Video Killed The Radio Star....

This is my all round awesome pal Nickie: In around ten minutes she will be on the radio! Have a listen here. She will most probably play a load of Kiss and talk about her love for Mike Delfino offa Despo Housewives fame.
She's Dead good!

20 Things To Make And Do; The Workshop.

Yes, this weekend will see a few first fur Sugar Paper. We will be hosting our first workshop at Indietracks Festival.
This will be our first time there. This will also be my first time camping!
The workshop will be held on the Saturday (24th) at 4pm, where you will be able to make and do:
colouring in, knitted headband, origami, wordsearch, crochet coaster, felt owl brooch, friendship bracelet,pom poms, dot-to-dot cross stitch and more!

Wish me luck and we'll let you know how it goes!

More tea Vicar?*

So I spent part of this weekend selling Sugar Paper's wares in Sheffield (more on that later).

The stall holder next door but one to me looked familiar, when I realised it was this lady:

A member of Sheffield band Plouf!. I think I last saw them at Gojonnygogogogo all dayer which was on the night of the final of Pop Idol with Will Young and Gareth Gates!
Anyway, Elodie of Plouf! fame was selling zines, and even though in a not so previous post I was banging on about Cath Kidston loving, tea drinking crafters, I will admit I LOVE a good cup of tea.

So I was totally impressed to see she had made a tea zine, complete with a free tea bag (I got cinnamon!, with a matching tag to the zine! DETAIL!!).

The zine came around when after moving to England from France, Elodie picked up our love of drinking tea! In the zine she asked friends how they like to take their tea.

Here's how I like to take my tea:

I put the milk in first (much to the disapproval of most other people), then the tea bag and then the boiled water. Swirl the tea bag around, leave to brew for a few minutes, give it a final squeeze then drink, sometimes with dunked biscuits.
My favourite mugs are:
My black Placebo mug, I drink my tea out of this every morning (and only in the morning).
OCD, a gift from Nickie, I use this at night but mostly in the day if I'm off work, used for specialty teas as I can see the colouring better as it's white.
Andrew mug was a gift for my sisters ex boyfriend like well over ten years ago, I just love the shape of this, usually my night time mug.
Hairspray mug, was a snap at only £5, haven't used it for a while but was my work mug when I had a shop.
Teas I like to drink:
Twinings everyday and English Breakfast.
Earl Grey.
Fruit teas.
Lady Grey.
Vanilla Green.
Chai.

I used to take 6 sugars in my tea, but eventually weened myself off, now have non and cannot bear sugar in it!

*More Tea Vicar was a game on The Big Breakfast, I used to love this show (cuz I love anything associated with the 90s!) my sister and I are currently trying to track down Big Breakfast memorabilia!

Nude magazine!

Yes one of our favourite ever magazines, Nude is back in print format, yes!

If you haven't checked this magazine out before, then you definitely should, a great mix of art, illustration, music and more. Always featuring my favourites, from Dan Clowes to the late great Frank Sidebottom, Niagara to Sunny Buick.
Check Nude out here.

Crafts, buys and video tapes!

It's a busy week here at Sugar Paper , we're getting our craft on for the busy month of July.
But I've managed to find a few minutes (between eating toad in the hole and having a bath) to tell you a few exciting things:

CRAFTS & COOL FRIENDS:
Go check out our friend Charlotte's blog, you may recognise her as the centrefold for Sugar Paper #5. She wrote a radular post about us.
When she said this:

"I sometimes have hard time stomaching girl craft as a means of female empowerment, that Cath Kidston-flowery-bunting-let-make-a-pot-of-tea-and-knit-eachother-mittens style tweeness always seems so bloody wet to me. I understand and like modern femme-ism and reclaiming of stereotypes of feminity and carrying on old craft traditions as a way of keeping a huge part of Womens History from being lost, its just the way a lot of it is presented to me fills me with dread."

Part of me said, YES! I totally agree, as much as I love a cup of tea and now and then I love nothing more than flouncing around my bedroom to an Amelia Fletcher sung song, I too sometimes get stuck in that craft rut of florals and owls. It's probably what pops up into most folks head (even mine) when thinking crafty.
Well anyway it got me thinking, why do I like to craft?

So far I came up with this:
-I like to make stuff; yes it's that simple, from a very young age I have loved using my over sized hands to make stuff, anything.

-I like the feeling I get from making stuff; after reading Handmade Nation book (Kandy got me Christmas!) I felt a little swell inside thinking about how I like to make things and how I like being part of this community where people spend time and effort making things, from sewing to cooking your tea (that's northern for dinner!). Just to sit back and think, yeah I made that with my own hands, is one of the proudest feelings ever.

-I'm good at making stuff; yep I can't deny it I'm good at making certain stuff, so I'm not going to hide a talent.

-I like the idea that in some ways I can be self sufficient; growing up I didn't have much money, so baking and making probably occurred more often because it was cheaper than buying (and my mum was brought up with those skills so taught me, more of that later), in short, it's nice to see something in a shop, and think I don't want to pay for it/can't afford to/would like it more if it looked like this, and so making it yourself.

-I want to carry on traditions passed down; my mum has taught me to bake and have basic sewing skills, she's taught me to decorate and put together furniture, her father, my Grandfather taught me a whole load of wonderful things to make, and I like the fact that these crafting skills have been passed from generation to generation.

-I want to reclaim crafts; yes I am a feminist and yes I like the idea of 50s housewives making everything form prawn cocktail to the soft furnishings, I also like to say I am crafting because I want to, not because I have to.

BUYS:
I'm having a mini craft clear out on a major auction site, go see here.

VIDEO TAPES:
Check out this awesome of awesomeness that is our Kandy's debut video, knitatstic!

Quilts 1700-2010

This is typical of me! I have just realised I am writing a post about an exhibition the day after it has closed, that will teach me not to procrastinate so much and never plough through that 'to do list'.

Anyway.....

Kandy and I thought we should soak up some culture on our last trip to The Big Smoke (for London zine symposium) so we headed to the V&A to check out the Quilts exhibition.

I have been meaning to get into Quilting for a couple of years now, more so that my love for and skills for hand sewing have grown. This exhibition just got my hands itching to stitch.

I particularly liked the really old quilts, the detail in those things is beyond belief, and the portrayal of stories in so many of them is exactly why I love hand sewing so much. We noticed it was quite easy to spot the ones stitched by females and the ones by males. The male ones being a lot more geometric and Uniform. Some so uniform they were stitched by soldiers using their uniform!!

Wasn't such a big fan of the modern quilts, but I'm not a fan of modern things in general!!! Saying that I was totally engrossed by a modern quilt that was stitched by the inmates of Wandsworth prison. Watching the documentary talking about quilting got me thinking I wanted to teach crafts to cons, I was having a John Waters moment.

Obviously we then went to peruse the gift shop which took a while, we finally settled on a pencil and brooch. I browsed through the books, but decided I'm still not ready to commit to learning how to quilt just yet.

And then we were off, stopping by at Hummingbird before hopping on a train back up norfffff, belly full of cake, mind full of stitching ideas!

Coolest couple in Ches.

Just got back from a weekend in Chesterfield, what's there aside from a crooked spire I hear you say, well only the coolest couple ever!!
We have Kandy, who is not only one half of this here Sugar Paper but the mastermind behind Knit And Destroy. She has a super sweet new website up, that monsiuer Ben had a great hand in making. He is of course the other half of Chesterfield's coolest couple. Ben has also had a hand in the Sugar Paper pie, doing us a few illustrations and today helping us with some screen printing.

YES that's right we have been screen printing up a storm, all part of lots of exciting stuff going down at Sugar paper towers.....all to be revealed soon!