Paying it forward

Kaija, of Paperiaarre, got her PIF action together really fast! I was unexpectedly greeted with a package from her this morning. Beautiful before I even got the package completely open.


Inside the pretty package I found this beautiful, elegant book! A work of art, really. Kaija, you are too kind, thank you so much.




If you want to join the PIF fun, you can follow the trail. I joined on Kaija's blog and then 3 others joined on my blog:

• Dré
• Andrea
• Sarah

So check out their blogs and when they post their PIF offer, you can jump on board.

Now I should get to work.

Pay It Forward

I recently started reading Kaija's blog, Paperiaarre, where she has posted photos of some amazing handmade books. A few days ago I joined her PIF exchange and now it is my turn to share this with my blog readers.One of Kaija's books
Pay It Forward (via Kaija, Denna, Sia and so on) - here are the rules:

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

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For anyone who is interested, Wikipedia has an interesting entry for the concept of paying it forward including some history as to the origin of the concept. The main definition given is an expression "used by a creditor who offers the debtor the option of paying a debt forward to a third person instead of paying it back. Debt and payments can be monetary or by good deeds."

Packages from Etsy

Today was a good day because I got three packages with items I'd bought on Etsy. Most of the stuff that comes through the mail slot is either a bill or it is spam. So when I get something in the mail that I actually want, then it is a pretty good day.

First of all, I got two ATCs from willowcatstudio. Such unique artwork, and these cityscapes that I got are really quite intriguing - I think I could look at them for a long time and not get bored!

Next package I opened was a shirt from LovePeaceAndDye. This shirt was offered as a PIF and I decided to grab it (PIF means 'pay it forward' and it's basically a feebie on Etsy, the buyer doesn't have to pay, but they should offer another PIF in return or do something nice for someone). I have offered a PIF from my own store before, but this was the first time that I got one for myself. And it is fabulous!

The last package was a book from greenchairpress. A small letterpress, handbound book called 'Winter' to add to my little collection of handmade books and artist's books. And it is a great addition to the collection and the first letterpress item that I've got. Some day maybe I'll even have a good way to display all these books that I've been collecting. Same with the ATCs... I have several now and they are all in a little wooden box, but I'd like to do something better with them.

Oh, and I finished preparing all the paper for the custom journal that I've been working on and started binding it. The resizing of all the pages produced enough strips of paper for me to make 15 of those little pamphlet-stitch notebooks!