you that it’s sometimes really hard to send them out again even with the knowledge that our customers share our love for these artifacts of textile history.

I do not even want to imagine how difficult it must be for sellers of a diverse range of vintage goods to let go of their product – while we have “only” bobbins to let go they have whole furnishing houses of beautiful, old goods to say good-bye to… It’s the bobbins you see here that prompted this little blog article – after having them on the desk for a year and a half it seems finally time to let go of them and send them out to a new owner. Please treat them well.

Crochet Paper Yarn – Merino Wool Necklace by zsazsazsu

PaperPhine — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 07:59:41 +0000

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.

Whole skeins of colored paper twines / paper cords

PaperPhine — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 13:17:29 +0000

For all of you who have BIG projects in mind: our strong colored paper twines are now also available in small skeins ranging from 70 – 220 meters (about 77 – 240 yards).

These skeins give you enough material for knitting and crocheting bags and baskets, for a lot of gift-wrapping and jewelry-making, bookbinding and scrapbooking etc. Let us know you idea what to do with these skeins, too – we love to hear from you!

Paper Twine Skeins in various colors are available in our shop and in our Etsy shop

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About the business side of things…

PaperPhine — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 10:41:58 +0000

A new interview/report focusing on the business side of things and including a peek into the PaperPhine-studio …

With special thanks to Michael Bernstein and Alena Schmuck from inventures.eu for their great work!

PaperPhine-Interview auf DaWanda (German only, sorry)

PaperPhine — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:02:45 +0000

Schon entdeckt? Ein ausführliches Interview mit unserer Linda auf dem DaWanda-Blog – mit Einblick hinter die Kulissen, Inspiration und den Lieblingsseiten im Netz.

Sorry, this interview is available in German only.