Paper Mouse Creations Through the Years

Since The Paper Mouse first opened, owners Victor and Jenny have fostered a creative spirit at the shop, from building the furniture by hand to filling the window displays and shelves with origami and hand-lettered signs. Our team has always included artists and creative-minded people that help give The Paper Mouse its character. And from the beginning, we’ve had fun dreaming up products we could make ourselves. 

Our first creations were not the result of a polished product development schedule, but of enthusiastic, playful, spontaneous experimentation. With time and experience, our products have grown to have a more coherent look, but we haven’t lost the spirit of playfulness and fun that has driven us all along. 

Over the years, we have experimented with making a variety of products, from small handmade projects our staff created just for fun to thousand-piece print runs of postcards and stickers.

A Little History

Our first attempts at product creation began in 2018 when we started selling Jenny’s origami creations. Customers fell in love with her tiny origami cranes, miniature gift bags, and delicate crepe paper flowers.

Next came our Raiders of the Lost Art print, by our team’s designer and illustrator, Jean. In 2019 she painted that illustration for a summer camp we hosted at our shop’s event space, and the illustration was so wonderful that it was begging to become an art print. The print was followed by a batch of postcards featuring other sweet mouse characters, and those mice became the basis for the characters Jean is still drawing today.

Our team continued to play with different ideas as the years went on. During the first crazy months of COVID, we came up with a time capsule kit to help people capture a sense of that overwhelming and historic moment. When we were all going stir-crazy the following spring, we created flower and butterfly coloring kits. When we got a Cricut cutting machine in 2021, we had fun designing delicate paper snowflake ornaments for the holidays that customers quickly fell in love with—so we made them for the next three years!

The Life Cycle of a Paper Mouse Product

Today, most of our creations are stationery products like greeting cards, stickers, and washi tape, featuring illustrations by our talented designer and illustrator Jean. Our team pitches in with different product ideas, and Jean distills them into fabulous reality. 

Design

In Jean’s own words, “at least 75 percent of my process consists of procrastination and going on long walks.” When designing a new product, she’ll go to a new environment to help her come up with fresh ideas and inspiration. Once she has some ideas, she does research using image searches and social media to see what else is out there. Then she creates sketches to share with the team, and everyone pitches in with ideas and feedback, going back and forth until we have a rough design that we like.

Illustration

Jean’s first illustrations for the shop were done in watercolor, but these days most of her work is digital. She uses a Wacom tablet and stylus to draw in Photoshop, which lets her move elements around easily. But she still incorporates traditional media in her illustrations—like in an upcoming sticker series she’s working on, where she used fountain pen inks to create colorful backgrounds.

Jean’s illustrations often feature animal characters, most notably a mouse for The Paper Mouse (the shop is named after Jenny, who was born in The Year of the Mouse!). Victor’s favorite animal is a bear, so a bear character also features prominently in her illustrations, along with other woodland creatures from around New England. Over time the characters have evolved their own personalities—like the playful rabbit character, who has become the type to get into a bit of trouble. Jean’s ideas for scenes come from everyday life, like the Snow Day illustration, where she was thinking about going sledding on lunch trays at school.

Production

Once the illustration and layout process is complete, it’s time for production—in some ways the trickiest part of product creation, because it’s out of our control! Over the years, Jenny and Victor have built relationships with different manufacturers to help us create items like notepads, sticky notes, pencils, and more. 

The production process has involved plenty of trial and error: each manufacturer has their own processes and specifications, and translating a digital image into a three-dimensional object is both fascinating and challenging! Sometimes images that look one way on a screen won't print the same way on a particular material, or the type of glue on a sticky note pad won't work as expected. Each time we create a new type of product, we run into something unanticipated—and then it’s back to the drawing board (or tablet) for tweaks and adjustments until we get it right.

What Comes Next?

Our tenth birthday seems to call for something special, so the team is hard at work, dreaming and scheming about what we’ll make next. What Paper Mouse products would you like to see? Let our team know, and maybe your wish will come true!

In the meantime, browse through our full collection of Paper Mouse designs. What’s your favorite?

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