Raffle draw!

Our super raffle ended last Thursday and we made a video of us drawing it! We are so impressed with our filming skills we thought we would share the video on here!

WARNING I watched Cecil B. Demented for the first time in forever today, who knows we might make a film next!

SHAMPOO YOU!

Those of you who have a copy of issue ten will have noticed our 'inner cover', those of you who haven't, it looks like this...

Pretty rad yeah?!? It's a collage of things you can make from our zine, tools you need, craft books we love!but we can't take all the credit, we stole the idea from the inlay and CD print from (one of Seleena's for sure*) one of our favourite albums, WE ARE SHAMPOO....

Yeah and for those who aren't sure about Shampoo, then you are FOOLS! here is something from We Are Shampoo....

And something that isn't, but it's SO GOOD I had to put it here....

*when I (Seleena) was 10/11 I used to go record shopping with my big sister. in Piccadilly Records, there used to be a girl who worked there who looked like a member of Shampoo, she wore big plastic rings and foam wedge shoes, I LOVED HER, she was a fashion idol!

All I want for Christmas....

So last year on our Sugar paper Christmas list, I stated that I wanted a pair of snazzy tap shoes and Kandy wanted a ticket to the HP tour. Well I got my tap shoes, sadly Kandy didn't get her HP tour ticket, but it's OK she got her sen one for her birthday and we all went and had a rad time.

So it's that time of year where we give you a helping hand to buy the perfect gift for your loved ones...

For your twittering twin:  By this I mean someone who loves, or is an owl, not someone who you speak to only in 140 characters (although you can get them this too, you might only have virtual friends, or your virtual friends might be nicer than your actual friends) ANYWAY for those who likes owls, then you need to get this from Camille Rose Garcia !
Camille Rose Garcia makes amazing arts and creates some of the best characters, so imagine my delight when I saw these! Get a Hoot here!

For your mystical mate:  So maybe, like me you decided to finally watch Buffy in it's it entirety and now you feel like you are best friends with Willow Rosenberg and want to get her a present (not for Christmas, she's Jewish) or maybe you have an actual friend who is mystical. Well then they need this Ouija Board Cushion by our very own Kandy's Knit and Destroy. She also has a load of other witchy stuff that GLOWS IN THE DARK TOO. All from HERE!

For your forsaken friend: Do you have a serial dating friend? Or someone who dates the wrong guys (like my pal Buffy, oh wait she's not my friend!) Then they will probably see the funny side of Camille Smithwick's WLTM range. Check out these posters of two from the WLTM book! Get in touch with Camille to get one!

For your pukey pal; everyone has one of those friends who loves a bit of vom, gets excited by pustules, and partial to a missing tooth gag, then you need to get them a special Garbage Felt Kid of themselves made by me (Seleena Laverne Daye!)
Get in touch to order one!

For you're bunny buddy: This one is for your friend who likes all things hoppy and furry (not your friend Anya as she is frightened of bunnies!). Jessicka Addams used to front the rad band Jack Off Jill and now she makes awesome art! get a bunny pin HERE

For your cranky crony: If you have a friend who loves cats and is a bit cranky then you need to  get them one of Alison Erika Forde's art brooches! And if they don't like cats, she has other designs that are equally awesome to Cranky cat. get it HERE

For your Apocalyptic ally: Well, apparently the world is gonna end before Christmas, or so you're friend keeps telling you! You know what that friend needs? An omnibus copy of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles! If nothing else, they can use it as a weapon against whatever it is they meet on the Apocalypse!

What everyone you know wants: Well if the world is going to end before Christmas, you might not want to waste your money, so you should just enter the Sugar Paper Raffle. First of all it's cheap, second if you don't win something for you you might win something for a friend. Third, if you don't win something for you, it doesn't matter the world 's going to end. And lastly if you do win, something for EVERYONE then it will arrive before the Apocalypse so you will be able to give you're gifts to everyone. GET YOUR TICKET HERE!

I gotta 99 problems but a zine ain't one...

You may have already heard that Sugar Paper #10 is out now and can be bought HERE.

We've also added Kandy's roller derby zine, I don't Bruise Easy to the shop...

Get that HERE!

And last Sunday I managed to get myself a copy of Alison Erika Forde's new art zine (it's sooooo good)

You can get yourself a copy from her web shop, which she has updated with super cute badges and Christmas cards CHECK IT OUT HERE!!!

And the title of this post was inspired by this video....

Issue ten OUT NOW!

Issue ten is out now. A little later than we planned, some things in the zine might have to wait until next year, or not, you can make and do what you want when you want!!

Because we are TEN we have a double cover affair, with the 'dust jacket' being a hand printed sugar paper thing and the inside a colour collage.

In the zine we have a PARTY issue, with party food, party shoes, party nails, party knit bangle, party boardgames and over stuff that is party and non party!!

You also get some free Hama beads. YES!!!

BUT HERE!

ps check back on Thursday for an improtant announcement!

WE ARE ALL BARRIER KID!

"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed"

"it's ok to love something a little too much, as long as it's real to you"

I was intending to write this blog about how I think I've finally come to terms with being an obsessive and how it can totally be a healthy thing. But it might end up as an appreciation post of one of my oldest friends. Let's see.

The title of the blog comes from said friend. For anyone who doesn't know THIS is Barrier Kid.
Barrier Kid, represent to us, and so many others I'm sure, that feeling of being a fan of something, loving something to your very bones.

Recently my friend and I had a super awesome trip that fuelled our obsessions and she said to me 'We are all barrier Kid'

The first quote in the blog comes from one of my favourite directors/writers/general people of all time. John waters. John is an unashamed obsessive, he's a collector, he has a fuck tonne magazine subscription, he makes lots of lists on index cards, he just has one of those brains. He gets it!

The second quote comes from Gerard Way. It's an excerpt from a larger quote about standing in a crowd of sweaty people at a gig. This is the guy that had a notebook entitled Star Wars notes. He gets it!

I've been obsessed with stuff from a young age, I think pretty much always. Like that time when I was a teenager I found an old school book from when I was young where I had dedicated a couple of back pages to Winona Ryder. I had a picture of her, a few stickers from Smash Hits and a quote from some other magazine about how The Catcher in The Rye was her favourite book.
I'm also a collector, I've collected pretty much everything, stickers, rubbers, pencils, snow globes, ornamental mushrooms, handbags. I like to collect.

When I like something I LOVE SOMETHING. I become all consumed by it, it's everything I need! I'm not faddy, some things I might not love as much as I once did, and yeah maybe the odd ting I go, jeez what was I thinking, but mostly I just like to love and obsess over stuff!.

In my adult life I have surround myself with friends who love things just that little too much. But I don't even know what that means, who set the standards? Who said casually loving something was the cool way to do stuff? If it's real to me then what does it matter?

I'm not obsessive I'm passionate!

OK I am obsessive and I'm (finally) cool with that.
Most things I do are inspired by my obsessions. Write, sew, make and do. Most of what comes out of me is related to popular culture. Stuff I'm obsessed with. I don't know what I'd do without it.
I would have to just come up with stuff out of my own head!!! How does that work?!?

What would I do if I wasn't obsessed, how would I spend every waking hour, John was right, life is nothing unless you're obsessed!
Quite often I do (despite my band of crazy obsessos!) feel like this FANATIC!! I think I bet nobody else gets this wrapped up over something, I bet other people aren't being rubber cat masks to look like a fictional character, I bet other people aren't getting their hair cut like their favourite band member, what;s wrong with me! But when I met my good friend Holly I found a fellow obsessive.

To cut a long story short we met when we were like 15 via Teletext. She loved Bis I loved Bis, she turned out to be a massive obsessive, the first one I had possibly met, defiantly the first one who obsessed over similar stuff to me.

Holly is great for a number of reasons A. she's an obsessive 2. She supports fellow obsessives D. she's a massive egger on (something which obsessives love and hate). She also makes some of the best mixtapes ever and the one that made me cool, even though I just pretend I was made this way, credit where credits due.

I have shared some amazing obsessive moments with Holly. But two that were really life changing. (I won't go on about them too much).
The first one was in 2001.
We both attended Ladyfest Glasgow. We were just 17 (Literally, Holly had her 17th birthday there). I don't know why we went but I'm pretty sure it's because we were obsessives who couldn't miss out on this, despite our lack of funds and youthful naivety. One of the best weekends of my life.

The second one was in 2012.
We both attended Morrisoncon in Las Vegas.
I made the decision that we should go the date the tickets went on sale. But I only made that decision knowing that I would have a fellow obsessive by my side. I'm glad we did, it was the best weekend I've had since 2001!

So I'm here, having life changing weekends, having fun obsessing with all my friends, and all that, but it's learning to direct this obsessiveness that made me decide to call it healthy.

As I said above, everything I make comes from being an obsessive. So that's what I learnt to do, I learnt not to completely put all my energies into obsessing, but get something back and that something just happens to be making awesome shit (well I think it's awesome!)  inspired by it all!

I'm not sure if this reached any conclusion at all, if it has any point. maybe one day I will get Kandy and I to list all the things we have ever been obsessed with and post it here!

Let's have a Springer style after thought....

As I get older, I get totally emotional seeing other obsessives. I think you're me, I'm you, you get it, WE ARE ALL BARRIER KID!!

(picture from Holly thanks!!)

Vegas in visuals Part 3....

 

WITCH CRAFT!!!! best knits EVER

So Kandy has made, in my opinion her best knits EVER

The new Knit and Destroy range of spooky inspired witch knits is sooo good, all my favourites plus, THEY GLOW IN THE DARK!!
there's also some non glow in the dark stuff, I mean who doesn't want an eyeball cushion?!?

Check out the full range HERE!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

When Sugar Paper went to Hogwarts....

This lesser heard from half of Sugar Paper (Kandy) is a MASSIVE fan of the Harry Potter books and films ...as are a few of our friends. As soon as I heard that the studio tour was opening I knew we would have to go, and of course, the more of our friends we could get to come along the better! We booked 6 tickets and I started counting down the days.

I was excited before we went but had been super-busy so the fact we were going didn't really sink in until the drive down there. Not wanting to spoil the surprise I didn't look into the details of the studio tour before we went, so when Nickie mentioned that they serve butterbeer my excitement reached whole new levels.

After a tricky drive round Watford centre, we met up with Holly, Nick and Leesey and headed for the transfer bus to take us over to the studio tour. It wasn't the knight bus, but it was exciting!

 

Before we knew it the bus was outside the studio tour and there was screeching, we poured off the bus and proceeded to take photos of us outside the bus...there was a lot of this happening throughout the day! We hung outside for a bit, waiting for our time to go in, then it came and in we went...to the entrance bit, and our minds were blown. HUGE photos of all the cast around the walls as well as movie prop bits, and the window of the gift shop done up like honeydukes, so good!
 

 

We saw a lady handing out small booklets to children and we thought they looked fun, so we bagged us one each (they were only supposed to be for children but she liked us), turned out they were 'passports' that you could get stamped as you went round the studio tour, amaaazing. Time to queue up, then the tour started...
 
An introductory talk that got us even MORE excited and then we go in, met by the breathtaking sight of the great hall. This was one of my favourite bits, the full great hall, the actual floor that they flmed every great hall scene on, MIND BLOWN. Especially when I got to sit at one of the tables with my best grrrlz!
 

 
 From here we went on into a huge room filled with props, costumes, sets, artwork and more! The studio tour was really well laid out and you could spend as long as you liked staring at the contents of your favourite classroom or taking in the awesome detail on the accessories and costumes.
 

 

 

 

 



 
I could have stayed here all day, all week in fact, they had all the best rooms set up from dumbledore's office to the burrow. On top of this there was a room of requirement display and some parts of the ministry of magic where we went exploring.
 

 
At the end of the first room was a display cabinet with lots of paper based props, letters, books and magical packaging! We really liked seeing all these bits up close, the attention to detail was amazing and they had SO many good pieces on display.
 

 

 
That was just the first room, from here we moved outside...to things you could get in and on...and a refreshing drink of butterbeer which was WELL tasty!!!
 

 
It's a good job they had this area with seats and butterbeer, I think we all needed a sit down after seeing so much amazing movie stuff, even the muggles among us were enjoying the studio tour.
After the cold and tasty butterbeer (tasted exactly how I'd imagined) we got up close and personal with the famous vehicles from the films...
 

 

 

In this outdoor area there were a couple of buildings from the film too, we spent a while out here taking it all in before moving onto the 3rd and final section of the tour. Something I didn't mention, is once you've finished in one section you can't go back to it, so we had to make sure we'd all peeked in the knight bus and knocked on at Privet Drive for Harry before we made our way to the special effects room. This bit was freaky but fascinating, the craftsmanship that had gone into all the pieces in here was amazing but the models of the actors used for death scenes were scarily realistic! This was great to see in real life.  

 

 

This room of wonders was followed by the bit I was most excited about...diagon alley. Like stepping through the wall behind the leaky cauldron, this bit was fantastic, pure magic. The weasley's wizard wheezes shop was my favourite.

 

 

This was followed by a big surprise...the castle! I hadn't even thought about how they get exterior shots of the castle in the films then there it was, Hogwarts, perfect and grand just scaled down.

 

 

Happy faces at the end of a super ace studio tour. I was really impressed with the whole thing. So much thought had gone into this and the staff were all lovely, it worked really well and had all the best bits from the films, everything a Harry Potter fan could wish for..and more!  

I love Zombina more than I love you!

Yes It's usually this time of year that I start clogging this blog with Halloween related songs and the band Zombina and the Skeletones feature highly. They are one of my favourite bands. But ZATS aren't just for Halloween they are FOR LIFE!

Back in may I got commissioned to make the front cover of their album, Death Valley High, one of my top three concept albums of all time. I WAS STOKED! It ended up looking like this....

I have spent many a Halloween watching this band live and I bloody love them (no pun intended!). I'm glad they exist....

ONE WEEK 'TIL HALLOWEEN!!!!

yeah you know it!and I've been busy making my costume and sewing other bits. I've been ploughing my way through Buffy, so I sew whilst I watch Buffy (I was watching Season 4 Halloween episode the other day, always love a themed episode!).
So, all this Buffy watching means I now find the theme tune strangely comforting. I'm not sure if it's because I'm proper enjoying Buffy, because the theme is super 90s or because it sounds like this....
(it's probably all of the above!)

I think a while ago I read a quote where Gerard said someone he knew once told him Honey... sounds like the Buffy theme and it does. See....

So yeah almost Halloween. This blog has no point, Buffy is kinda creepy, so yeah HAPPY ALMOST HALLOWEEN!

The best fictional bands EVER!!!

We like bands, we like fiction, we especially like fictional bands!!! so here is a top ten list of the best fictional bands EVER!

10. DINGOES ATE MY BABY  (Buffy The Vampire Slayer)
I only just started watching Buffy (after resisting for 17 years on the grounds that I found Sarah Michelle Gellar annoying. Always been a fan of Seth Green though!

9. CREATION (AKA Mission Control! Freaks and Geeks)
you would have thought a fictional band that boasts members like James Franco would feature higher, but then I'm not that into psychedelic rock

8. MYSTIK SPIRAL (Daria)
Two words (well three) Trent. Lane. SWOON!

7. THE QUADRATICS (Welcome To The Dollhouse)
The band formed by Dawn Weiner's nerdy older brother that happens to have bad boy Steve front them (Steve needs tutoring so he can graduate or something!)

6. ORANGE ORGANICS (Pugwall)
Forget Busted, it's all about teen sensation Peter Unwin George Wall and his mates!

5. HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (Hedwig and the Angry Inch)
Six inches forward and five inches back, I got an angry inch!!!!

4. FROZEN EMBRYOS (My So-Called Life)
Two words (well three). Jordan. Catalano. SWOON!

3. SEX BOB-OMB (Scott Pilgrim series/film)
Named after a Mario baddy, nuff said.

2. JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS (Josie and the Pussycats)
Still deciding if they should be number one as the Josie and the Pussycats album is sooooo good (Du jour aren't too shabby either!)

1. THE STAINS (Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains)
They get the number one spot because they are an all girl teenage punk band WHO actually inspired some of my real life favourite bands (notably within the Riot Grrrl movement). SO GOOD!


And we can't end without mentioning the worst ever fictional band....
'If you like blues, you'll love Blues Hammer.....'

Camille Smithwick: WLTM

So we were hanging out at Another Common Affair on Sunday, selling our wares, eating snacks and chatting to friends.
Our favourite stall had to be the one from Camille Smithwick.
Camille has a piece in the Has Anyone Seen Tino zine I compiled, and she once made this awesome Dolly Parton tote I bought for a friend.
Anyway Camille's stall consisted of her latest work. A big pink, velvet covered book (that she made) full of illustrations, prints and paintings of personal ads.
She has taken some of her favourite personal ads and made them visual! SOOOOOO GOOD!
WLTM... *

She also had some souvenirs form the WLTM book, prints, a tote bag AND some transfer tattoos (and you thought it couldn't get any better!).
You can see more here!

*for those not in the know, WLTM is would like to meet!

Vegas in Visuals Part 2...

 

Missing page from #9!!

So the other day I was stapling some zines together when I realised that there is a BIG misprint in issue 9!
SORRY!
When we got this printed we had MAJOR issues with the cover, so obviously once we got that sorted were too tired to check the rest, we seemed to have stapled a whole lot together and then sold them before we noticed, again SORRY!
We don't want you to miss out on crafting that embroidered passport holder AND we certainly want the rest of the zodiac to know what crafts suit them, so here is the missing page, next time we will double check everything!

If you want the pdf, email us sugarpaperzine@hotmail.com

Pumpkin Pasties

So it's October which means it's ALMOST HALLOWEEN!!!!!!! Our favourite holiday of the year. it is the best ever.
We also like eating, so here is a recipe for pumpkin* pasties that featured in Sugar paper #8...

You will need:
For the pastry;
-8oz/250g Self raising flour
-4oz/125g butter/margarine
-TBSP pumpkin seeds
-Pinch of salt
-2 tsp turmeric
-few drops of water

For the filling;
-2 small sweet potatoes
-Handful spinach
-1/2 red onion
-2 tsp ground cumin
-1 tsp ground coriander
-salt and pepper

 

1-  Weigh out the flour and add in the salt and turmeric. Finely chop the pumpkin seeds and add to the dry mix, then add to the margarine.
2-  Rub in the margarine (do this method by rubbing the fat in with the flour using your fingertips) until you have a well-combined crumbly mixture.
3-  Mix into a stiff dough by adding a few drops of water and mixing with a spoon.
4-  Roll into a ball, put in cling film, and place in the fridge whilst you prepare the filling.
 
Filling.
1-  Peel and dice the sweet potatoes, boil in a pan until soft.
2-  Finely chop onion, fry off with the cumin until soft.
3-  Mash the potatoes, adding coriander, salt and pepper. Stir in spinach and onions.

To make the pasties
1-  Roll out the pastry, onto a lightly floured surface. Cut out 3-4” circles.
2-  Place onto a baking tray, spoon enough filling to fill the centre of the circle, fold over the pastry and seal the edges by pressing down with a fork.
3-  Brush the top of the pasties with a little milk.
4-  Bake for 20minutes (until golden and crisp) on gas mark 5/175 C (on the middle shelf).

*conatains a very small percentage of actual pumpkin!!

Vegas in Visuals. Part 1