recycled cards - a find.

I can spend an awful lot of time of an evening hopping from one blog to another, browsing through etsy.  It is an enormous field out there - too large in many ways and often I overdose on blogs and end up with a spinning head and slight nausea, unable to tell one site from another, worried that I shall inadvertently change my style.  Sometimes I feel like I am squandering my time.
But . . .  Sometimes I find something really different and lovely and it is definitely worth it.
Earlier this week I came across a blog The Patchwork Dress- probably via The Flour Loft , but I can't really remember.  On the site Caireen was mentioning her cards made from recycled glossy magazines.
Now I am a magazine addict, I lap them up, I love the photos even though I know they are not good for me, but I do worry about all the waste paper.  So this sounded like a great idea - reusing the magazines and their wonderful photos to make something new and useful.
I went onto Etsy and bought up her stock.
They came by post on Wednesday and they are so lovely - they don't look like someone has cut up magazines, which does have the potential for a nursery school aesthetic if you think about it -the finish is very high and the colours beautifully judged.  Each card comes with its own hand made envelope (also a magazine page), a sticker to close it and a label for an address.  They are very classy cards.
I took a photo of a rose card as I wanted to show then to a bride - the other cards I got were brighter and more retro.
It really gives me a buzz to find something out there in cyberspace - something I wouldn't have seen otherwise.
Though that perhaps isn't true - Caireen turns out to live in Helensburgh - about 40 minutes drive away.  Cyberspace often turns out to be a very small world.

Comments

[ginny]

Hi Jane,So please you are featuring Caireen ..these cards are lovely. I was initally drawn to the strong colours she uses but i especially love the fact that she recycles. My sister also makes cards and envelopes. She hand makes paper from old bills which she pulps and dries. She also recycles old paint charts for envelopes. I think there are so many possibilities for recycling creatively. Have you ever come accross a company called bags2riches? I can't remember the artists name but she has deveploped a process of recycling plastic bags and heat bonding them. She mainly makes jewellery... worth a look.
ginny
x

[Tash]

Love the cards - my husband makes boxes (as one does... he's rather amazing at it too!) and he used old magazines (nice ones) to cover and the effect is fantastic. For valentines a couple of years ago he made a box and filled it with every single type of incense he could find - knowing it was my favourite thing - and I still use that box to hold it all in. Love recycling things and that is such a good idea!

[HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS]

The cards look lovely, I love cards which use real photos, they are really effective. I find it very hard to throw glossy magazines away especially interior and gardening ones, infact I have occasionally laminated pictures to use as coasters or placemats for my own use before now. My sister-in-law bought me a year's subscription to Country Living for my birthday and I just cannot throw any of them away, I shall probably keep them forever knowing me.

[Marsha]

I'm a magazine junkie, too. Some of mine I keep forever and ever as reference but others I try to find ways of making useful (and, anymore, I don't buy an issue unless I know I'll either want to keep it or use it for something - none that would just be read once and put in the recycling, ever). Anyway, I've been using pages from old Victoria magazines to make envelopes for paper I make - like a previous commenter's sis - from bills and advertisements and notes from school. Then, because I am reclaiming writing snail mail as a spiritual path, I have custom writing paper. It's a great way to put a use to something one last time before it's recycled. Fun, too. (I have to confess that my work isn't as pretty as Caireen's, alas.)

[driftwood]

love the cards, so pretty, and a great way to recycle, the photos in magazines are always so great.

[Victoria May Plum]

It is so true that you can find really amazing things through blogs.
The cards are beautiful, and it's so cool that they are recycled too.

Victoria x

[weirdbunny]

Oh they are lovely. Talking about cards, Gwenny announced whist shopping today that she wants to write her Christmas cards, yes now in October ! I have firmly put my foot down, no cards to be sent untill Dec 1st !