Why "pulp + palette"?

pulp + palette

invitations | Heirloom Paper Goods

I'm sure there's been at least 1 of you out there that have wondered how I came up with the name "pulp + palette".  Let me tell you, it wasn't easy.  There are about 7,291 words in the English {and French} language that I love so much and at least 93% of them were shortlisted to be at least 1 word in my new business name.  I went through list upon list of the things that I love and tried to find words to associate with them.  I thought and I pondered and I lost sleep.  And then, in a flash, without thought or contemplation, pulp & palette were the 2 words that hit me, all at once.  I put the 2 together, thought about how I could use them, and there you go.

I wanted my name to represent my design in 2 different ways:

1} Pulp:  I'm learning the art of the letterpress and "pulp" made the cut because of my obsession love for cotton rag paper/card stock, which, is a common choice of card stock among letterpress printers.  I'll certainly stock plenty of it.  Oh, and as a side note, once I'm comfortable and confident in my skills as a letterpress printer {I'm slowly getting there}, then letterpress will be the main printing option that I'll offer.

2} Palette:  This word encompasses all of the other design aspects that I'll cover on my revamped blog.  From all sorts of interior design {one of my favourite forms of design} to DiY, my revamped blog will be my chronicles of my own DiY projects or projects that at some point, I want to tackle.  I will say this now, at the risk of losing blog members and/or not gaining any new ones, I will have very little posts regarding weddings and even less posts regarding fashion.  I'm not the typical girl.  Fashion is probably the very last thing on my list of priorities, so I'm not going to take time to write about it. Weddings?  Well, I love them, indeed I do.  But, I'm going to focus more on lifestyle and design.  Wedding inspiration boards? No. I won't have them. And I'll keep the reasons why I won't, to myself.  But, I will have Lifestyle boards.  More on those in a later post.

So, there you have it.  That's the reason why I chose pulp + palette.

pulp + palette

As you can see, and some of you already know, times they are a changin'.

Because our family made a huge cross country move, from Melbourne, to the middle of the Australian Outback, I had to seriously evaluate The Paper Couturière and the feasibility of continuing to offer a custom design service for my clients.  Given the fact that I'm about 2 1/2 hours away from Darwin, the next major town around, I knew that custom design would no longer be an option.  So the next best thing would be to offer a range of already designed invites, solely online, where the client can personalise with wording, fonts & colours.  So far I've designed 20 suites, but I will continue to add to the collection in the effort of keeping the collection fresh and new.

Not only will pulp + palette offer fun, fresh, clean, and beautiful invitations, I've also decided to extend my range to what I call "Heirloom Paper Goods".  Why Heirloom Paper Goods, you ask?  The thought came from my love of treasured items that are passed down within a family.  From a christening gown, to a beautiful piece of jewelry, all the way to love notes passed between great-grandparents, a classic book, and recipe cards that hold the beautiful handwriting of our great-grandmothers, not to mention the delicious family recipes.  With that tradition in mind, and because I have such an affinity for collecting items that have come through my own family tree, I decided my 3 new collections would consist of recipe cards; book plates & notecards.

Each of these 3 collections will consist of at least 20-30 designs and will be sold in individual packs.  The details of which, I'm not entirely sure as this is currently all still unfolding.  But they will be sold on high quality heavy weight cardstock, which will be both acid and lignin free.  Which means that through the years, the card stock will not break down, will not yellow, and will not harm any other priceless possessions that they're stored with {ie. other paper, photographs, etc}.

As of now, the website is still under construction.  My old website is not getting a facelift at all...I'm starting all over from scratch to better reflect the new business, the paper goods that I'll be offering and to better reflect where I want the business to go in the future.  A new blog will be coming along with that new website. Details of which, will come in time.

A couple things to keep in mind:

1) I will be phasing out my Facebook page for The Paper Couturière, and eventually closing that page down.  I have started a new page for pulp + palette and I would love for you to like that page so you can stay up to date with what's happening.  It's a very exciting time now and I don't want anyone to miss out on anything.

2) Probably tonight, I'll be changing my Twitter account from @papercouturiere to @pulp&palette.  Please, I ask that you pass this information to anyone that you may "tweet" with or otherwise know.  I don't want anyone to think that I've closed my account when I've just changed my "handle".

3) For now, my blog will remain The Paper Couturière.  I'll get around to changing the name in the next couple of days, but my redesigned blog will be launched when the new website is launched, hopefully in the next couple of months.

Again, thank you so much for all of the support you've given to me and The Paper Couturière the past couple of years.  It's been a learning experience for sure, but with the pulp + palette, I want to take it to the next level, the next 10 levels.  I want to provide a new service that Australian brides have yet to receive... a beautiful quality design on the finest card stock available, with printing methods that aren't readily available with online boutiques.  {More on this later.}  And also to offer classic, timeless, heirloom paper goods that grow more meaningful with age.

This is just the start.  Subsequent blog posts will detail more information as I get it.  Please, join me on this exciting journey.  I'd love to have you there with me. :)

2011:: Bring it.

2010 has brought so.much to my life that I can't even begin to go into it all...from extreme lows to extreme highs and everything in between.  Not 1 moment of regret through any of it.  It's 31 December 2010 and all I can say is "2011? Bring it." Bring the highs. Bring the lows. Bring the in-between's and the out-of-balances. I'm on it. All of it.

2011 will bring many changes to me personally and professionally.  I'm working on a new website and a complete business restructure, which has lead me to design a completely new collection and even design lots of extra's...all of which you'll see when I have my big relaunch.  I know I've been promising things would be finished by the New Year, but, I'm a perfectionist and I'd rather wait 4 or 5 months and know that it's perfect, than launch it too soon and it's "meh". So, you'll have to wait a bit longer.  As we're, literally, living in the middle of the great and vast, Australian Outback, I will no longer be offering fully custom design services.  I won't be able to meet clients seeing as how I live 2 1/2 hours from the nearest "city".  But, hopefully what I've designed will more than make up for it.  But, more on that later.

In the meantime, have a wonderfully joyous and SAFE New Year's Eve.  Have a prosperous New Year and 2011 and my sincerest wish for you all is love, happiness, joy and all the success you could imagine.

Thank you for your continued support, love, encouragement, motivation & inspiration.  I'll see you on the flip side.

xx
Autumn

750

So, I've been sittin on 560'ish likers on Facebook, for the past 63 years. Or, so it seems.  I'm trying to get to 1000, just to see what it feels like. Will you help me get there?

I've learned during my years as a business owner that the most rewarding accomplishments come with the smallest of baby steps.  Which is why I'm not shooting for 1000.  I'm shooting for750.

Will you help me get there?

Once I get to 750, I'll randomly pick a "liker" and give you a personalised notecard set with matching envelopes.

Once I get to 1000? Well, I just can't say right now because it's too awesome.

So, without further ado, can you please hit the "recommend to friends" button?

You'll be my best friend and I'll love you forever. :)

xx
Autumn

The Handwritten Brigade:: Part Deux

I have had so darn much overwhelming support for this little 3 person club that I started the other day.  It's amazing how quickly the word has spread and now our little 3 person club has turned into a mighty handwriting army that spans 4 continents & countless states/regions in each of those continents.  Oh wait. Let me just repeat that because I can't comprehend it just once::

FOUR.GOSH.DARN.CONTINENTS!!

I've only just completed the 1st sample design that I decided to create especially for this handwritten revolution we've started, and everytime I turn around, someone else is contacting me wanting to join. How awesome is that?! How awesome are YOU?!  So I ask you to please continue spreading the word to your friends; family; pets; neighbours and neighbours great Aunt twice removed.  And for each one of you that is going to write a letter and then pay it forward, I ask you to PLEASE email me your name, a little about yourself, and how many people you've told to write a letter & pay it forward.  For the people that you've asked to participate, please pass my email address on to them & ask them to email me with the same information.  I promise you, as sure as I'm typing this, your information will not be given to anyone else, advertised or displayed in any way.  I just want to keep a running list of how many people are participating so I can occasionally post numbers, and also give each of you a badge for your blog and/or website.

Based on the response and the feedback that I've received so far, it's so easy to see that people crave real social contact and meaningful communication.  I am so thankful with how far this project has come and I would be so happy with the results, even if it had to end today.  But knowing it doesn't end today, I'm so excited to see just how far it can go.  With your help, it's limitless and knows no boundaries.

Don't forget to check back to the blog from time to time because I'll occasionally do a short progress post, and again, thank you so much everyone for your support and unending encouragement with this project.

Autumn
xx

Like so many others, my heart is broken.

My heart, soul, prayers, thoughts, and love are with the family and friends of each of the miners in NZ.

Revolution: Handwriting Style

So tonight I was on Twitter, like I am every other moment of every other day, and I started "talking" to a lovely girl, Kismet, from The Unreal Bride.  We were chit chatting about packages and how great it is when we receive one.  Then, she opened up a can of worms when she said something to the effect of "I'd be happy with a letter."  And so it began....

We discussed this whole letter writing thing and I decided that I'd send her a letter. Why not?  I don't really know her.  Only started tweeting with her tonight, but what the heck?  Everyone appreciates a beautiful letter.  We decided, along with my dear friend Steph {@stephbubble}, that we're going to start a handwriting revolution.  I've aptly named the 3 of us, The Handwritten Brigade.  In an age of social media, emails, and texts, a handwritten letter is beautiful, special, and can be treasured well after the letter's arrived.

So, tomorrow I will design some special, beautiful stationery and I'm going to write a heartfelt letter to 2 girls in 2 different countries, and hope that it makes them smile. But along with that letter, I'm going to send them each a blank card.  And I'm going to ask each of them to pay it forward by handwriting a note, in that blank card, and sending it off to someone else with another blank card for that person to write their own note.  And on and on I hope it goes.

My challenge to you is that you do the same.  It only takes 5 minutes to write a note to someone you care about, even just to let them know you're thinking about them.  And when you do this, I encourage you to pay it forward.  Can we do this?

Let me know if you want to be a part of the Handwritten Brigade.

Let's do this.