Despite a lack of blogging activity here which may suggest the contrary, I have been busy busy busy all week! Well, I took a week’s holiday from ‘real’ work – caught up with a friend, saw my mum & dad (my dad has been in China for the last 6 months or so, so that was an especial treat), and went on a day trip with Corey – the highlight of which was probably when he left his umbrella behind on the train there, but found it again on the train back! But around these brief outings I have been working non-stop. There are some new things very nearly ready to tell you about, but the most immediate, are 2 new zines (& something else a bit different), now available in my Etsy stores:
The first is ‘Contours’, my first art zine, which is all about doodling. This is where my brief encounter with Zentangling led me. I suddenly realised how the majority of the patterns I have designed as an adult all stem from one basic doodle that I used to doodle all the time. The zine looks at how that doodle has emerged in the various crafts I have worked in, considers the possible origins of the doodle, and leaves lots of spaces for you to doodle away to your own heart’s content.
As you can see from the photo, there are some extras included – hand-doodled bookmark to stitch, and a hand-doodled ‘fingerprint’ of lino to carve & print. Inside the zine you will also find a 4-way Acorns cross stitch chart, Bobbin Along freeform bargello pattern, plus 4 postcards (2 printed, and 2 blank for you to doodle yourself) printed on gummed paper, 
so that you can turn any piece of scrap card into a postcard, (these come with 4 postcard reverse labels which could also be used as envelope re-use labels, if you prefer). Check out the TangleCrafts Etsy Store for more details.
Hot on the heels of Papertrail #1, you can now also find Papertrail #2. Papertrail #2 is a zine full of questions and books and reading habits, with answers/opinions from me, Corey, and spaces for your own responses, too. It’s all about books, and how we live with them. Alongside everything else is a Papertrails ‘map’ of routes you can take from novel to novel, spaces to design your own book jackets, plus copy-&-cut bookplates & bookmarks. And as if all that wasn’t enough, Papertrail #2 also includes a free membership pack for the Papertrail Reader’s Club!
The Papertrail Reader’s Club is there for everyone who loves to read. The Basic Membership Pack includes:
- 2 pre-gummed Ex Libris plates
- 2 recommendation bookmarks left blank for you to personalise
- and the Member Book:
The Papertrail Readers’ Club Book is a membership card and reader’s record book combined! It is a 20 page, staple-bound mini-booklet, printed on high quality recycled sugar papers. Each book will be personalised with your name and membership number, and date stamped with the start date of your membership. It includes spaces to list all the books you want to read alongside dates started & finished, and there are even pages to fill in with your own mini-reviews! 
Each month, a different book is chosen as a feature title, with review printed inside the back cover. Club members are eligible to submit their own reviews of the club titles which may earn them a free Papertrail zine!
If you buy any issue of Papertrail, you will receive free membership to the Reader’s Club, including the current month’s club review. If you don’t want to buy the zine, you can still buy a one-off membership to the club with a Basic Membership Package. And if you fill your record book quickly, or just want another, a Renewal Membership Package is available at a reduced price.
Told you I’d been busy ;-). And this is just the tip of the iceberg!
We are currently in the midst of a beautiful Indian Summer here, so in keeping with the summer spirit, I am offering TangleClub members a slightly out-of-season Leftover Lavender cross stitch project, designed to use up the leftovers from your lavender harvest as well as your leftover off-cuts of embroidery threads. This pattern is from a revised reprint of one of my first mini-zines, now available as a TangleClub exclusive e-zine.
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