ðŸ’ŒÂ The Construction Papers, crafty mail for crafty peopleÂ ðŸ“«

Do you like mail as much as I do?

It's confession time <<First Name>>,

Sometimes I order stuff just so I get mail. Stuff that I could go out and buy in person (I'm looking at you, Joanns.com), but I really just want it to come to my door. I want something other than bills and junk mail and things addressed to Marian Felton or "Current Resident".

So I've started a new creative project. It's a zine for makers that I'm calling the Construction Papers (hat tip to my buddy Mercedes for the name).

The zine will be packed with a wide-ranging variety of creative instructions, but with an emphasis on being easy to get into. For instance, the projects won't have a huge list of supplies. Projects will include yarn crafts (knit and crochet), paper crafts, sewing, coloring pages, recipes, embroidery, and miscellaneous crafting.

Whether you want to work through an issue from cover to cover, or just turn to it when you need a little creative boost for your brain, I see this zine as a little ray of creative sunshine that comes to your door with cute stamps on it.* Each issue will also come with some kind of craft supply to help you make. The first issue is going to have origami papers in it to go with the origami instructions.

The first issue is slated to go out early September, so now is a great time to buy either a 4-issue subscription or order just a single issue. Each issue will be a limited printing, and priority will be given to subscriptions. Also, it's shipping all over the world, so don't worry if you're not in the US.

If you want to know my thought process behind this project, check out my ramblings in that gray box down there. â†“ â†“ â†“

Ta!

* OMG! the stamps. I've been plotting so much with the stamps.

So.... I was thinking about making time for craft. How sometimes you need a little push. That post or article that makes you think "OMG! I need to go start that right now!". But in our digital world it's so easy to see those, realize you don't have the time right now to get into it, and then loose track of it. That's really why these services like Pinterest, Pocket, and even Facebook's Save Post feature exist. So we can find the things that sparked us later when we have time to actually do something about them.

But I was also thinking a lot about the generation that my nieces and nephews are part of. They have grown up with the prevalence of digital media, and probably have never read a newspaper. I'm by no means a Luddite about digital media, but there's something to be said for a printed magazine or a library of crafting books you can spend a quiet afternoon flipping through. I like the feeling of "discovering" something that only exists in a physical medium. Of course, I used to work in Special Collections & Archives during my undergrad, so the idea of rarity in physical media might just be bred into me.

It's so easy to get Creative FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) in our highly marketed push notification world, that I felt it was important to add to the slow-making movement in a physical way. A creative inspiration that doesn't require you to plug in. And to make it even easier, I'm striving with this publication to keep the barriers to creativity VERY low. The yarn-based projects don't call for any specific yarn. They're swatches meant to let you explore something new, a new stitch or a new yarn. So much of the marketing in this industry is acquisition focused... "Buy this yarn!" "Get this pattern!" "Limited Edition Colorway!", and there's a place for that. But the stuff I really love is the stuff that makes me WANT to MAKE. So that's what The Construction Papers aims to do.

It's also proving to be a creative exercise for me to make it. I've been notoriously mean to myself about my drawing skills, and drawing the diagrams and illustrations for this zine has been an exercise in embracing my own style and not comparing it to anyone else's work. I'm also really excited about the way my sense of humor comes through in the pages of the zine. It's playful, so I feel like I can be more myself than I can in a knitting pattern.