Why Good Paper?

Overall, I am a lover of paper. Always have been. But it has to be good paper! I mean it has to feel nice to the touch. Don’t give me a newspaper, too light and too grimy, or that thin wrapping paper that rips when you try to make a tight seam. I want thick, strong, smooth paper. My printer paper must be at least 24 lb. and bright. We keep cardstock—in several colors. I like my notebook paper wide-ruled with light blue lines and a medium red left margin. I’ll use a spiral notebook IF, and this is a big “if,” the pages are perforated. If ever I am forced to use non-perforated spiral-bound paper, I will instantly cut off the messy edge. With scissors. No uneven edges for me. And, yes, back in the days of the dot matrix printer, I ALWAYS neatly removed the hole-y edges BEFORE reading the document. Oh, and old-fashioned fax paper made my skin crawl. Yeah. I’m a little picky about my paper.

Mostly, my relationship with paper is positive. Receipts, post-it notes, and to-do lists are a topic for another post. I like to write, and I love to read. I try to draw. I don’t have much natural talent for it, but I’ve found that when I draw daily, I improve. I’ve tried my hand at watercolors a time or two—I love the rough texture and thickness of the paper alongside pleasing colors on the palette, even if I’ve yet to produce a painting I like.

Given my natural bent toward good paper and vibrant colors, it surprises me that I’ve taken this long to discover card making. While the paper crafts industry is vast, beautiful paper is at its foundation. Solid, print, embossed, glittery, flocked, smooth, textured, shiny, matte—it’s a paper lover’s paradise. Here on this blog, I plan to share my journey as I indulge my artsy-craftsy side. This web-log is mainly an online history for my own benefit—a place to document ideas & techniques and to post challenge entries, a scrapbook of sorts. However, I invite you to read along and perhaps you’ll see an idea that inspires you. I hope so. If you do, leave me a comment and let me know. Thanks for reading.