Balloons, Birds, bonus!

The purgatorial period has passed! Pop to the Online Shoppe for forty-plus new papers in popular and peculiar patterns!

Pomegranates, Pocketwatches, plus!

Presently preparing piles upon piles of pretty paper to post to the Online Shoppe! Expect another exultant exclamation upon our eventual effectuation!

Marbled Marvels

One of the most fun and educational experiences my children had in Italy was learning how to marble paper from our friends at Il Papiro, in Rome. We've been buying hand-marbled papers from them for years, so my girls had seen it before, but there's nothing like the chance to get one's feet wet, or hands in this case.

They took turns dripping paints into a tray lined with a layer of carrageenan sizing, then made patterns including peacock feathers and hearts by pulling fine combs and other tools through the floating paint. When the pattern was finished, they carefully laid a piece of paper in the tray and slowly dragged it out over the edge. The result? A beautiful piece of art! It was so sweet to watch the girls work, and the people at Il Papiro couldn't have been nicer.

A few weeks ago we posted photographs of some of the amazing marbled sheets to this weblog, and now they're all available through our Online Shoppe. Ever since our day with the marblers, I've been fascinated with the technique and want to experience it again. Is there a master marbler out there who could teach a class in this fabulous art at Castle in the Air?

Up In the Air

If you come in from the cool wind on Fourth Street today, you'll see that even more kites have found their way into our magical breeze at Castle in the Air. John McRae put together a handful of diamond shaped frames and encouraged all of us at the shop to use Italian papers and Dresden trim to make our own kites.

Once I could look down again, I noticed a tiny kite that's been flying off our greeting card rack season after season -- the one in Diva Pyari's Linea Carta alphabet card series. Diva draws, calligraphs, and prints all the cards herself on Fabriano paper using her Gocco press (a tabletop Japanese screen-printing kit). Let them fly!