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| The oldest stationery store in Chinatown. A fixture since 1908. This shop has been a goldmine for me for the last year or so. The woman who bought the shop has been been cleaning out the basement and brought up a treasure trove of vintage paper ephemera, greetings cards in both Chinese and English, Xmas wrap, vintage erasers, onion skin paper......the list goes on.... |
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| Sadly, the run has just about come to an end and the shop is no longer a stationery shop but just another Chinatown shop with scarves imported from China just like about 50 other shops... But it was sure fun while it lasted. There were a few more pre-Cultural Revolution school children's booklets left this week and I couldn't resist picking a few up. And my rule is -- if I bring stuff home I've got to use it for art and not just let it pile up so....... |
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| I got inspired... I love the colors of vintage papers....and I love the characters and the drawings in these old booklets. Even if i can't read them, they are much appreciated around my studio. |
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| I decided to make some booklets using the various paper ephemera I had around . I settled on using these pretty envelopes for the covers and making pages inside of joss paper as well as vintage paper from that shop I mentioned above. |
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| Cutting out the pages...... |
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| Some of the finished little booklets....quite charming don't you think? |
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| Then i got busy and made a new little zine called -- Let's GO to Chinatown -- what else? |
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| My favorite part of the one-page-wonder zines is embellishing them at the end of the whole process....I stuck Chinese postal stickers on them and some real Chinese stamps.... |
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| And I decided to put each little zine in a special Chinese good luck envelope and add some other ephemera so it's a nice little package... I think I'm going to sell them... You know you want one. Tell you what -- I only made 15 -- I think I'll do a give-away for one of them. Here's what you do -- leave a comment on the blog and tell me what you are interested in seeing on Cappuccino and Art. I need ideas. What do you like to see? What don't you like to see? I will pick a random number and if your comment is that number I'll send you a Chinatown zine. The next post will have the winner. OK? Is that a deal? |
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| Another little booklet that went out to V.B. and it seems to be taking an awfully long time to get where it's going... |
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| Incoming It's been a good mail week for the most part. My trusty and loyal mail art pal, Kelly P Fearless Mailer sent me some vintage stamps from Hungary since she knows I'm going there... These are going to look great in my travel journal. |
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| Lunch You didn't think I made all those trips to Chinatown without stopping for lunch, did you? |
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| INCOMING This beauty is from Karen Ann. The picture doesn't do it justice. That mailbox is on both sides of the envelope -- hand painted, I think -- and my address and the stamps are on the other side. So cool. That was a good mail day. |
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| There's Nothing Wrong That A Letter Won't Cure! My sentiments exactly. SF Correspondence Co-Op meeting tomorrow. SF Zine Fest next Saturday. Expect updates! See you in the mail. |
