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!

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.

In summer we showed you one of our knitted paper twine tote bags (with DIY instructions) so it was about time to also share a crocheted tote bag with you! The subscribers of our newsletter have already seen this model. By now we can add that even after extended daily use for half a year and the transport of moist produce the bag is still in excellent condition!

By now we know the secrets of bag-making but in the beginning is was difficult to start from scratch so we looked for available patterns and models around the internet. The pattern for the white crochet bag shown here was found on the highly-recommended Purl Bee blog.

The Materials:

We used strong white paper twine for the bag and added a colorful rim with one row each of turquoise, fresh green and yellow single crochet stitches

You can now also find whole skeins of colored paper twine suitable for this bag in our online shop and in our Etsy shop

Crochet hook used: 2.75mm / US C / UK 11

The bag is simple to make, just keep in mind that you’ll need more strength to crochet the paper twine than usual cotton/linen twine. Therefore rather start slowly and spread crocheting the bag over a whole week rather than doing it on one day (your wrists and hands will be thankful).

This bag makes a great Christmas present as well and you can vary its size by adding to or decreasing the rows of the pattern. Happy crocheting!

After the photoshoot: new paper yarn earrings

Have you seen – we’ve made new paper yarn earrings that are now available in the etsy shop. For the first time we’ve also made olive-shaped ones and we hope you like them!

Hopefully you still remember Barbara’s first steps in crocheting her summer bag with the help of her feline assistant Pommes here some time ago. And now the ultimate Paper Twine Summer Bag is ready for some serious picnicing and other summer activities.

Crocheted Paper Twine Bag (detail) and choosing and cutting fabrics for the lining – the fabrics were chosen to underline the summer feeling of the whole bag

Barbara found the original pattern for the bag at Ravelry where you can find hundreds of free patterns for your very own Crocheted Paper Twine bag. Working with Paper Twine was very easy in Barbara’s opinion once she got used to it and as long as the cat didn’t try to help with the project. And even the sewing-in of the lining in the end with the sewing machine was no problem at all.

You can find skeins of colored paper twine suitable for this bag in our online shop and in our Etsy shop

Crocheted Paper Twine Bag in one of Vienna’s many nice parks

The only problem at the moment is that Pommes the cat is not very happy that it had to give up its sleeping mat that now has even a very cosy lining. Therefore Barbara’s next DIY project will probably be a paper twine cat-nap-rug – we’re looking forward to see some pictures of it!

The feline assistant is checking the quality of the Paper Twine

Just a few words and pictures to share with you about the cat-friendliness of Paper Twine! Barbara, a fellow Viennese “Craftista” is currently working on her first bigger Paper Twine project: a crocheted summer bag in white and natural. Or at least she is working on it as long as her tomcat, Pommes, allows her to do so – as you can see Pommes has taken a liking to paper twine as well. Luckily the twine is sturdy enough to survive any cat-attack! And even if it’s chewed on paper twine is not a problem for the feline assistant: there are no small hairs to swallow and no dyes or additives that could make the material harmful (… and it’s not really tasty so the chewing won’t last long). And last, but not least, Barbara says that Paper Twine is not only great to work with once you’ve gotten used to it but also any cat hair is just falling through the crocheted pieces of the future bag. Paper Twine is so smooth that cat hair just can’t stick to it. So – as opposed to most other materials – there are no longer-lasting hairy signs of the animal assistant once you leave your home or studio! We’ll keep you posted on the progress of the bag (or, as it is currently known, the cat-nap-rug).

The Cat-Nap-Rug that will become a crocheted summer bag shortly (sorry, Pommes!)

A bracelet has been growing (literally) in the PaperPhine studio over the last few days. Does it remind you of some kind of underwater plant, too? Perhaps a romantic quillings-coral… The bracelet is made out of Finest White Paper Yarn over a piece of memory wire.

We’re thinking about publishing tutorials for some of our Paper Yarn Jewelry pieces. In this case the tutorial would explain step-by-step how to get from the memory wire ring (seen on the last picture on the left) to the finished bracelet. We would love to hear what you think about it – and what other Paper Yarn projects you would like tutorials for. Please leave a comment or drop us a line!

Next month we’ll send out the first Springtime PaperPhine newsletter with extra information, tipps, tricks and insights into the studio. You can sign up for it
here

.

Crocheted Paper Yarn Flower Necklace Finest White Paper Yarn – the flowers dyed in blue hues after crocheting

This is the last entry on our small, blue Crocheted Paper Yarn Flowers for a while – but we promised to show you what would become of them and finally the necklace is finished. As you can see we opted for a asymetrical design. The single flowers were ironed so they were flatter and easier to work with (yes, you can iron paper yarn: “wool” temperature is fine, if your are careful you can also use “cotton”). Then we sew them together with a few small stitches and added a doubled-up fine crocheted paper yarn chain. Springtime may arrive any day now – we’re ready!

White Crocheted Flower made out of Strong White Paper Twine

Spring is in the air and sometimes there are some even some rays of sun that make their way into the studio. But mostly winter hasn’t lost its grip yet here in Vienna – so to brighten up our days we were crocheting Paper Twine Flowers this week. The White Flowers catch the light beautifully, cheer up everybody and are a wonderful addition to our vintage-themed decor.

HOW TO…

There are a lot of instructions on how to make crocheted flowers on the internet. All the flowers we made are variations of free, found patterns.

- When you choose a flower pattern opt for one of the simpler ones. Working with Paper Twine means that single stitches will be seen and won’t “blend” into each other as they do when you use cotton yarns or wool.

- Your Paper Twine Flower will be bigger than when you use any other yarn. The “hole” in the middle will be bigger, too, and become a beautiful feature of the finished flower.

- Crochet stitches out of Paper Twine will need more space than other stitches. Therefore it’s better to plan your Paper Twine Flower with one petal less than the pattern says so you have enough space for the stitches to lie evenly in the round.

- For each a small flower you’ll need about 3-4 yards of Paper Twine, for a medium flower 5-6 yards and for a really big one up to 14 yards.

- Crochet hook: in Europe you’ll want to use a hook size 2 (2mm), in the US look for a B/1 and in Canada/UK a hook size 13. Depending on your way to crochet you’ll have to adjust the hook size.

- Finishing the flower: carefully draw the paper twine through some of the stitches on the backside with your hook (you can also use a needle but you’ll need a really big one with a huge needle eye). Either finish with a small knot before cutting the twine or use a tiny bit of glue to fix the cut end within one of the stitches/loops.

- Finished flowers can be joined together to form a garlande or you can easily make a brooch out of a single flower by attaching it with a small safety pin.

Of course you can also make Paper Twine Flowers with colored Paper Twines – e.g. in Soft Reds and Yellow – we’re already working on some of these to show to you. Stay tuned.

… and now: get hooked!

Medium Size Paper Twine Flower attached with a small safety pin to make a simple and cool brooch

More ideas to use the Paper Twine Flowers for:

- embellish your gifts (the smallest flower already found a new owner this way – wrapped in simple brown craft paper with the white flower and a little white twine)

- fix onto a hair tie with a stitch or two for a elegant grown-up-girly-style hair-do or onto a barrette with a drop of glue

- make the garland even longer and decorate your whole flat with it – also looking great in front of windows

- inviting people for a nice dinner? make nice rolls out of the napkins, wrap some white paper twine around it and fix the paper twine flower on top

- join a couple of paper twine flowers together petal-to-petal to make a spring-time necklace

Let us hear your ideas and leave a comment or send us a picture of your paper yarn projects to paperphine (at!) gmail.com

Small Custom-Made Paper Yarn Earrings

Yes, we do. And yes, we love doing it!
Requests for customized paper jewelry are always a challenge – and as you can see we are always ready to take on a good one! Special colors, sizes, tidbits, lengths, whole sets of fine paper yarn jewelry – you name it, we make it. So just drop us a line if you are looking for a unique piece custom-made just for you.

Blue-Gray Paper Yarn Beads with Tiny Dots of Colors – made for a jewelry maker in the US who will incorporate these beads into her earring designs.
These beads are available in the etsy store as pendants

Shades of Green: a request for fresh Spring Colors with our Delicate Paper Yarn Necklaces/Bracelets