I'm having a Paper Sale on Friday 11 January, 6-9pm and Saturday 12 January, 10am-4pm selling all kinds of beautiful, vintage papers including handmade papers.

I'm obsessed with paper, have been for a long time. Seems like I'm forever looking for weird little stationery shops and completely swooning over Falkiners (now Shepherds) in London and watching countless videos of people all over the world making paper. So when the opportunity came to buy LOTS of paper from the estate of a local artist and printmaker I couldn't resist. But there's more than I could use in a lifetime, unless I was completely wasteful. So I'm looking forward to sharing the paper with all my artist friends.

The paper is rather beautiful - handmade in England and Europe. Cute little stumpy unicorn watermarks and an amazing array of subtle colours. A lot of it is properly handmade, which is different from mouldmade. Handmade means that they did the whole dipping and shaking of the mould and deckle by hand. Mouldmade means that they use a rotating cylinder mould that still gives four deckled edges but has a directional grain. My favourite papers for sale this weekend are the random handmade white and coloured sheets which don't have watermarks but are mysteriously beautiful and asking to become a work of art. A lot of the paper isn't made anymore, the mills have closed long ago or they have mechanised the whole process. Handmade paper becomes more special as it ages. The watercolour papers were sized differently back then and you'll find they are much more resistant to scrubbing and attacking with water than the sheets you can buy nowadays.

Sorry about the long ramble but I thought some of you would like a little bit of backstory. Even if you aren't interested in the paper, do call in - it would be lovely to see you. Consider it a bit of an open weekend. x Vega