Paper Source holiday planning takes place amidst the heat of summer, and now that we have fallen into autumn it’s time to turn our heads to hiring for the 2012 Holiday Season. Our associates – permanent and seasonal – make the Paper Source holiday experience come alive.

Who wouldn’t want to create holiday buzz around the great product and paper that lives in our stores?

As a former Training Store Manager, and now Recruiting Coordinator with Paper Source, the anticipation of the season begins with assessing my team and planning who I need to hire to support a fun, successful holiday. I remember one of my years as Store Manager… My management team and I were getting excited about the holidays in early September and asked one of our customers, who was pulling together a fun project with her friend, “What are you doing for the holiday season this year?!”

As it turned out she was moving to the Chicago area in the next month and would be looking for work. The customer came in the following day for an in-person interview and impressed us with her positive energy, creativity and flexible availability – a professional background as sales manager for a local boutique in her hometown and obvious affinity for her recent Paper Source shopping experience was also a plus. We hired her the next day and had a successful season working together. And, after holiday, our store experienced some shifting, so she stayed on and grew with us after the season concluded.

This holiday season we are committed to educating and inspiring people to indulge in doing something creative — anything from holiday cards to searching for the perfect gift or finding a beautiful gift wrap presentation to engaging customers in a demo, workshop or private party. If this sounds like you or someone you know, Paper Source is beginning to seek seasonal associates and will be conducting interviews with interested candidates this month.

If you are someone who is excited about sharing the holiday spirit, has a passion for the Paper Source culture and product, possess flexible availability to work part-time hours in a busy retail store, and has a selling and service background, we would love for you to consider a Seasonal Associate position with Paper Source. Feel free to stop in your local Paper Source store and pick up an application or apply online at: www.paper-source.com/careers

Happy Crafting! Happy (Upcoming) Holidays!

-Leah, Paper Source Recruiting Coordinator

Favorite PS colors: curry & fuchsia
Latest Fave: My Paper Source Career

Last week, Paper Source store locations used the Silhouette CAMEO Electronic Cutting Tool to create vintage-inspired subway art posters. Teams were provided with a list of phrases and words and were instructed to maintain a red, white, and blue color order from top to bottom.

Check out nearly 40 inventive store window concepts, like this one, on Pinterest! We invite you to pin or like your favorite patriotic poster concept. A winner will be named on July 4th.

Cheers to your red, white and blue inspiration!

Big Apple, Times Square, Central Park, Broadway, Saturday Night Live, Woody Allen, Alicia Keys and Jay-Z?… whatever comes to mind it’s safe to say we have an Empire State of Mind.

Photograph by Levi Brown for New York Magazine

Nothing captures our enthusiasm more than this paper creation by New York Magazine.

Now, the doors are officially open at our first Manhattan Paper Source location and we look forward to inspiring you to Do Something Creative Every Day. Visit our SoHo location for epic ideas (like the Empire State creation above) or simple gifts and crafts.

SoHo Paper Source
83 Spring Street
New York, New York 10012
for store information, visit us online

And, in a few days a SoHo sister store will open in the Upper West Side.

Upper West Side Paper Source
309 Columbus Avenue
New York, New York 10023
for store information, visit us online

So, in addition to your daily commute or your tourist stops, you can also walk the aisles of our stores to find inspiration that perfectly compliments the bright lights, history, art and architecture of New York City. For those who are unable to join us in Manhattan, find Big Apple inspiration in our PS Takes Manhattan Pinterest Board.

In grad school I fell in love with the rich colors and layered textures of mono-prints, so you can imagine my thrill when I discovered the Letterpress Machine Combo Kit can recreate these luscious prints. Using the components of the kit, plus a few extra ink colors, rubber stamp resists and accents, I printed on our wonderful collection of papers. It took only a few minutes to create dramatic results!

Learn some of these wonderful techniques at our upcoming workshop.

Mono-Print & Stitched Booklet Workshop
Thursday, August 4th
4 – 6 pm (local time)
Register online or contact your local store

You’ll love the results and the versatility this machine offers for artistic endeavors, not to mention the opportunity to learn how to stitch simple booklets.

–Linda
PS colors: paper bag & persimmon
Latest fave: Academic Great Big Calendar

What’s more fun than barrel of monkeys? Gigantic paper bag monkeys with Paper Source style.

Inspired by the Paper Source Halloween costume contest of 2010 (see image), our store teams started monkeying around with life-sized versions of our Monkey Puppet Kit, dressing windows with hilarious scenes of mischief and mayhem. It hass become a bit of a contest among our associates… so we’d like you to weigh in!

Head over to the Paper Source Facebook Page and check out the monkey business happening at each store location, then vote for your favorite photo using the “like” button. You can lead your favorite to victory by inviting friends and family to join in the fun – It’s a barrel of laughs for all ages!

Winners will be announced on Thursday, June 30th.

Winners update: Congratulations to Bethesda (97 likes), Walnut Street (93 likes) and Carlsbad (51 likes) – Thanks for inspiring us with your monkey business!

Looking for monkey business for the weekend? Check out Saturday’s Family Fun Workshop!

–Hayley, visual director
PS colors: chartreuse & beet
Latest fave: Yuzen Beet Flower Fine Paper

We’re counting down the days to our big DIY celebration (20 to be exact), and we hope to see you at one of our 43 store locations on June 4th. In fact, as a special treat to those who register, we’re giving away one FREE copy of Handmade Weddings – Register by Sunday, May 22nd to be included in our drawing (winner announced on Monday, May 23rd).

What’s even better is our Berkeley store will host Eunice and Sabrina Moyle, coauthors and founders of Hello!Lucky, and our Brooklyn store will be visited by coauthor and stylist Shana Faust. Treats and refreshments will be provided at each store location, along with two hours of inspiring crafts that will transform your special events and parties.

Here’s a peek…

DIY projects like these, and the 50 crafts featured in the pages of Handmade Weddings, will make this an affair to remember. Don’t miss out!

This month we created a class inspired entirely by color. After all, color is what we do so well here at Paper Source! We’ll share simple ideas and techniques to build your foundation, then let you take these ideas to another level through the creative use of color.

Color, Color, Color! Stationery & Favors Workshop
Thursday, May 5, 2011
6 – 8 pm
Click to register.

If you appreciate projects with plenty of room for your own creative voice the Color, Color, Color! Stationery & Favors Workshop is the perfect class for you! From rubber stamping to punching, eyelet setting to watercolor pencil techniques, we’ll make you think about color in a whole new way!

–Linda
PS colors: paper bag & persimmon
Latest fave: Academic Great Big Calendar

The press is going wild for our new gifts and spring crafts, and here’s a look at what’s HOT for Mother’s Day.

In the recent issue of People Magazine, Jessica Alba suggests creating a Mother’s Day scrapbook. According to Alba, “Receiving a keepsake from your child that’s filled with pictures, drawings and poems is priceless!”

To create your own, she recommends our Brown Fabric 12 x 12 Scrapbook or gorgeous Gold Mums Photo Album and our 12 x 12 papers to style the book. Alba listed Flora and Fauna Papaya Flower Circle Paper, Goldfish Paper and Pink Sweet Cupcakes Paper as her latest favs. Mom is sure to love this unique gift, especially if fellow mother Jessica Alba thinks it’s sweet.

Read the rest of this entry »

Video courtesy of Chronicle Books

Authors Eunice and Sabrina Moyle, founders of Hello!Lucky, along with stylist Shana Faust, combined their expertise to create one of our favorite DIY books, Handmade Weddings. To celebrate the bountiful inspiration of this new book and video, we are partnering with Chronicle Books for a special DIY event.

Mark your calendars for Saturday, June 4 from 1:00 – 3:00pm and join us for A Midsummer’s Eve Affair, happening at all Paper Source store locations. Sign up and enjoy making a wonderful collection of make and take projects, while enjoying refreshments and participating in raffles throughout the day.

While we continue to prepare for what will be our biggest event of the year, we wanted to kick start the DIY enthusiasm with a special giveaway. Comment to this post with your best hostess advice or favorite hostess gift and one lucky Paper Source fan will receive a free copy of Handmade Weddings.

The winner will be selected at random on Monday, April 25th.