pulp obsession

oh dear. it never ends, does it? NOPE. at least not around here! Porridge Papers is officially under construction {again}. Close followers are already familiar with Christopher’s love for knocking down walls and making the workplace impossible to navigate during crazy renovation projects– all in the name of keeping things interesting. We’ve recently decided to expand our retail area to make room for a DIY invitation studio and, eventually, a letterpress bar. Too many people come in and want to do little things themselves, but have nowhere to do it, well… now they do! And on top of it all we’re making TONS of room for all of our super-sweet new goodies!

look here for some entertaining photos of the progress thus far!

the mice will play!

Christopher is on vacation! That means that I’M in charge until he gets back on Friday (he was gone all last week too)! While the radio may be a little louder and the music playing may be everything that he can’t stand to listen to when he’s here, we’re still cranking out paper goodies at top speed. We’ve gotten to work on a top secret glitter project that was ooooodles of fun, and I’ve had the pleasure of running around like a chicken with my head cut off answering questions, giving pricing, and shipping orders. whew!

Of course, a vacation isn’t really a vacation if you don’t do a little work while you’re away. Betwixt all of the yummy New Mexican foods and margaritas and gourmet tortillas and other things that I’m daydreaming about from afar Christopher has managed to put up a Q and A page on our plantableseedpaper.com website! Every day we get a ton of calls with general questions about our plantable papers and what can be done with them. Hopefully now we’ll have some of these questions answered straight from the site!

AND

If you’re in the neighborhood stop by and check out the great selection of new cards just in from the National Stationery Show! Christopher did some shopping while he was in New York and now our little store has a small cornucopia of paper goodies! INCLUDING some fantastic Father’s day cards.

so what are you waiting for!?! come pay us a visit!

after months of hard work i decided that we needed a little fun! here is where i wish we got that bowling ally finished. which by the way we are installing this summer. so if your in the neighborhood give us a call and we will lay down the lanes! ok back to the story, last friday i gave all of us a day of “creative procrastination” . we got out the wire o machine, button maker, xacto knives, glue, chipboard, old money, paper, stock certificates, books and had some fun. we made some journals, buttons and books, some for us and some to sell. when the day was over it was such a great feeling to do something different so i have decided that one day a month will be “creative procrastination” day!

also if your in the neighborhood do stop by! the stuff from the national stationery show is starting to arrive! so many cards we do not even have enough place to display them. also begining mid june we will be open on saturdays from 10am to 3 pm! we hope to see you then.

getting ready to board a plane for new york! once again it is time for the national stationery show. this time we are going to look, shop and relax! it will be great to see some of our old friends, look for new ones and did is say relax! we do no how much work goes into putting a booth together for this show, so congratulations to all the exhibitors and good luck!

ok, so my wife found this and this is hilarious! for anybody that loves fonts this is a much.

what a spring/summer this is shaping up to be! to start things off, the may issue of self magizine came out and right there on page 32 is our plantable pillow box! a big thanks goes out to them for featureing us.

so, things have really been hopping this year. we finished up with our 2.2 million piece order and was not sure where we were going to go from there. it seems that there are people and compinies all over the world that are in need of handmade paper and plantable paper! so why not help them out! because of this we have been looking for a new home for porridge papers and i think we might have found one. it is in the heart of downtown lincoln, a block from the university and next door to the childrens museum. what is so great about this space  beside location is that the papermill will be a seperate space from the letterpress studio and retial section. it is a larger and more effeciant space compared to the building we are in now. it will also allow for more retial, workshops, classes and production! stay tuned as we should have a final answer in the next week or two, and then pictures to follow. in the mean time visit plantableseedpaper.com for updated pictures and a completly new porridge papers web site to follow in the next few months!

so here at porridge papers a group of us have committed to bicycling to work every day this week in honor of earth day. it was a challenge that lincolnearthday.org put out there for organizations, business and individuals.  what are you going to do? just remember that small changes can result in big results!

back in october we got an order to produce 2,163,000 cards for a promotion for kraft foods. it was embedded with lettuce seeds and then attached to the inside page of a magazine. what was i thinking, how could i get it done, what would it take? looking back to an october post…..

“2,851,200 square inches upholstery foam + 1,232,000 square inches cardboard + 1,436,400 square inches pellon +
155,232 square inches felt + 92,400 square inches plywood + 200 pounds lettuce seed + 18,750 pounds recycled fiber +
countless screws, nails, bottles of glue, and trips to the hardware store = 2,000,000 plantable pieces
quite possibly the largest order in plantable paper history…booyaw acheived.”

that just about sums it up. im sure the numbers are a bit different but it was a lot of work! i was so greatful to have an amazing team of papermakers and support crew! without them it would not have happened. not only did we get it done but we did it on time! the final count was 2,237,745 pieces which equals 78,418 sheets of 19″x25″ lettuce paper.

thank you to everyone!!

As the exhilarant chords of “The Final Countdown” echo through the mill, I couldn’t help but reflect on the last several months here.

Sadly, today will be the last day for Katherine, one of our papermakers who has been on since the beginning of the Kraft adventure. She is just the first of a few that will be leaving us in the next several weeks. And today, the final day of the papermaking for the largest order in Porridge Papers history, there are mixed feelings of celebration and sadness as we start to say our goodbyes.

Thank goodness we have powerballads and 80’s pop hits to get us through.

Though I can’t promise I won’t cry later.