Favourite Zine Series #1: Sugar Paper

This is a guest post written by Caitlin Beth.  Caitlin is a feminist, zinester, ukelele player, and amateur music journalist.  

You’d pretty much have to be living under a rock these days to not have noticed a massive resurgence in crafts. Whether this is a feminist issue or not is another discussion for another time, but there is no denying that what was once seen as traditional pursuits, like knitting and baking, are all the rage these days, with both women and men. Riding the crest of this wave is the wonderful craft zine, Sugar Paper.

Every issue of the zine sees its two writers, Kandy and Seleena, set out 20 make and do projects that can be tackled by absolutely anyone with a minimum of cost. Sugar Paper makes it outrageously easy for anyone to give the various projects a go, and the way the zine is written makes the projects accessible, and makes them seem incredibly easy, which they very often are.

Everything about the Sugar Paper series screams DIY from the covers to the projects themselves. The 20 DIY projects in issue range from anything to knitting a scarf, baking a cake that looks like a burger, encouraging readers to vote, and even dance routines! Most of the issues come with free gifts too, making it even easier to get involved.

The format and the design of the zines are delightfully kitsch and retro, reminiscent of the old-school girls magazines that many of us grew up with, with the content being colourful, fun, and irreverent. The cover is always drawn by a guest illustrator, giving each issue a fresh feeling.  Many of the projects are written by guest writers too, making this a collaborative zine effort.

On Kandy and Seleena’s BigCartel store, you can buy all 9 issues of Sugar Paper, and the girls have also very kindly put together craft kits to buy too, with kits dedicated to cross-stitch and knitting, amongst others. You can also find the girls at the Sugar Paper blog, a blog just as delightful as their zine, which chronicles the pair’s adventures, as well as offering all sorts of crafty and arty inspiration.

Sugar Paper is the ideal zine to pick up if, like me, you love picking up knowledge and learning stuff from your zines. For someone as craft-phobic as I previously was, this has definitely passed on the bug. The girls recently contributed to the wonderful State of Craft book too, which is also really fantastic if Sugar Paper has whet your appetite for making and doing. The 9^th issue of the zine has just been released, and is available to purchase right now on the Sugar Paper store: sugarpaper.bigcartel.com. The Sugar Paper blog can be found at www.sugarpapergang.blogspot.com.