October has been a crazy roller coaster of amazing highs and a few quirky hiccups.
One of the best highlights of the of a month was being named Best Paper Shop 2007 in the Best of Phoenix by the Phoenix New Times. This is the third year in a row we have received that designation and it thrills us beyond belief because we work really hard to bring you the best selection of papers, innovative products, tremendously talented instructors and way cool exhibitions. Thank you to the New Times and all of you who keep us inspired and on our toes!We did have to note a teensy weensy exception to the wonderful write up--where they were describing the studio--"Shelves and racks brim with Japanese paper...decorative papers sporting patterns from country checks to preening cats." Country checks and preening cats?
We had to scratch our heads on that line. We do have papers with images in checked patterns--cats in costumes, pigs on ladders, circus poodles and women hitting each other with whisk brooms but there is nary a country check or a preening cat found on any of our papers that we can think of. (we had pictures of our real cats on our blog...maybe that was it)
The first weekend of October was a blast with Teesha and Tracy Moore. They are such talented artists and terrific people as well. It is always a rollicking good time when they are here. Two journal creating days and an artist reception kicked off our 3rd Visual Journal Show--Under the Covers III. The show will come down at the end of the week so trot over if you haven't had a chance to see it yet. You can also view it online of course!
In the middle of the visual journaling project we worked like major crazy bees to finish a huge project in 12 days--from concept to execution--including ordering, designing, letterpressing and assembling till the cows came home. Several really late nights and tons of adhesive!
Last weekend we had Cecile Webster here from Chicago teaching papermaking from the garden and grocery for two days. Everyone up to their elbows in pulp and fabulous paper from rosemary, milkweed, corn, banana leaves, oats, papyrus and more. Fun was had by all and no one ate the paper!Well life at The Paper Studio is by no means perfect and we seemed to have lots of annoying hiccups to deal with this month--mainly those pesky annoyances that comes with owning a building & business. It started with our security system going off several times a day for 3 weeks for no reason and no one being able to fix it! After 3 phone service people and 6 security system people being at our building for hours at a time it is finally fixed. I could have pulled my hair out! That was only one of the issues we had to contend with--glitchy things with the AC, our sign, lights and more. Egads. We are such "get it fixed NOW" fanatics--being at the mercy of repair folks has been a bit wearing on our nerves. Thankfully we can see the light at the end of the tunnel!
But on a really fun note, we got some way cool orders from some really interesting companies that we can't really reveal but talk about 6 degrees of separation--down to one degree from major, major icons. Whoo hoo! (And be on the lookout for The Paper Studio's name in some national publications--we'll post them as soon as they become official. )
This weekend, we wrapped up the month with a really fun Polaroid Transfer class. Talk about renegade students. They made amazing transfer and emulsion lift images and tons of them! Everyone worked until the very last minute. Such fun especially since most of them didn't have any experience with this medium! Don't you just love LuAnne's cow image?
Well, that pretty much wraps up October! Looking sooooooooo forward to November!
