Make a Mark (on a map) – New Custom Map Markers on Paper Places

Posted on September 15, 2021September 15, 2021 by abigail

Hand holding a place marker in front of a custom Paper Place framed map art

A friend commissioned some custom maps for family members around the holidays last year. He also asked if I could add some sort of indicator of where the family members homes were in each town. This was something I had thought of a few times over the years, but never actually sat down to figure out. This time, I figured it out!

A few months ago, I added the option to include a place marker when you order any Paper Place, or custom Paper Place, from my website. Etsy doesn’t make it easy to add this sort of customization, so this feature is only available here at yeiou.com right now.

Add a Map Marker

Screenshot of website interface to choose Place Marker Style and address.

In order to add a marker to your map, first choose the map you’d like to customize! Once you’re on the product page, scroll down to the “Place Marker Style” option and choose the design you’d like for your marker. Indicate the address of the location you’d like to mark, add the map to your cart, and you’re good to go!

Framed map of Medford, MA with a heart-shaped place marker indicating the location of the customer's home. — Framed map of Medford, MA

This map of Medford, MA was the first map ordered with the new options, and such a great color choice!

Introducing: House Portrait Silhouettes!

Posted on June 17, 2021June 17, 2021 by abigail

Framed house portrait silhouette depicting a three-story duplex home with the label "Arlington, MA" underneath, white and teal artwork in a black frame

I’ve been working behind the scenes for the last year or so to develop a new style of house portrait. Introducing, the House Portrait Silhouette! I’m doing this for a few reasons:

Sometimes simplicity is the best way forward! My 3D House Portraits have only gotten more complex as I’ve fine-tuned my ability to make tinier and tinier details out of paper.
Variety is the spice of life! Each 3D House Portrait takes hours and hours and hours and hours of work, and I find myself craving novelty (and burning out).
I feel bad about taking so long! I know there are folks who’ve been waiting for a chance to order a house portrait for a while, or who might purchase if the timing/pricing were less complicated. House Portrait Silhouettes will have a faster turnaround time, and will be available for purchase at your leisure. No need to set any alarms or rearrange your schedule.

I am still making 3D House Portraits! I’m catching up on my queue and fitting in a few projects for family this summer. I will reopen orders later in the summer / early fall of 2021. As always, the best way to stay informed of all house portrait details is to make sure you’re on my email list.

Framed custom house silhouette depicting a 2-story house with double garage, front porch, and sidelights around the front door

The Details

Your House Portrait Silhouette begins with a clear photograph of the home or building you’d like me to work with. I then carefully trace the outline of the structure. I draw in details like windows, doors, shutters, and other architectural elements that help describe the building. After you’ve reviewed the drawing and chosen a background color (there are 38 to choose from!) I will turn my drawing into files for my computerized cutting machine to cut. I use a computerized cutting machine so that everything is super accurate. My machine can cut straight lines, smooth curves, and beautiful details! With cut pieces in hand, I attach the detail pieces to the background, carefully lining things up to match the photograph, then frame it up and ship it to your door.

House Portrait Silhouettes are:

11″ x 14″ and arrive framed and ready to display
Available in your choice of 38 background colors
One layer of paper in the foreground depicting the silhouette of your home, one layer of details glued to your background paper
Three rounds of design revisions
$264, including shipping within the U.S.

Simple and Modern

House Portrait Silhouettes are a beautiful, minimalist depiction of the essence of a house. Working from a photograph, I carefully trace the important details to make sure that all of the perspective lines are spot-on. This then allows me to create an image that subtly depicts implied architectural features like the bay window at the front of this Newbury Street house, or the deep front porch of the (above) gray background house with that gorgeous arched attic window.

Shop House Portrait Silhouettes

Make your own Paper Place

Posted on April 20, 2021April 20, 2021 by abigail

Have you ever noticed how places are always an important part of the story? Whether the story is a fairy tale, a fable, or what happened Tuesday afternoon, there’s always a setting. Over time, you collect places that are important to your story, whether that’s a home, a park, a school or campus, an office, a restaurant, a town, a state, a region, a country, or all of the above. My work is about celebrating places, and I love to do that by preserving memories of them with paper – something that is everywhere, and usually so ephemeral and fragile, but cut and sculpted and framed becomes an heirloom.

The video tutorial shows how to use my Make Your Own Map Shadowbox Kit (available for now exclusively through GarrettWade.com), which contains all of the supplies you need to, well, make your own map shadowbox! The kit includes:

Instruction booklet
Shadowbox Frame
Paper for the map cut-out as well as the background
Japanese Woodcarving Knife (for cutting the paper)

You will also need:

A prying tool or old credit card
A pencil or other drawing tool
Optional: collage materials like glue, additional paper colors or textures, photographs, memorabilia

The funny thing about remembering and celebrating places, is that they then become part of the story of the place you are now. If you’d like to share your paper places online, tag @yeioupaperobjects on Instagram, and use #yeioupaperplaces!

The story of yeiou paper places

Posted on April 16, 2021April 16, 2021 by abigail

Three framed paper places on a wall near a potted plant

I started making Paper Places in the summer of 2019. I had already started making house portraits, and realized that I wasn’t going to be able to make enough of them to keep my business afloat. The idea came to me sort of abruptly and at the last minute. It was the night before a craft fair I was participating in nearby in Somerville, MA. I made a few maps of Somerville and some of the surrounding towns, working into the early morning hours the night before the event.

The next morning, I hung them up with my other work to see what would happen!

The yeiou paper objects booth popped up at Art Beat in Somerville, MA — My booth at Art Beat 2019, Davis Square, Somerville, MA.

Throughout the day I had a lot of fun conversations about how weirdly-shaped places are! I sold a few, swapped out some background colors, and generally felt encouraged.

When designing my Paper Places, I focused on making them in a way that felt clean and modern. I designed them to be easy to hang on a wall in a grouping without looking weird. Pulling from the bright color palette of my paper craft kits, I offered a bunch of different color options. Once I had all of that, I focused my efforts on adding new place designs. It turns out there are a LOT of places in the Boston area, let alone the world!

Nine maps of Boston neighborhoods: Back Bay, South End, Mattapan, Roxbury, Brighton, Roslindale, Mission Hill, Jamaica Plain, and Hyde Park — A few of the many neighborhoods of Boston, MA.

Custom Paper Places

I very quickly realized that I could never keep up with all of the requests for new places, nor could I reasonably predict which places people might want! In order to fill that gap, I added the option to order a custom-designed Paper Place! It’s been fun over the years to make gifts for parents, siblings, children, real estate clients, and friends, near and far.

Nov. 2019, one of my last in-person events before Covid lockdown – so many Paper Places!

Welcome to the neighborhood (of little paper houses)

Posted on August 3, 2017February 26, 2023 by abigail

Spruce Land Paper Neighborhood Craft Kit by yeiou paper objects

I launched my little paper villages last spring, and didn’t really have a plan for them. They were an evolution of my generic little paper house design. I was selling them singly or in sets, and people seemed to really like them, and be interested in more variety of design. The first village combined a mini version of my paper barn and animals kit with two pretty basic little houses, and I added three more village designs over the last year and a bit.

I realized a few months ago, though, that calling them “Village Number Two” or “Village Number Three” was not only kinda lame, it meant that as I grow my product line I have to decide whether to just increment the numbers, or replace the existing #1 with a new design….it felt confusing just thinking about it!

So, I sat down with my chief strategy advisors a.k.a. my husband, Brian, and our cat, Bash:

Brian had the brilliant idea to name each kit after different trees that grow in the New England region. It seemed fitting to name these paper products after the plant they come from. Bash just knocked things on the floor. He was definitely less helpful.

We landed on tree-themed street names, specifically. The neighborhood I grew up in had a mix of trees and states for street names, so it reminds me of my home town, but lets you also imagine your own neighborhood around these kits.

The original village kit is now “Spruce Lane”, a nod to the less-saturated colors and cooler feeling:

“Beech Street” for this kit that feels very New England summer:

“Village #3” became “Willow Road”, a nod to the bright, light, springy feel of this color combination:

Village #4, all decked out in heart-shaped windows, is now “Pine Drive”:

These little neighborhoods are also begging to be made into a map, so stay tuned for that – just have to figure out what to call it! Yeiouville? The Village of Yeiou? Yeioutown? Let me know if you have a brilliant idea!

Free Printable Gift Tags

Posted on December 22, 2015November 30, 2020 by abigail

an origami bird on top of a wrapped present

I’m sharing the holiday spirit this year in the form of a free printable! My favorite part of the Christmas season is that it gives me a reason/excuse to make, buy, and find gifts for all of the people around me. This year, that includes you! This printable includes 6 different gift tags in various geometric shapes. I created two different colorways of this abstract geometric pattern that’s based on a design I doodle when I’m bored.

I’ve shown the tags on plain brown kraft paper, and they do a good job of dressing up simple wrapping, but they would also work with your favorite patterned wrapping paper, if you’re a pattern-on-pattern sort of person. I think they’d look great with polka dots, stripes, or even a snowflake or evergreen sort of pattern. If you use these gift tags for your holiday wrapping, I’d love to see how they turn out! Tag me on Instagram @yeioupaperobjects or send me an email!

Category: New Products