Author: paperbee.n

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I am the King and the Pope. Donald Trump singing a song.

Trump

Not all of our paintings have live content on YouTube, but we hope to change that.

Current events force everybody to have their point of view. Here with a humorous side. We publish it because we all deserve a few-second break from the constant stream of messages about the coming doom. Nobody should be surprised if you remember the “First Coming” and the unsuccessful attempt to raise our Health Insurance costs by $14,000 per person per year by killing Obamacare without a replacement plan. Luckily, John McCain saved the GOP from itself. Unfortunately, he is gone….

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St Nick singing about Tariffs girls and boys will pay for their toys

Angel backround with santas

Depicted in one of our pop-up cards, St. Nick decided to show his skills in the pop-up songs. As of today, his message is quite relevant. Especially when the Grinch is trying to expand his powers. Only 1-2 dolls per girl are OK for Grinch? Even if you will decide not to see our St. Nick in person, still you can send a link to this short video to your friends to pop up a smile during this rather dark times.

 

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Requiem for the Lady / Painting “Dissolving in Covid-19”

Covid 19 flowing ins

“Floating through the Covid”  Everybody remembers the feeling of hanging in space without ends and borders. Waiting for the time to end during COVID-19, I painted the Lady Hanging in the air. Dissolving in the COVID-19.

And Now she is gone. Olivia took her home. I still remember my dream which prompted me to create the image. The floating around time I spend to create it in the best form I can. And now all my effort in creating is in possession of Olivia hands. I hope they are going to be happy together. As a creator, as a parent, I understand that our kids must grow and be on their own. But….

By, By, The Covid lady.

Jacek

 

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Kisses from the Sky – song by Angel-pop-up card

The pop-up angel. Design by Jacek

Our Angel-pop-up card decided to sing.

  • No one could stop her, so here she is.
  • In this world of morbid events we experience lately, we hope it will bring a smile to your face.
  • You may E-Mail the link to your VALENTINE.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWfsDpliw5w]

Kisses from the Sky    (Song by pop up card: Angel)

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I love pop up cards. Your Christmas Card may pay you well.

Christmas pop up card

I love pop-up cards. My long-time love of paper started in grammar school, where in a school competition I won first prize for a paper steam engine. I loved my creation so much that I refused to let it out of my hands to submit it to a between-schools competition.

December is the time we can see collections of flat Christmas Cards posted all over the offices.

  • I never asked what is happening to this display after Christmastime is over. Mostly, this is a missed opportunity to keep your name up in the front of your client’s eyes.
  • Nobody keeps them, and there is no reason to do that.
  • The usual Flat generic cards with simple messages and very simple designs are not exactly eye and heart catchers.

Stand-alone kind of Pop-up cards tends to stay displayed as a handy decoration or remainder

Smart Marketers know well that 3-dimensional mail has an unusually high up to 25 to 50% response rate, and that’s why smart companies like graphics3inc  are selling pop-ups almost exclusively to business customers.

Every few years they refresh their existing contraptions with new graphics and with a limited number of designs they serve their customers for more than 20 years. You can grab some of their designs right away from their website.

Their designs are powered up with rubber bands. We decided not to use rubber bands.

If you like something original, there is our option. Contact us with your requirements, and we will provide an original design with original art and higher impact than any generics, Our unique pop-up cards designs pops-up under gravitation force. The weight of paper they are assembled from.

Pop-up cards

1. Grabs authentic attention.

2. Create an instant positive impact.

3. Have very high response rates.

4. They leave a lasting impression.

For generic 3D cards, the response rate can vary from 2-4% or higher for retention campaigns.   I have heard about higher rates, but of course it depends on the quality of your mailing lists, industry, and your offer. Successful flat mail have 0.5%-2% response rate.

In our personal experience, flat cards are easily lost in a stack of paper and after the initial encounter the recipient no longer pays attention to them.

3 D pop-up cards get more attention, but it depends on design quality and size. The big sized are disposed of quickly since, due to their space requirement, they are viewed as a problem.

Smaller pop-up greeting cards have better luck, unless they are required to be held open in the recipient’s hands or the design is of poor quality.   That’s why Graphics3D rubber band open cards and SmartPaperCuts.com gravitational force cards are my favorite.

By the way. Have you met our St. Nick?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wLyXZ_8SxI]

 

 

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Smart paper cuts. Vojtech Kubasta Pop-up books in Florida, Fort Lauderdale museum.

Cinderella (snipped)
A Christmas Tale
A Christmas Tale pop-up book by Vojtech Kubasta

When my wife and kids enjoyed the warm beaches during our annual Florida vacation, an active person like me scouted for the unusual and beautiful, found in the local museum’s collection of pop-up books by Vojtěch Kubašta. The paper “Umelec”(Artist In the Czech language) puts the old-world’s overwhelming charm into the pop-up world. In Florida, unexpectedly, I was back in Prague still remembering the charm of the Old City. The antiquarium where I was buying the 19th century, old human anatomy books with wonderfully illustrated pop-up cut out of organs you can move to see the next layer of the human body. The “Wlasky salad” and “housky” buns I bought in the neighborhood store every morning.

Vojtech Kubasta was able to transfer the charm of the old-world into the pages of his books. For me, it was a sudden transfer into the charming and long-forgotten world.

The language I was able to master enough to start reading books in Czech quickly. Places where everybody wishes you a good day, regardless of if you know anybody there. The strange way the coffee is served and people keep utensils when they are eating. During the fall, the dark sweet cherries I was eating sat among the branches of huge cheery trees in an old palace park—the dark memory of the day I had to leave this newly discovered and charming world behind. After so many years, it still hurts.

Hej, wake up. I have heard the voice of my wife. The curator of the Fort Lauderdale museum asked about the Vojtech Kubasta books’ collection and agreed to show to us, my family, the treasures in his possession. I wish you the same experience.

But please do not go to Prague for the beer-drinking trip. Lucky I was able to enjoy the old city before the era of tourist invasion. There were still old antique cars on the streets, dark cities after sunset, and beer number 10 showing without question automatically up front of every new guest in the local “Wycep” (Pub).

And there was the Soviet Army stationed in some places. My like uniform, denim red dress purchased in Poland, along with an army-style coat, apparently looked like the Royal Canadian Mounties uniform, so soviet soldiers saluted me in the street. I could not believe it. They salute a guy in a strange uniform with very long red hair. Me. The exact opposite of their dull uniforms and depressing ideology.

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The end of the Reign of the Ring Binder. Ringless Binder is born.

Cat 2 video gif

 Friedrich Soennecken inventor of the Ring Binder should certainly wake up from his well-deserved final rest knowing that finally there is something/ somebody good enough to challenge his invention “Ring-binder” 133 years long reign in every office on the earth.

  • To my surprise, the new solution comes not in form of a complicated mechanism but as a single, flexible sheet of material cut a certain way. All rings and metal parts are eliminated. And it works.
  • There is no sticking-out spine always taking the same space on the shelf even if empty. The New Ring-Less Binder is flexible and quite pleasant to handle, the same as the rest of this new family serving the same binding functions.

  • The Challenger says he has ambitions to improve range of products currently on the market. Eliminating the Rings, Spines, prongs etc. His solution simply is simpler. It means less expensive. It means Not welcomed by competition.

This is not the first time the Reign of the Ring is challenged. There are numerous challenges to its rule sponsored by many companies. None of them were successful, lingering on the fringe of the Office market mostly due to the fact that they introduce their own sets of problems.

In the U.S. there is an additional problem with the office market dominated by very few big players. Players with immense financial resources not taking any risks when it comes to the introduction of a product competing with their well-established offerings.

To make things more palatable for inventors the 2011 Leahy–Smith America Invents Act effectively makes U.S. patents worthless and unenforceable by a small player not having financial resources to finance legal challenges.

  • Leahy-Smith’s act (2011 America Invention act) sponsored by Big Tech effectively enables “Efficient Infringement” practiced by already established companies barring entry to the market for eventual startups/competition. Introduced by this legislation PTAB (Patent Trial and Appeal Board ) enjoys well-deserved fame as a ” Patent killing squad” invalidating by own admission 84% of all challenged patents. The effect: Invention exodus to more promising lands already caught politicians’ attention in Congress. 
  • So far, there is no real action to fix things except proposed bills released with misleading titles and preambles and opposite in effect, the rest of the text. Under “Save The Inventor”false flag trying to cement the current situation, benefiting no one except the BIG TECH.
Ring binder
Empty Ring binders. Please notice the space needed to store even the empty one.

If we add the long string of anti-patent rulings by the US Supreme Court, there is no wonder why the US public do not see the latest fruits of technological development we can easily spot in other countries. To learn more about the plight of US inventors please check https://innovationgadfly.com/ & https://usinventor.org/

5 Ring-Less binders by Alfac.us
Ring vs Ring-less
compare Ring-Less with empty Ring binder

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Allen and Patty Eckman Paper Sculptures

Papercraft 1

Among the unusual and beautiful Allen and Patty Eckman paper art is in one of the top places.

I was looking for some small sculptures, examples of western art. I stumbled on a striking image showing an Indian boy.

A long time ago,I became a wannabe in this western art field, trying to promote glass Christmas ornaments with western subjects.

  • I was able to sell only glass “Prairie schooners”, Cowboys and their maidens and Stagecoaches, but never any Indian subjects.  
  • Later on, I realized that the reason is well embedded in the American psyche.
  • The deep wounds are still dividing society, more than 100 years after the carnage.
  • It makes native inhabitants unable to accept anything from outside as part of the still-ongoing invasion and, on the other hand, deep denial of the historical facts, denial of the facts of the real and brutal history, and inability to reconcile.

As a naive newcomer, I never realized the deep scars of the American psyche trying to promote a naive propagandistic view of US history.

Authentic art from both sides is the only acceptable line of communication. That’s why we buy Indian jewelry on the side of a highway in Arizona or pottery in South Dakota and that is why I am searching for authentic western art.

It brings certain unspoken truths. If you have a minute, I think you should take a look at their website: https://eckmanfineart.com


 

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Smart paper cuts. The pop-up greeting cards among us.

Animated dragon image 0164

It seems, during the last few years, everybody gets infected with the idea of pop-chinese dragon popupup greeting cards.

  • Several companies started producing (in China & Vietnam) a bunch of pop-ups. Unfortunately, it is virtually impossible to distinguish one “original” design from another offered by the competition.
  • The reason is that labor, especially labor of skilled and able to produce original artwork paper engineer is time-consuming and quite expensive, and there are so few really creative people around.
  • It Is easier to grab already made Chinese designs. In effect, most offered pop-ups are generic, and in my humble opinion simply “Boring.”
  • Looking at the flurry of colors and forms first is hard to catch the obvious, but after a while, it becomes apparent stopping us in our quest to find something unique for our valentines. 
  • The flood of mass-produced pop-ups is especially visible when we search for pop-up cards on the internet. There is the sea of Chinese-style trees, and over-sweetened and drowning in ornaments paper flowers, castles, hearts, motorcycles, paper steam locomotives, and Chinese dragons. Ourselves we received an email (through our Etsy shop) from a Vietnamese company offering its services but having the desire to offer only unique and beautiful of course we declined.  Please check a short list of cards we like.I will show you the true gems of the paper word invisible in the flood of the run of the mill.

 

 

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Pop up Christmas Tree, For you…. and ME

#44 christmas tree 10secas gif

The Christmas tree

Invisible to the viewer’s eye, this tree is equipped with a string. Arrives flat in an envelope, and when removed and the string is pulled, the tree changes from 2D to 3DPaper Christmas Tree. The ingenious design allows this tree to serve as a standing pop-up or hanging paper Christmas Ornament. Thanks to our designer’s efforts, regardless of space or place, everybody can have a miniature Tree. Let us know if you like to see a subject close to your heart translated into a 3Dimensional paper sculpture. PaperBee.net

 

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Graphics3inc.com, Florida and it’s original pop-ups

Santa by Graphics3ink
Santa Space-Xmas Rocketship’
Santa Space-Xmas Rocketship by Graphics3inc

Years ago, during my annual vacation in Florida, when my family enjoyed the beach, usually I drove around finding interesting things.

One of my trips ended in Jupiter FL. As I discovered at the time, there was a company, Graphics3, producing original (rubber band-powered) pop-up greeting cards.

When I entered the building, there were pallets of huge paper sheets printed with images and ready to cut.

The pleasant crew quickly showed me around. Unfortunately, regardless of my fascination, they were not impressed by my idea to allow me to sell their product.

They specialize in selling Christmas cards to businesses, as you can see on their website. I was so impressed by the quality of their ART. Looking for a product able to replace those lost in the carnage of 2008, my Luna Moth Christmas Ornaments company.

  • Their cards became my inspiration. It was my starting point to try to develop my own pop-up card designs.
  • First, I was only trying to avoid the deteriorating after a year or two rubber bands powering their pop-ups. After some attempts, I was able to come out with an original card not glued but assembled from interconnecting, free moving parts opening itself under pure gravitation force, under the weight of paper the card is made from.
  • Pressed by other activities, first I kept this project on the slow burner, promising myself to go back to this project. Since the gravitation cards are quite interesting and their development aligns with my other invention, I think now is the time to add some more to this pop-up collection.
  • I urge the reader not to settle on the popular “trellis” construction made in China/Vietnam cards but strive to find something higher quality like the Graphics3inc.com cards I here recommend.

You may enjoy our automatic self-opening popups on the paperbee.net pages.

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My favorite maker of Popup Cards

Popnrock sample lrg

Are you looking for a neat gift to send to your friends? A company in Great Britain, “SANTORO” developed some quite nice 3-dimensional sculptures made, of course, from Paper. “Swing cards,” “Baubles,” “Piroquettes,” etc. What unusual is the number of new challenging types of construction they attempt to offer to their clients, A gift and card in one? You may be sure that your pop-up gift is not going bo tossed away right after Christmas time. Even better, they may survive the carnage of the coming months and show as decorations on your friend’s Christmas Tree next year.