another motherload.

i am sorry, rest of the world, but i have to declare that the current forerunner for envelope pattern greatness to be the united kingdom. this is all in my own humble aesthetic opinion. i would also put autralia/new zealand in a close second (i know it's uncouth the bundle australia and new zealand together but neither country seems to have much envelope distinction - the same goes for canada and the united states and i am supposed to care passionately about things like that). who knows, though? i know i have many more packages to go through including one from germany and one from lithuania. i wonder if any challengers will emerge.

but for now, i am sorting through the above contribution from sophie in london. each envelope she sent was different with most of them being new to my collection. i know the bricks are new for sure and i will have to go through the dots and honeycombs to see what's what. regardless, i am going to allow myself to make a few buttons tonight so that these new patterns can make it into my city of craft installation.

did i mention that you should come to that?

a new leaf.

i never get political with my buttons but when my friend albert requested that i make him a single pin of this design (in tory blue, at his suggestion, which i took from the cbc website), i decided it was time to go public. this country is really bizarre right now and i want to maintain some rights as a worker, a woman and an artist. so stephen harper's not the evil elf for me.

if you feel differently, i am not really up for a fight as i am usually the type who votes with my vote. but should you feel so moved, i suggest you just make your own buttons.

these are available for purchase as cheap as i could make them at both the blue house and my etsy shop.

tally ho.

if my calculations are correct (and they may not be) i have personally made 103,191 buttons since i began recording on may 26, 2005.

dutch wife.

above is my first (and only, thus far) contribution from the netherlands. it comes from designer andre brocatus who also included personal notes attached to each envelope. falling right into design stereotype, these dutch envelopes embody the type of clean design that i tend to associate with northern europe. they have also presented me with a new problem - how do i deal with solid colours for my project? this is something i am going to have to turn over in my head because although they do not house the patterns i had originally expected to find, they do represent a unique approach to design and security. that top one, though, is aces. i really like the fact that the pattern is so big, too, so that buttons will only present a small part of it. some will be bleak, some will be busy.

i should also mention that these envelope updates are not happening in real time anymore. i have been so busy with city of craft and last week's trip to montreal that i have a contribution backlog of at least twenty packages. on weekdays i am still receiving more envelopes than i can properly go through in a day, so this backlog will only grow for a while. i thank all contributors for their patience in waiting for their blog attention and rewards. trust me, if i could i would just fall into an envelope coma and do nothing else. but currently it might be more important to make next weekend's city of craft the best craft show ever.

did i mention you should go to that?

ps: the multipurpose definitions of dutch wife.

paper paper everywhere and not a drop to drink.

photo my serena mccarroll

okay, all. i think it's official. i have had to cut off my call for envelopes due to overwhelming response (which has blown me away, by the way). but fear not! there will be a phase two to my envelope collecting (probably closer to the new year) in which i will scan all the patterns i have and put them online so potential contributors can compare their finds to my collection. i was just starting to feel guilty about all the postage and fuel being used to send me more materials than i can actually use.

speaking of phase two, if any plucky photographer or scanner wizard out there wants to voluteer to help with the documentation, i am all ears. having another body working on this might help expedite the process. you would have to be toronto-based, though.

photo by dusty parr

all that said, if your need for paper is insatiable and i am now letting you down, the paper place (here in toronto) is having an astounding contest/giveaway this month. they are basically giving away a billion dollars worth of chiogami paper (well, not quite a billion, but close). this also gives me an excuse to rave about their new website. it's a real time burgler on which one could spend hours just staring at patterns and thinking of projects. really, the chiogami gallery has stolen my youth. the bricks and mortar side of the business (on queen street across from trinity bellwoods) also carries my buttons. just sayin'.

eye spied.

guess who's been featured in the eye weekly holiday gift guide? me! with these affirmations buttons of my own invention.

thank you eye guys for splattering indie throughout your gift guide. you guys are cool.

if you are looking for these puppies, you can try good catch and the paper place locally or check your local store to see if they stock them. they are also online at the blue house and my etsy shop.

brief round-ups from the colour sprectrum.

in spite of all the other activity am i focusing on (city of craft, getting things out to stores and holiday shoppers), i had to go through a bunch of envelopes today just so i could feel that i wasn't sinking in a sea of old paper.

up there are some contributions from erin in california. she sent me some new colours (the teal) and one of my favorites with a slightly different print quality. eventually, i will have to decide what counts as a different pattern but for now i am just excited to see old favorites return changed. below is a big collection from katy. on top of sending me a bunch of foreign envelopes (some of which looked like they could have been old), katy is also a calligrapher and so sent the loot in a beautifully decorated envelope. i would like to share the whole label but i am just old enough a person now to have concerns about my privacy.





after sorting through what must be a good 200 patterns by now, i was starting to think that i wouldn't be surprised by anything anymore. i mean, i still find new patterns and new colours, but not as much wild variation. then i get this bombshell in a package from jessica in nebraska, an envelope from the omaha public power district, no less (what's up with power companies having the craziest envelopes?):



this whole design is a truly new and unexpected discovery. i even went on their website to see if the artwork might be related to some current campaign or other strange branding, but found nothing relating to this pattern. so i guess it's just inside that envelope to do its job and obfuscate electric bills from prying eyes. jessica's package also included these new patterns but after the shock the power company gave me, their brilliance was needlessly dulled. call me an adrenaline junkie.