PapeLove BlogHop - inspiration from my studio!

In my quest for paper inspiration for the PaperLove project and after scouring Pinterest for a couple of days I decided to spend some time in my studio and go through the wealth of 'papery' things that I hoard there. First of all I looked in the most obvious places like my set of drawers already organised to contain scraps of paper of every different type and colour imaginable. I chose some pieces that I particularly like, transparent tissue papers, lots of chocolate and sweet wrappers, envelopes and coloured paper bags. 

I then got out my fruit papers... you mean you don't collect fruit papers? well you better get started then. I have been saving them for years, I love the 'poor' graphics and patterns that you find on them and of course the crinkly fragile tissue paper. I also collect the graphics and illustrations found on fruit boxes, but that's yet another story and forces me to hoard bits of wood as well as paper :)

Just looking around my studio I found lots of evidence of paper experiments, paper rosettes, folded paper (I wouldn't call it real Origami) and cutouts, 60's wallpaper boarders which I keep for no particular reason, and cut and sew projects which incorporate magazine and newspaper cuttings.

I own many old books which I buy from car boots and second hand shops, often only bought for the cover design or the feel of the paper it is made from. Many foreign books are in this collection in languages that I will never understand.

I have an 'out of control' number of magazines of every different kind, literally piles of them and I have a feeling I will never throw them away. The only problem is this collection continues to grow. Some of my old magazines include numerous issues of the famous U&LC which was a large format magazine printed on newspaper. Many of the copies are now yellowed but they are fabulous just the same.

Finally I got out my sketchbooks which have many cut and paste paper patterns which I then elaborate by filling in with line work. I usually use this technique when I am designing Efuto envelopes to send off around the world to my surface pattern friends.

Basically I was amazed to find that my studio is jam packed full of paper in every size, form and condition. This proves to me my love and attraction for this humble material. I am pleased to say that whilst nosing around in my studio I came up with the idea for what will be my PaperLove project. So much for Pinterest… I had all the inspiration I needed at home in my study!
The PaperLove Blog Hop organised by Paperphilia will be going live on March 10th. Time to get down to creating some paperlove work for my blog post, see you then :)