Sunday, December 24, 2017

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

To each of you, our warmest wishes for a happy and prosperous 2018.  Thank you for your support this past year.  We look forward to sharing 2018 with you!




Monday, December 18, 2017

The History of Holiday Greeting Cards

We're getting our bits and pieces of paper together to make our annual holiday greeting card  (see below).  I'll post a photo of the finished card in a few days.  But why do we send holiday greetings and when did this tradition start?  To read more about the history of holiday greetings, visit my friend, Carol Christmas' fabulous letter writing blog, WriteALetter.org.  Carol is a retired postal service delivery worker with a love for all things mail and letter writing related.  She and I have been letter writing penpals for a few years now.  Her blog is well worth visiting!

The start of
Jen and Jeff's 2017 Holiday Greeting Card

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

REMINDER! Paper Owl Arts at MidWinter Maker's Marketplace, December 3, 2018

Just a reminder to come visit, support and share in the fun at the upcoming MidWinter Maker's Marketplace, this Sunday, December 3, 2018 at Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton campus).  Follow the signs to the historic T-6 building.  We'll be there with our handmade cards and journals, and perhaps a few surprises as well.  There will be hot coffee, tea and the always delicious donuts for sale as well.  Hope to see you there!









Monday, November 27, 2017

Supporting All Cardmakers

Jeff and I have been creating handmade greeting cards for a few years now.  I am a greeting card junkie.  I make them, buy them, and collect them.  I use them when writing to my 25+ penpals around the world.  I was sad when one of my favorite cardmakers closed her Etsy shop a couple of years as I like to help support hobby and small business cardmakers like Jeff and me.  We have an Etsy shop (www.paperowlartists.etsy.com) we'd love you to visit and, we sell at a local Maker's Marketplace a few times a year.  We also make custom orders (email us if you have a card you'd like made, paperowlartists@gmail.com).   But, I also invite you to visit (and shop) other cardmakers on Etsy and elsewhere.  Here are just a few Etsy shops I've purchased cards from, their shop names below each card photo.  If you love greeting cards, please consider supporting handmade cardmakers this holiday season :-)




PutItInWriting


JessicaSherriff


Scrappcat

JTaylorArtandVintage


BlueMonBrushStrokes


Sunday, November 26, 2017

You've Got Happy Mail! A New Paper Owl Artist's Workshop


YOU've GOT

Do you love to receive mail?  I don't mean bills and junk mail.  I mean happy mail ... personal letters, written just to you, postcards (vintage and new), handmade and dressed up Dollar Store cards, and some surprise mail as well?   If so, or even if you're curious, this workshop might just be for you.

Join me and Jeff Saturday, January 27, 2018 for an all day workshop Jaffe Center for Book Arts (Boca Raton, Florida) on how to create and send a variety of fun mail.  Register soon as there are only 12 spots available!  Click here for more information:  http://www.library.fau.edu/depts/spc/JaffeCenter/workshops/happy_mail.php

Thursday, November 23, 2017

Happy Thanksgiving from Paper Owl Artists!

Wishing you and yours a happy and grateful Thanksgiving.  Jeff and I are each grateful for our families, our health, and prosperities.  We're equally grateful to have one another in our lives.  We appreciate each of you who follow us for your individuality, the individual gifts you bring to your world and the the world and large, and of course, we appreciate your support of our endeavors.  We wish the best for each of you this holiday season.  Thank you, and Gobble on!


Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Supporting a Friend with Cancer

Looking for just the right card to send a friend with cancer?  Perhaps this one Jeff made says it all.  OOAK (one of a kind), blank inside, includes envelope.  $3.00 + $2.50 postage and handling.  Multiple cards available with variated jacket and paper designs.  Email paperowlartists@gmail.com for information.


Monday, November 20, 2017

Tutorial-10-Minute Monochromatic Paper Collage Greeting Cards

Want a simple way to warm up your creative juices?  Grab a few magazines and choose 3 or 4 colors you want to work with.  Cut a 4"x4" piece of watercolor paper or stiff cardboard on which to collage.  Each collage you make will be a monochromatic, or one color, collage. Set a timer to 10 minutes for each collage.  Find your pictures,tear or cut, arrange on your 'substrate' paper and paste.  Set your 10-minute limit for each collage you make.  Here are a few I made a couple of weeks ago.  I think if I did this exercise on a 4-1/4" x 5" blank greeting card they could make a nice abstract greeting card.  Perhaps I'll try this!  How about you?






Sunday, November 19, 2017

Saturday, November 18, 2017

Mid-Winter Maker's Marketplace

Paper Owl Artists will be at the FAU-Jaffe Center for Book Arts Mid-Winter Maker's Marketplace, Sunday, December 3, Noon to 4 pm.  We'll have a wide assortment of handmade greeting cards, journals, and paper collage.  Come visit us if you're in the area.  There will be a number of vendors, live music, hot coffee, tea, and yummy donuts for sale!






Thursday, January 19, 2017

Paper Owl Artists - 2017 Part 1 - Word(s) for the Year

2016 was not a good year for blogging.  I was busy with work and family.  Creatively, both Jeff and I were quite productive, making cards and paper collages, and participaing in local bi-monthly Maker Meets.  We did quite well with our cards and are starting to build a small following of event attendees.

2017 is looking to be a better year for blogging and productivity.  Why?  Mostly because I hope to have more time to write and be creative.  I retired from the traditional workforce in December and am now watching my infant grandson throughout 2017.  He's 4 months old right now, young enough to nap a couple of times during the day during which I get some writing done.  First though, I needed to get clear on my desires and goals for the year. 

Jeff is good at focusing, practicing new skills, and giving himself permission to be pleased with the cards and journals he creates and to put aside the ones he's not pleased with.  I'm what can be referred to as  dilettante, someone who has an interest in many things but is a master at none.  I love to write.  I also love to make handmade greeting cards and paper collages.  And, I love to penpal with people around the world.  But I have a hard time making decisions, staying focused on a goal.

I have an even more difficult time with being a perfectionist and believing that even when I am learnig something new, I should be able to do perfectly the first time out the gate.  So the word I chose as my word for 2017 is PRACTICE, the idea being to allow myself to practice at what I want to excel at.  These days it's learning to master a particular watercoloring cardmaking technique.


And, I need to let go of my need to be perfect and the anxiety, frustration, and negative self-talk that so often accompanies my failed outcomes.  I need to stay calm and remember I'm in learning and practice mode.


I remember about 15 years ago, I was cleaning out my craft area and came across a box of holiday cards.  I remtember saying to myself the cards were beautiful, all beautifully stamped, colored, and embossed with glittery snowflake embossing powder.  Imagin my surprise when I realized these were cards I had made the year prior.  I was shocked!  So what happened to that artist?  Where has she gone?  If I could create back then, then certainly I can create now.


Yes, practice will make perfect in 2017, with calm and allowance for imperfection to lead the way.  I have no excuses other than laziness and fear. 

Why do I tell you this?  Because I wonder if you've set a word for yourself for 2017.  If so, what is it?  How do you remember it?  How are you living it?  And if you don't have a word for 2017, perhaps this is something you'd like to create.  I had many I could choose from - practice, connect, imperfection, acceptance, to name a few.  I'll probably talk about these in future blog postings because they all connect in the bigger picture.  For now though, Practice is a good place for me to start.





Collaborative Collage - All Hands On Deck!

I paper collage, alot.  I like creating collages and  I like looking at them.  One method of collaging is "collaborative collage".   In this method of collage, two collagists or more work on one shared piece, each individual adding his/her elements to the piece when they receive it.

Recently, I did a collaborative collage with Bryan David Campbell.  It was quite alot of fun.  He started the collage, made on a small piece of wood:



and I finished it:




It was great fun.  This one went to him.  I'm starting a new one for us to do which he will finish and return to me.  Anyone up to the challenge?  If so, contact me at paperowlartists@gmail.com.