and here’s a few mugshots of the designers wearing their handmade coaster jewelry (we’re missing one designer, sorry)

We also had a semi-last-minute opportunity to participate in a fabulous travelling art project called Marginalia. To quote the Marginalia website:

THE SHORT STORY:

This spring, we (Jimmy Riordan, an artist and Leslie Rosa-Stumpf, a curator) are taking an exhibition we organized last fall, which included works by over 50 international artists, on a road trip from Anchorage to New York City. The goal of this trip is to meet with all of the participating artists based within the United States, collaborate with various art spaces across the country on exhibition-related projects and mini-shows that draw tighter connections between the various artistic practices, host art dinners, document the trip, make prints, send post cards and construct a catalog of the Marginalia exhibition en route.

To learn more about the project visit the website here, or check out the blog. Our friend, Heidi, e-mailed us with details on the project and asked if we would be kind enough to host for the project’s book-binding portion. I think it’s safe to say that fun was had by all, and thanks to Leslie and Jimmy for giving Porridge Papers the chance to Participate! We had a blast! Here are some shots taken during the event.

The very next day we had to get prepped for our party! This included sprucing up the place, picking up the kegs, and stringing coasters from the ceiling, and preparing the snacks. We had a fantastic turnout and I really think that Christopher had a blast for his birthday. Since it’s not enough to have great people and great beer to celebrate a great boss’ birthday, the kids at Porridge and I went in on a couple of extra surprises for Christopher. One of which was an incredible Guinness Stout cake with Bailey’s buttercream icing that Kristin over at The Cup was kind enough to contribute. Let me tell you folks, this cake was TO. DIE. FOR.  And the look on Christopher’s face when she walked in the door with it was just as satisfying. here’s more photos!

The other surprise was the set of beer koozies that we had Jason over at Screen Ink silkscreen with the Porridge Papers logo. Christopher has wanted Porridge Koozies for quite a while now and it shocked me that he didn’t think to have them done until a day or two before the beer party (little did he know… mwahahahaaaa)! It would have been far too easy to just give him the koozies. Instead, we started placing them randomly through the papermill during the party to see if he’d notice. We had at least a dozen of them out before he finally caught on. Needless to say, it was all we could do to keep from giggling hysterically every time he nearly touched one reaching for something else entirely. Again, the look on his face: priceless. And now we all have Koozies! I took the liberty of creating a collage with pictures of all of the hidden koozies as well as the look on Christopher’s face when he finally saw them. sheesh.

Again, great fun was had by all! Thanks to everyone that helped us with our good excuse to drink tasty beer on a workday! Here are a few more shots of the party’s goings ons.

In other exciting news, we have had the opportunity to collaborate with Jason of Screen Ink and Eric of Doe Eyed Designs to create some fantastic plantable pieces for the Crossroads Guitar Festival. Each piece featured plantable paper and musically inspired designs. Jason did a fantastic abstract lily with guitar head stamen, and Eric’s card had punch out plantable guitar picks! Now you can even strum with plantable paper!

One of my favorite things about making our paper is seeing what great minds come up with to put on it. Any time I’m looking for letterpress inspiration, I check out what the folks over at Studio on Fire are up to. They really set the bar with their creativity and quality of printing. I was delighted to hear that they wanted our plantable paper to use for one of their recent jobs for a landscaping company. Check out their blog, Beast Pieces, to see their fantastic work. Here is a direct link to the plantable postcard done on Porridge Paper!

gorgeous!And last, but not least, we had a casualty in the shop last week when our beloved Francesca bit the dust (again). Its always so traumatic when a letterpress breaks, or even when part of it does. Thankfully, though, Christopher and Blayne are MacGyver team of the letterpress world. So with a little work, Dr. Frankenstein style, we have an operational press again! But boy oh boy did they get their hands dirty in the process! Check it out!

Gross!

I think that about sums it up! We also got 2 new pieces of equipment but they’re worthy of their own blog post (besides, I need photos for you!)

Keep it Real, folks.

First of all, be sure to check out our Ode to the Coaster event. We’re having our Facebook Fans vote for 6 of their favorite coaster designs to be part of a limited edition run and to debut at our Ode to the Coaster party in a couple of weeks! To cast your vote on the coaster designs just visit this gallery and post your vote in the comments section of our choices. Voting will end on May 31st and winners will be featured at our Party on Thirsty Thursday, June 10th!

Some of you may know that Christopher justreturned from walking the National Stationery Show last week. He spent 3 days in New York City shopping for new and exciting cards, notebooks, journals, and other awesome paperthings for our retail shops. He placed over a dozen orders for more than 260 new items for your paperloving pleasure! I can’t wait til these new goodies start coming in, the catalogs and samples that he brought back looked very promising! Stop in though out the next couple of weeks to be the first to check out the new wares! And as you can see by Lady Liberty, here, Christopher also brought back some classic NYC souvenirs for us!

Awesome!

If you were paying attention, you will have noticed that in the previous paragraph, I said that Christopher was buying paper goods for our shops, meaning MORE THAN ONE!

On his way home from picking up our new Hollander Beater, Christopher decided to take a look at/pursue/lease a small retail space in the lovely little town of Brownville, Nebraska. I, personally, have never been to Brownville, but It’s my understanding that the tiny town is a growing art and literature community with only a few hundred regular residents and weekend festivals that draw hundreds of people all summer long. We signed the lease and the Porridge Papers crew will be closing up shop at our Lincoln location this Friday to go to pretty up the new space! I’ll make sure to post some photos as soon as I have some! It sounds like the residents are happy to have our humble papermill as part of the community, and we are delighted to participate!

Some of you remember one of our January posts about Kaelan Smith and Flatmancrooked. Kaelan is doing a zero emissions bike tour to promote his novel, “We’re Getting On”, the cover of which features a letterpressed plantable cover made by you-know-who. The seeds in the book cover are Sweet Birch seeds, and we’re excited to see them spout! Tree seeds generally take much longer to germinate than most of our usual wildflower, herb, and veggie seed mixes so you can imagine our excitement when we saw these sprouts come out of our test germination! Hooray! To follow Kaelan’s bike/book tour, or to find out more about the project, visit www.zeroemissionbook.com.

OK! Back to work I go! Lots of paper still to be made today, we’re crankin’ out the sheets like there’s no tomorrow, just look at this pile of paper which was just part ofyesterday’s shipment to a single customer! wowza!

Oh the adorable smiling faces of future papermakers! We’re looking forward to another visit from the preschool later this week! I’ll post more photos once we have them!

In other news, we’re still running our Black7 Business Card Special. Get 250 letterpressed business cards for only $60 (plus shipping) it’s really a fantastic deal! Click here for details, or e-mail us with questions!

And if THAT’S not fun enough, we’re still taking submissions for our Ode to the Coaster design contest! Details can be found here. You can also see our website for the template to base your design on! It’s available in both an Illustrator and an PDF format. So get crackin’!! What could be more appropriate for your summer barbecues than letterpressed coasters with your original art on them?! nothing.

Not hip on the coasters? How about coffee bags? Jon over at Cultiva Coffee is still taking submissions for his Paper or Plastic project which will feature original artwork by various artists letterpress printed in limited runs for his coffee packaging! E-mail Christopher or Jon to get more info or to submit work!

Anywho! I have kindof a lot to share with you today, there’s SO MUCH going on!

For starters, we’re still running the Black7 Business Card Special! All April long, you can get 250 letterpress business cards (or tags) for only $60!!! Its a fantastic opportunity for small businesses, artists, artisans, or just for a personal calling card. E-mail Christopher here to submit artwork or ask any questions you might have.

And for those of you itching for custom letterpressed stationery, but not necessarily needing business cards… the ultimate DIY opportunity is nearly upon us! Our tabletop presses have been getting spruced up and ready to roll! What does that mean for you??? Tons of things! Workshops! Classes! Independent press rental! Our lovely intern, Rachel has been putting a lot of TLC into our little guys to prepare them for good quality time with YOU! They’ll be painted and pretty by the end of this week.

In the coming months we’ll be offering different Letterpress classes, workshops, and the ability for you to come in and have a free-form day of play with a press! Think of the possibilities! Invitations, business cards, notebook covers, holiday cards, small prints- the sky’s the limit! Stay tuned for details!

Which brings me to our next topic… Letterpressed coffee bags for Cultiva Coffee Roasting Co! We’ve worked with Jon on some handmade labels and other items before, but this is bigger and better than ever before! He’s commissioning unique art to be letterpress printed on his coffee bags to celebrate his environmental switch from plastic to paper packaging! If you’d like to submit your original artwork for this project, contact Christopher or Jon directly.  Artwork should be limited to 2 colors and an approximate 3×5 inch area. For more information you can read more  on the Cultiva website, find Cultiva on Facebook, or contact the folks at Porridge Papers via Facebook or e-mail! We’re so excited to be part of another fantastic collaborative project!

Speaking of collaboration: we’re currently working on the kinks to another Porridge Papers collaborative effort : Ode to the Coaster. We’ll be posting details later on this week so I won’t say too much right away, but you can expect- original letterpress coasters, free beer, and free stuff. If you’re not excited, well, there may not be hope for you (I did say “free beer“, after all).

That about wraps it up! Thanks for reading! And thanks for making Porridge Papers more and more awesome every day!

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While you’re here, be sure and take a peek at the Paper Peep Show! This is an idea we’ve had for quite a while now and we finally have found the right cards to make it happen! The Paper Peep Show is a hidden section of the store dedicated to the more “adult-humored” greeting cards and stationery available. We know that so many of our fans and shoppers have such great senses of humor, we can’t wait to see what you think of some of the new goodies! Stop in today for a great April Fools’ card! And, as always, if you have a suggestion or idea that you would like to see added to the mix, just let us know!

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Also beginning today, and for the entire month of April, we’ve got a  *SWEET DEAL* on all custom business cards! Introducing the:

250$60 1/0 110# Black7 Special!!!

I know that’s a mouthful. Lemme ’splain:

250 Business Cards for $60!

One sided printing in PMS Black 7 ink!

All month long, we’ll be running this great price on custom business cards! Submit your designs to Christopher or keep an eye out on Monday for the submission form. All cards will be printed on our 100% cotton commercially made letterpress paper in 110# weight. That’s right, folks! I know SO MANY of you have been asking lately about letterpressed business cards, and NOW IS THE TIME! We’ll be running cards around the 15th and again at the end of the month, which means early submissions will be printed first and folks that are really working on their designs will get their cards the first week of May. Give us a call 402.742.5415 with any questions! This offer is for EVERYONE- though you should note that if your cards must be shipped, there will be shipping fees in addition to the sale price.

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We have a TON of paper, cards, envelopes, notebooks, and more that have been around for WAY too long. Our sale started this past Saturday, and it went over so well, we’ve decided to extend it through this Saturday! Stop in and take advantage of the savings!

Like I had mentioned, this fantastic sale is happening to make room for some new cards, prints, and amazing imported papers that we’ve recently ordered. The new stock is already starting to arrive and we’re clearing space to give them the attention they deserve! Orders will be coming in this week from 5+ companies that offer cards that are everything from classy to crass! In order to accommodate some of the more adult themed cards, we’ll be constructing a “Paper Peep Show” area in the shop to keep little eyes innocent. Adventurous adults are encouraged to take a peek! These are sure to make you chuckle!

Here’s a sneak peek at the funthings from Oddball Press!

Some of your more devout Porridgians probably heard about the leather scented paper that was being made last week from our posts on our Facebook page. Here are a couple of shots of the notebooks being made with faux leather paper covers!

The creative folks over at Bozell in Omaha got their clients to go all out with a custom scented handmade paper that was letterpressed and saddle stitched to make these great notebooks for their 2010 Advisors’ Summit! Usually scented paper tends to be quite a nasty experience for the poor papermakers. The leather scent, though wasn’t as strong as some of the other smells we’ve come across, thank goodness. All in all, I would say the end result is pretty awesome! Only a few hundred more to make!

Keep your eyes peeled for more awesome custom paper that’s going to be made later this week. There may be *glitter* and crazy bright colors! Custom papers are always the funnest part of papermaking. Sometimes the colors can be tricky to get just right but the end result is always worth the effort!

It seems that lately so many things are green around here. It’s a good thing we’ve got this great holiday to put it all to good use! Some of you may not know, but we were hoping to reach 500 fans by today on our Facebook page, and not only did we do it, we did it with over a week to spare! As of today we have 640 fans!! So to celebrate we are doing {yet another} awesome little paper giveaway! We made these great coasters with real clover seeds in them! Now, this is awesome for several reasons:

1. Who doesn’t need a coaster for their green beer on such a holiday?

2. Clovers are LUCKY. And who doesn’t need a little extra luck?

3. Clovers are also edible. So when you plant this baby, you have a potential salad growing! For a little tidbit on tasty and healthy microgreens check out this article!

4. If you happen to be the gardening/farming type, planting clover in your soil has a variety of benefits! Click here for details!

Hooray! St. Patrick’s day is so much fun! Hopefully nobody out there is getting pinched today. I was still in my pajamas this morning and my 8 year-old pinched me before I got dressed! I quickly put on a green shirt and some eyeshadow (and pinched him back as he was running around in his white underwear). If you’re not really into celebrating this holiday for some reason, check out www.st-patricks-day.com for all kinds of Irish fun to inspire you to go green and spread the luck!

And check out the progress on our test germination! I’m impressed! These guys are practically ready to eat! Okay, maybe they need a little bit more time, but still!

We had our Monday Morning Meeting today, as we do every week. Lately we’ve been brainstorming and playing with words and phrases for a new project that will hopefully launch this summer. I can’t say much but we’re toying with ideas of sidecards and tandem bicycles. Which leads us to ask you, our fans, our readers; Which do you prefer? Sidecars? Tandems? Why? What kind of imagery/ideas does each conjure? Tell us! We’re curious and excited!

We’re also going to be adding a few new items to our Facebook Store and our Etsy page, one of which is this super-rad little notebook with fantastic orange pages! Use it for shopping lists, doodles, a garden journal, cigar journal, or any other place to keep track of one’s awesomeness.What do you use little notebooks for?

Needless to say, we really like interacting with our followers. We like knowing what makes you tick, what makes you laugh, and what you like seeing and doing. In the spirit of fan-interaction, we’re going to start doing little trivia-type giveaways. We’ll ask a question via our Facebook page or our Twitter page, and we’ll have a sweet little paper prize for the winner! These exciting little events will start after our 500Fan givaway! Last week we gained over 500 fans on our Facebook page, and to reward them we’re sending out a little green something. Can’t wait to see what you guys think!

It’s Monday again. But at least that means we’re one Monday closer to springtime, right? Right. Actually this Monday is Monday Funday here at Porridge Papers. We’ve taken a break from our regular duties and are using today to explore some new projects and do some brainstorming. We’re also making room for all of the new equipment that is expected to arrive today.

I won’t say too much about our new toys, but I will say that they’re key players in a HUGE project underway here. Hopefully we’ll be able to unveil this new and exciting Porridge Project this summer. For now, though, I’ll just keep you satiated with pictures of  our project and fun news and discoveries along the way. Everyone here is very excited to get the ball rolling on this one, and it promises to be very exciting indeed!

The new equipment will also enable us to add new and better items to our Facebook and Etsy stores, so keep your eyes peeled for new paper goodies!

Speaking of new goodies, check out the progress on the test germination of our TOP SECRET seed mix for our super fun TOP SECRET project, set to unveil March 20th!

Only 5 days and they’re just exploding! That’s a lot of sprouts! YUM YUM! (that was a hint BTW)

We’ve also got some wildflowers itching to get some sun:

If seeing new plants sprout doesn’t make you itch for springtime, nothing will.

We’ve recently been blogged about by Andrea over at Lincoln Green Scene. She wrote up the loveliest little post about our Love on the Run. Thanks, Andrea! Fantastic article!

I know I had mentioned several times why I love our Love on the Run event, but each year there are one or two stories that people share that really are above and beyond what we could have expected. Last week we got a letter from Dave, who came in to type a note to his wife. He was kind enough to send us a letter sharing their thoughts:

“Dear Porridge Papers

Thank you for delivering my love note to my wife this Valentine’s Day. I know the “Love on the Run” service was complimentary, but I saw it as a gift. It should have been obvious to anyone who entered your store that great effort and care were given to planning and implimenting the set up of the old typewriters, packaging of the miniature bottles and mapping of the delivery routes. The snow falling on February 14th probably didn’t seem exceptionally unpleasant to your couriers, but mywife, Marianne, and I recently moved to Lincoln from Florida and don’t particularly enjoy going out in the cold; your commitment to deliver the notes in spite of the poor weather was appreciated. The fact that your couriers were giving up time that could have been spend with Valentines of their own did not go unnoticed, either.

Undoubtedly, the dedications made on your store front will be removed soon, but at the time I’m writing this letter, Marianne is still getting a smile from slowing down while driving on South Street to see her name drawn inside a heart with yellow marker on your window. Thanks again, and here’s hoping that the fortune you have spread will be returned to you.

Yours Truly,

Dave”

Honestly, if that doesn’t make us want to keep doing this, nothing will. Thank you, Dave, for sending such a touching and encouraging letter. It really means a lot to us to know that we are doing something that people truly appreciate.  Creating an event like Love on the Run was an attempt to inspire and encourage a small, thoughtful, token of appreciation from one person to another. To quote ourselves “we think handmade is better because there’s no real way to go digital with it (at least not as far as stationary goes). The simple fact that someone enjoys and is able to make something by hand every day for a living means that someone else (probably someone a lot like you) enjoys it enough to add their bit to it and share it with someone that they care about. That’s a big deal!”

We also got a short Thank You note from Joanna, who was volunteering her time and job shadowing with us during the Love on the Run event. She was SO fun to have around and a tremendous help! Thanks Joanna! We’re all glad you had fun and we hope you get to come back.

Each of us has had a lingering buzz from the great energy brought in over Valentine’s Day weekend. We’re all trying hard to keep the good vibes flowing, so we’ve been brainstorming on other little things to do for our fans and followers, and paper lovers in general. For starters, we’re having a small giveaway for our Facebook fans. If we can reach 500 fans by Saint Patrick’s Day (Wednesday, March 17th), we’re going to send out some goodies!

*Sales* are also a good way to share happy vibes so if you’re in the neighborhood, swing by and pick up a notebook or two. Today thru this Saturday, all notebooks are 20% off!!! Come and get them!

AND

We have the makings of a Top Secret plantable paper project in the works! The seeds arrived today here is a sneek peak:

This project promises to be superfantastic, and even good for you! Our ETA for the new goodies is March 20th- the first day of Spring! Keep your eyes on our Etsy site and the Facebook shop tab for a growing selection of new and fun paper yummies.

If you’re the curious type, check out our Formspring page! You can even ask us anything you want from right here on the blog page. Just type your question in the box on the right and submit! Now you can ask us all of those burning questions that have been waking you in the middle of the night. Hooray!