Prompts · Ephemera-led
Palette Prompt: Faded Rose
Build a spread from four fixed hex values — #D9A5A0, #D8B15B, #8FA3B0, #E8DCC8 — with no pure white and no pure black anywhere on the page.
On the desk today updated 13 October 2026
Prompts · Ephemera-led
Spreads · Ephemera-led
Travel Receipt Confetti Spread
Forty small receipts cut into confetti-sized pieces and scattered, then selectively glued — 14 fixed, 26 left loose under a stitched acetate window.
Supply notes · Ephemera-led
Distress Ink vs Watercolour Wash
Both make paper look old. One sits on the surface and never moves again; the other soaks in and keeps moving for twenty minutes. Choosing the wrong one is how a spread ends up warped.
Spreads · Minimal
White Space: One Clipping, One Word
One magazine clipping at 38 mm, one cut-out word at 11 mm, and 89% of the page left empty. A five-minute spread that is far harder than it sounds.
Spreads · Layered
Vellum Overlay Spread
A sheet of 112 gsm vellum laid over a dense collage hides about 60% of it and reveals the rest as a soft shape — the cheapest way to make a busy page look considered.
Supply notes · Minimal
Kraft Cardstock GSM Guide
Weighing twelve sheets sold as kraft and finding that the nominal weight was wrong on five of them — by as much as 31%. What that means for hinges, pockets and page bulk.
Prompts · Layered
Exactly Seven Layers
Count every layer, including the base. Seven total, no more and no fewer, and the seventh must be something you would normally throw away.
Spreads · Ephemera-led
Seed Packet Ephemera Spread
Eight empty seed packets arranged by sowing month rather than by colour — the page becomes a planting calendar you can read at a glance without a single word of annotation.
Spreads · Layered
Masking Tape Grid Spread
A hand-laid grid of masking tape divides the page into nine unequal cells, each holding one scrap — and the tape stays visible as the structure instead of being hidden under the paper.
Supply notes · Layered
Tape Runner Adhesion Test
Four tape runners on six surfaces, pulled at 90 degrees with a luggage scale. The strongest runner is not the one that holds best — it is the one that fails at the highest load without tearing the paper.
Prompts · Ephemera-led
Use Only Found Paper
For one spread, nothing may come from a shop. Everything must be paper that would otherwise have been thrown away, and it must be recognisable as what it was.
Spreads · Minimal
Two-Colour Minimal Spread
One spread, two colours, five elements. The discipline is not in removing things but in refusing to add a third tone when the page feels empty.
Supply notes · Layered
Glue Stick Showdown: Three Adhesives
A washable school stick, an acid-free archival stick and a repositionable stick, tested on five paper types over 72 hours for curl, bleed-through and whether the bond survives a humidity swing.
Prompts · Minimal
Ten Minutes, One Colour
A timer, one colour family and a rule against undoing anything. The point is not the page you make in ten minutes — it is finding out which decisions you make twice.
Spreads · Ephemera-led
Museum Ticket Ephemera Wash
Six ticket stubs and one folded gallery map, unified with a dilute acrylic wash that pulls seven different paper tones into one family without hiding a single printed word.
Supply notes · Layered
Rice Paper vs Tissue: The Tear Test
Six decorative papers torn by hand, by steel rule and by a wet brush line. Two of them tear in a straight line every time; the other four need water if you want a controlled edge.
Spreads · Layered
Ticket Stub Layer Cake
Eleven ticket stubs from one summer stacked in a single column, each one 4 mm shorter than the one beneath it so the whole pile still closes flat in a 200 gsm notebook.
What is filed where
| Family | On the desk | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Spreads | 8 | A finished page, taken apart layer by layer — what went down first, what sits on top, and why the pile still lies flat. |
| Supply notes | 5 | Bench tests on paper, adhesive and ink. Grams per square metre, dry times, what curls and what does not. |
| Prompts | 4 | A constraint you can finish in one sitting. Rules first, freedom second. |