card makers

29 Feb 2008

A beautiful photograph by Kate Astbury of Sreepur card makers.

children of the stone breakers

19 Feb 2008

We've been working with GPI in Nepal for a long time. They develop some of our beautiful handmade cards from recycled 'lokta' paper. They are a great project providing local employment and community support in a country that has had such a difficult time over recent years. Paper Dove set up a scheme 10 years ago to provide scholarships for schoolgirls in the local community. We were inspired by 'Milan' who runs GPI and wanted to do something permanent for their community. Girls in Nepal are often overlooked for education and suffer from poor literacy rates and limited opportunities. We liked that by picking the poorest girls in the village that due to their caste system, many of the villagers would then have to send their girls to school too! Here's a picture of a new project we are getting involved in. This is to build a school for the children of the local stonebreakers. These people work on the roadside breaking stones for a poor living. Currently what education is provided for their children is based in a rented 2 room house, too cramped for the children to sit and study comfortably. Working with GPI we are going to get underway with building a new school for them, providing proper conditions for them to study. Maybe they will grow up not having to break stones. Which would be good. Here's a picture of the kids in their current building. We'll let you know how we get on.

just paper

23 Jan 2008

Here's an exhibit from an art competition at the Hirshorn Museum in Washington DC. The only rule is that all entries must be made from just one piece of paper. There are some great designs but this one with butterflies is our favourite.

happy's dance

19 Nov 2007

Some of the children at the Sreepur Village orphanage in Bangladesh performed an impromtptu song and dance for us when we visited in October. The girl with the beautiful smile is called 'Happy'. Click here to view the film »

what we do

26 Oct 2007

"Let the beauty we love be what we do"

I stole this from Seane Corn's website. It's by Rumi, a 13th Century Sufi poet. But it's beautiful enough to be shared.

happy place

09 Oct 2007

We've just been to Bangladesh, to make a film, and work with some of the groups that make cards for us. Here are some of the children at an inspirational place north of Dhaka that cares for nearly 600 orphaned or abandoned children. Some of them stay at the project when their mothers are unable to care for them, or cannot support their children. But the women are encouraged to come into the project to spend time with their children and also helped with work to generate income from making handmade cards. The people are beautiful and the children even more so. It's a happy place.

prettiest thing you've ever seen

17 Sep 2007

We'd had enough of Radio 1 in the office. We needed a change. So we bought a small and ever so cute little ipod. Prettiest thing you've ever seen. And we set about a playlist. Here's what's playing this week in the Paper Dove office:

Amy Winehouse - thank you Helen
Keane - Louise's choice
The Kooks
Moby
Bedouin Soundclash
The Klaxons - so now they're famous
Kate Rusby to dream to
and some Massive Attack to chill

It's a start, and much cuter than the radio. And we're going to save up to download a Wham track for when we're having a bad day.

over the line

11 Sep 2007

Well it was my first 'charity run', so I did the training, and got all the right gear and even put a special playlist on my ipod to run to. I was well prepared, bananas and all. And I clocked up an hour exactly for my 10k run on Sunday, yey! What I wasn't prepared for was how moving it all was. Over 800 runners, some obviously with their own battles with cancer, others who were running to remember family and friends and an increadibly positive feeling as over 800 runners got underway. Well done to my shiney shoes for getting me over the line, and thank you to Cancer Research for such an experience. Me and my shoes will be back next year.

isn't it true what small can do

31 Aug 2007

I'm developing our 'vision'. Not a 'vision statement', as such (be the 'best of the best'), but kind of a dream of how we might exist in the world in a positive way. It involves serving our customers and suppliers well - working in a more harmonious way with them, to serve them better and become better ourselves. But I've been thinking big - a big dream. That we should look to work towards, through awareness and example, moving our entire industry to making cards in a responsible way. To be an example of a positive alternative to the environmental and social damage that natural resource dependant industries like ours can cause (chopping down ancient forest homes of people, tribes, near extinct plants and wildlife amongst other not so good things). And then this could then affect the attitudes of other business' as well to create bigger change. A world change maybe. And that we should dream about the human benefits of what our business can do. That we can create markets that sustain 10,000's of people in poorer countries, making a better living for themselves through making handmade and crafted cards.

It seems like a big dream. But then I thought of what we've done already. The first FSC materials in our market going on sale this year through the sale of millions of our charity cards. And companies like M&S trading fair trade handmade greetings cards with producers we began work with many years ago, providing income for 1000's of artisans in Bangladesh. Which is pretty good for a small company like ours. So maybe it's not such a big dream, and makes me think too - 'isn't it true what small can do'.

shiney new shoes

30 Jul 2007

Well I've not done this kind of thing before, but I've been quite inspired by the work of one of our charities recently, and have been overcome with an urge to give some support. So I'm doing a charity run in September. Not far. Only 10k. Doesn't sound far. Especially if you have the right gear that'll do most of the work for you. So I've got shiney new shoes, that'll do the running bit. I'll kind of follow on. However, just in case it's futher than it sounds I'll probably get the vest and shorts too. I'll let you know how they get on.

why uk

16 Jul 2007

Some reasons why we make our cards here in the UK.
1. It's a cool place, full of very creative people.
2. Our designers are simply the best.
3. We print in Yorkshire, full of good folk, called names like John and Ian. They are very good at what they do, take their time to do it well and talk to us a lot. Actually they talk to us lots of times a day and generally in English, except Ian, 'cause he's Scottish.
4. So we can get things done well and fast, and if things go wrong we can put them right well and fast too.
5. We know everyone gets properly paid, nothing spews out nasty stuff that we'd rather not know about, and we know nothing is chopped down that shouldn't be. So we can get some sleep.
6. Nothing nasty arrives in the container. It happens and I'll tell you about it one day.
7. We know where our trees come from and that they only have a short trip to the mill, having had a happy forest life full of insects, plants and wildlife and things that forests like.

You see we can't see the point of doing it any other way. Not to do it right. My Mandarin is rubbish anyway, and it's taken me 4 years to understand Ian.

stepping out

13 Jun 2007

Sometimes you need to step out of things a bit to get some inspiration. So we went to Paris to step out a bit. We saw lots of things and walked lots, stayed in a lovely hotel and as you can see, blended in very well with the locals. Paris was great, from huge posters of poppy fields lining the metro station walls, to glass pyramids at the Louvre to the beauty of the church and the singing at St Germaine. We got high, on too much coffee and not nearly enough Paris.

art in the north

21 May 2007

It's an arty place the north. Here's one of the fabulous pieces from the amazing art at Belsay Hall Northumberland, a truly inspirational place to visit. It's part of an exhibition called 'Picture House' - www.picturehousebelsay.co.uk

01 May 2007

I found this attached to a gift from the Body Shop. I just thought it was fab.

growing things

26 Apr 2007

Trying to work through our business strategy. It's always been about working in the best way we can for our customers, but also with respect the talents of our staff, suppliers and the world we work in, be that trees or fair trade. Kind of respecting the bits as well as the whole as it all links together in the end. So I started to think about where we go from here. So rather than starting by setting targets and working out how we can get there, I started thinking about growing things. We've planted lots of good things in this last 10 years, good relationships with those who buy our cards, good suppliers, good people who work at this and a lot of know how. So I thought rather than 'objectives' and 'plans' we should just cultivate. If you care for things they just grow, right. I went to visit our trees and as you can see they seem to think that's fine too.

1000 trees

05 Feb 2007

We wondered what to do for our birthday. We're ten this month and have learned how to be good, look after ourselves, work hard, have some fun and express our individuality a little. We thought we'd plant some trees. 1000 of them in a place near us called Sand Martin Wood. This is not carbon offsetting, or anything like that. We just like trees, use trees, try to do okay by them and like the idea that they'll be there a long time, breathing away for us. Even our great grandchildren will be able to climb them. When they're 10, and if they're good.

japanese tea ceremony

08 Jan 2007

I sat through one recently. It seemed that each part was about paying respect and thinking about who and where things come from. Time was spent to carefully brush the bowl, to think about the person who made the bowl and the work that went into making the bowl a beautiful thing for you. I thought that this was how we should start to think. Wouldn't it be better if we thought more like this. Makes you thirsty though.