Quote of the Day - 03/09/2012

After the printing press was invented in 1436, paper became affordable to nearly everybody. It took on a variety of uses – paper table coverings instead of fabric tablecloths, edgings for shelves, paper dolls, makeshift curtains, even Christmas tree ornaments. The Victorians really immersed themselves in the paper craze. As photography had not yet been invented, they cut out silhouettes of each other that functioned as pictures. Paper doilies became extremely common. - Emilie Barnes in The Twelve Teas of Christmas

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These days - the amount of paper in our house is actually decreasing. We read more books and magazines electronically. Books we only need to read once have been sold or given away. We read news online rather than in a newspaper. There are still lots of catalogs that come in the mail but maybe not quite as many as several years ago; they are the bulk of the recycled paper. We don’t print documents we are working on very often - sometimes they only exist in electronic form.

What about those other uses of paper? Haven’t we all made paper ‘snowflakes’ or cut hearts at valentines? Or folded paper to make an origami swan or geometric shape? For a look at elaborate stories cut in paper - watch the Béatrice Coron: Stories cut from paper TED talk video.