baby day
26 Oct 2009
Alongside creating beautiful designs many of our staff have been producing beautiful babies. We had a Paper Dove reunion last week with staff old and new and kids included.
by the light of the cherry moon
15 Oct 2009
Well, while the worlds going hi tech, super fast and wireless, here's our latest acquisition, a beautiful old Heidleberg letter press machine. Letterpress cards are all over America, but hardly seen in the UK. It's a delicate, slow way of printing that leaves a beautiful impression onto soft cotton paper cards. Which is why we've bought it, to print our first range of cards for the high street under the brand name 'Cherry Moon'. Our recipe for a beautiful card: Take some recycled cotton board from Cumbria, some vegetable based ink, an antique press in Yorkshire and a recycled paper envelope. Make by hand, with care, by the light of the cherry moon. Look out for Cherry Moon cards early next year, made slowly, with care for the environment and skillfully crafted here in the UK.
Flowers and Gardens
07 Jul 2009
Deva and I have been out exploring some of Northumberlands beautiful gardens. We visited Chesters Walled Garden and Wallington Hall last week to take some floral and garden photos. Here's Deva with her camera. - Liam
craft
01 Jun 2009
We've been in New York for a few days. We did try to catch a boat to get photo of the Statue of Liberty, but given the 2 hour queue and the full midday sun we gave up on that. So wandering around and looking for somewhere less hot we came across an exhibition of Native American crafts. Inside they showed beautifully crafted dresses made by the women and their approach to making them. I also found a book about spruce basket weaving by tribes of the American north west that I've been reading. These baskets are often made by groups, generations of women passing on skills, passing on their wisdom and capturing and maintaining traditions in the form of art they were making. Made from the dug up roots of spruce tress that they carefully tend, they slowly craft their baskets to last a lifetime. Products made with care and love. When we think of making things we focus on things like speed, mechanisation, cheapest sourcing (no matter where it's from), and we call this an 'added value' process. When you look at it, it is a 'value reduced' process. The approach of the native American women in both dress and basket weaving stresses the 'process' as as important as the product. It respects and sustains materials, locally farmed, becomes a basis for social cohesion, makes things slowly, educates their children and creates beautiful products that last - how we should, how we could. It's strange where inspiration comes from. I didn't get the photo, but I got another one that says as much.
paradise
15 May 2009
I'm beginning to build a 'forest garden' according to the principles of permaculture. It's a way of living with nature, not trying to control it and produces lots of 'gifts', fruit, flowers food. I read in Derek Jarman's beautiful book about his garden in Dungeness the meaning of the word 'Paradise'. It's from ancient Persian and means 'a green place'.
spring lambs
03 Apr 2009
This week Paper Dove has been covered in sunshine. Hurray! We decided to make the most of it and take some photos.
Here are a couple of lively lambs that bounce around in the sun, and generally have a fun time in a field next to us. - Liam
mascot
17 Mar 2009
Here's a picture of Caroline with our new Paper Dove mascot, Milo. He's already a star and a bit of a supermodel having done moody poses for photo's all morning.
point of balance
12 Mar 2009
I've been learning a form of dance called 'contact improvisation'. As one person leans on another then a common centre of balance is formed, based on the two. The dance then explores how both partners can move maintaining this common sense of balance. It's a very beautiful form of movement that requires constant awareness of yourself and your partner adjusting to when to lead, when to follow. At it's best there is just a sense of one movement.
I was thinking about how this is the case in so many things in our work. In terms of finding the point of balance between ourselves and our customers, our suppliers, where we both feel like were moving together, or with the changing climate. It's very fragile, and hard to maintain. I'm a beginner and I fall over a lot. But I have a sense of what it's like when things are moving in balance and how that is what we should look for. Especially now, when things are so out of balance, in such turbulent times.
the work you do, the good that you do
30 Jan 2009
What a school means.
Just a few weeks ago we took in the sights and sounds of Nepal. What an amazing place! The people are so inviting and the landscape is awe-inspiring.
One of the reasons we were out there was to visit a producer group that we work with. Get Paper Industries makes beautiful handmade cards and paper products. We’ve worked with them for quite a few years now and it was great to see how they’re getting on. We have been helping them build a school over the last year and it is amazing to find out just what a school means to the youngsters in this community.
For the children of the ‘stone breakers’, school is as much a symbol of stability and reliability in an otherwise unstable world as it is about education. GPI are helping change many children’s lives for the better. This is great example of some of the good that comes from GPI’s dedication to their community. It’s pretty inspiring to think that starting with a card, with the right mindset and dedication, you can do so much good.
GPI is a very busy place at the moment! – they’re creating some beautiful handmade bags for the Body Shop. It’s great to see the care and attention that goes into each piece they create and the huge amount of women and men benefitting from the project.
For us, this is what it is all about – Enjoying what we do, creating beautiful things, and helping something good. Liam - December 2008, Nepal.
let it snow
23 Dec 2008
We wanted some snowy Christmas photo's, so we put on our boots and went to some snow. The best we could come up with happened to be in Switzerland where they do that kind of thing well. We got some great shots of holly, robins, snowy trees and a beautiful Westie in the snow. Here's Deva in her hat.
duchess and me
23 Jul 2008
I got to meet the Duchess of Northumberland at the amazing Alnwick Gardens. She has spent the last 12 years turning it into one of the worlds most innovative garden design projects. Here's me feeling really nervous!!! But she was lovely and full of creativity and pride in the north. I was most touched when she talked about working with the disabled at the gardens and how a mother with a disabled child must feel as they end up on the sidelines watching while their brothers, sisters and friends run around. So in response, working with ex SAS experts, she's building 'safely dangerous' rope bridges for example, high up in the trees that can be accessed by wheelchair users - a mad idea - so that they get the chance to be the kids having the best time for a change! It's a great place, that thinks and does things differently.
moonwalk
17 Jun 2008
Here's Karen during her 26 mile Moonwalk last Saturday, raising money for breast cancer charities. With friends they raised over £2000 alongside 12,000 others on a joyfull, emotional night in Edinburgh.
not for sale
06 Jun 2008
I recently saw a photograph of a young Indian boy wearing a dog tag around his neck saying 'not for sale'. It made me think about the value in what we don't do rather than just the things we sell. So, some things that are not for sale at Paper Dove:
trees that don't know where they come from
devastated forests and all that rely on them
land polluted by solvents
bags that won't degrade
polluted air from unregulated mills
poorly paid workers packing cards at home
and lots of cheap stuff, because it never is.
just be
17 May 2008
I have a rabbit. Whenever I want to catch her up she runs away. It can take hours, getting all angry and frustrated. Even if I just think it she knows! But if I just sit, she comes and hangs out with me. And nuzzles my toes. I think she's educating me.
Google 'TED' 'creativity' for an amazing talk on children and education (but not rabbits) by Sir Ken Robinson.
blue sky
09 May 2008
You can play along; C,G,Am,C,F,G,F,G,Am,F,G,Am, change every second beat!
"It's a mystery to me,
We have a greed, which we have agreed.
And you think you have to want more than you need.
'Till you have it all you won't be free."
(Eddie Vedder - Society)
One of our clients just came back from China. She said that she couldn't see the blue sky in the day. I was angry that they are polluting the air, filling the lungs of the young with awful stuff. But then it's us making these choices, literally buying from where we can't see. Let's make products well, not pollute if we can, make things locally so we can feel their impact on our children, not theirs, and balance this with our needs. But maybe it's more about wanting less. And maybe less is more. And more is a blue sky, like the one we have today.
ordinary people
14 Apr 2008
Went to an inspirational conference this weekend for the supporters of Leukaemia Research Fund. Heard from some of the worlds leading experts about the real breakthroughs they are making in beating this illness. But most inspirational was the stories of real people giving so much of their time and lives to raise the funds to do this work. Ordinary people being extraordinary. Even got to hang out with the famous 'calendar girls'!
Here's a photo of David Fell, one of these inspirational people.
blossom
08 Apr 2008
Our first of the year here in the frozen north, against a beautiful clear blue sunny sky. Feels good.