When to say when

I have been saying "no" a lot lately. It is a word I struggle to say, especially as a one-woman business. I take every sale and every request not just as income but as a compliment. Someone has taken the time to find me, read about what I do and like it enough to contact me and ask me to make something special for them. They are not buying a manufactured product, but one that has my heart in it. This is huge. As Henri Matisse is credited for saying, "Creativity takes courage." I am putting myself out in front of the world to see for judgment, rejection, but hopefully acceptance.

While I feel it is a sign of success to come to a time when I have the luxury to say no, it also feels like a tiny failure, like I have let someone down. I have turned down several very large custom orders recently because taking them would have meant endless hours of extra work, the stress of an immediate deadline and time away other things that are important to me.

A charitable organization asked for 1000 rainbow seed bombs that would be given out at their fund-raising event. While it takes a long time to roll each little ball of pulp by hand, it also takes a lot of space to dry them. I figured I would need to make more than 200 every day to get the order out in time, and that was assuming they all dried quickly. But I would have to put aside other pending custom orders that had tight deadlines (as well as canceling several really fun events in my personal life), so I had to say no.

A church contacted me needing 400 white doves for an event about a week before their deadline. Add in the time it takes to ship and it would mean no sleep during a very busy time of year.

A bride had been looking for something special for her wedding and didn't find me until the very last minute, which was yesterday. I love making items for weddings, especially when the bride and groom want something different from the products I ordinarily make. (As a matter of fact, some of my best-selling products have come from ideas that customers gave me!) But to meet her deadline, I would have had to compromise my quality for an event that is too important for goofs. Another no.

So I am feeling ambivalent and relieved all at once.

This is where I belong

Breaking out the Christmas boxes today. Psyched that everything made it through a year of massive house renovations, dust, misplaced boxes, etc., especially this little snowman. I made him out of a gourd that I painted and decorated with wood-burning tools and other pieces from other gourds. I love this little guy.

Opening up my ornament boxes is always a walk down memory lane, since every ornament has a story. I have a bunch of ornaments made in India that were given to my family when I was a little girl. My father had helped an Indian family and never charged them for his services because they were new to this country and had very little money. As a thank you, they gave us ornaments that are covered in little pieces of mirrors, beads and colorful designs. They remind me of my father's generosity of spirit.

When I got my first apartment and wanted to decorate a tree but didn't have enough money to buy ornaments, my best friend and I used a hot glue gun to attach loops to anything we could find that could be hung on a tree. I still have one of those ornaments. It is a one-armed skeleton that had once been a pair of skeleton earrings. (We purchased them for next to nothing because one of the skeletons had only one arm. My friend ripped the arm off the other skeleton so that we were even and then we each took one and incorporated it into a Halloween costume.) Makes me laugh every year and think of her.

And, of course, there are many, many handmade and homemade ornaments: felted ornaments, ones made from clothespins, beads and wire, and Play-doh.

I look at my tree and see a living history of my family and my life. We have a tradition of cutting down our own Christmas tree. When we get it home, I snip a little piece of a branch off, spray it with a preservative, put it in a glass ball ornament and write the year on the outside. I buy an ornament with a name on it for every member of the family (although the family has grown so much in the last couple of years that I am behind for a few nieces and nephews). It feels good to look at the tree and be reminded of who I am, from where I have come and where I belong.

Handmade wedding

Just finished two large wedding orders of tented cards made from plantable paper. There are many steps to make an order for a wedding. First, I gather together all the paper scraps that I will need to make the order, making sure I can make a consistent color all the way through multiple batches. Then, I shred the paper scraps into small pieces so that they can be ground up with water without stressing my blender motor. Next, I make a slurry (aka a big vat of pulp), add wildflower seeds and then "pull" sheets of paper using an ancient technique invented by the Chinese and still used today by hand papermakers. It involves using a wood frame with a screen pulled tightly across (called a mold) and another frame called a deckle (which is where the term "deckle" edge comes from when referring to the feathery edge of handmade paper). For large orders, I have to make several batches of paper and repeat the process over until I have enough sheets of paper.

Once all the paper is made, I let it dry and then cut it down into the size the wedding couple needs, then trim it and fold it. There is a smooth side of every sheet (where the paper was against the screen) that makes a good surface for writing the names of guests, but you can still see all the yummy seeds. A lot of work goes into every order, and I think that handwork shows without the paper looking homemade. Very satisfying!

FaceBook

I very reluctantly started a FaceBook page for my handmade paper business a couple of weeks ago.

I am not a FaceBook person. I have only posted something to my personal FaceBook page twice in the last 6 or 8 months. For me, it is a black hole for my time. It is incredible to see what my best friend from high school is doing and how my college roommate is solving the world's problems in Africa. And that's the problem. I could spend all day on it. I have a friend who recently deleted her account because it was so much of a time suck that she needed to take the temptation out of her life!

Anyway, I am not sure what customers might like to see, but I will try to show behind-the-scenes things about my life as an artist and a papermaker, and hopefully inspire your creativity. So, as they, "Follow me!"

https://www.facebook.com/PulpArtPaper

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life

This season is all about the commercial side of life. As a hand-maker, I love the message of a handmade holiday. Even though I should be pushing my wares, I am still all about everything that isn't commercial at all, about making your own things by hand and celebrating things other than store-bought. I was one of the thousands of people without electricity for several days in New Hampshire. The challenges brought neighbors together and made strangers friendly. Cumberland Farms was giving out free coffee to everyone and a local gym opened its lockers rooms to anyone needing running water, whether they were a member or not. The snow turned everything white and wonderful, and it was a lovely couple of days without technology. I had one of the nicest holidays I can remember (even if it included washing my hair in a bucket of melted snow), and hope I can maintain these feelings of gratitude through the hectic holiday season.

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
― Melody Beattie

(And, by the way, everybody looks better by candlelight!)

Small Business Saturday

In addition to the dance lessons and team jerseys, you are also helping this small business owner be available for scraped knees, early school dismissals, emergency car repairs and large batches of laundry in the middle of the work day. Thank you! Shop small!!

Full of thanks

My Etsy store (https://www.etsy.com/shop/PulpArt) has been my little corner of Heaven ever since 2008. It started as a small side business to grow my local art business but I am humbled by its successes. To date, I have more than 4400 admirers, I am in the top 100 Etsy paper goods sellers, I have logged almost half of a million all-time views in 150 countries, and I am just a handful away from making my 5,000th sale, a number I could never have imagined 6 years ago. Wow! It’s been a good run and I am grateful and thankful today and every day. Happy Thanksgiving.