The founder of five businesses devoted to art and commerce, ReadyMade‘s Grace Hawthorne is close to realizing another creative idea—a series of toys called Paper Punk. With 12 days left of her Kickstarter campaign, Hawthorne is just a few dollars short of her goal to raise $15,000 for Paper Punk production. Inspired by the level of excitement people exude when working with their hands, the industrious publisher and professor hopes Paper Punk will empower both kids and adults to exercise their creative mind with this little DIY design toy.

Packed flat, with a few folds the paper kits transform into 3D geometric blocks, which you can then use to build toys spanning snakes to birthday cakes. Starting with just a handful of designs called Singles, Hawthorne aims to expand this simple concept to include free shapes online, a sturdier version for small kids and a charitable component for public school art programs.

Each of the three initial kits—Pup, Bot and Ride—come with a set of “punch-n-build” shapes, a plethora of stickers and adhesives, straightforward instructions and a reusable folder to store all of the fun. The DIY toys will retail for $19, but Kickstarter pledges of $20 or more will get you a kit and help make Hawthorne’s project possible.

As found from at Coolhunting.com

Awards organiser Kirsten Kilmister, says “it’s great to see so much interest from those who have never entered before.”

Some of the previous category winners are planning to enter again, following the lead of others who have re-entered to test the improvements they made and strive for the Business of the Year title.

The Past Masters category has already attracted a couple of previous major winners. *This* category is for previous ‘Business of the Year’ Award Winners that have shown the most significant improvements in the manner in which their business has developed since their top award was made. There are only 16 businesses eligible and some of them no longer exist.

Businesses that have registered their interest are using the awards-provided Entry Coordinator, Jeff Smith of Boost Business for advice and assistance in completing the documentation for the entry process.
Stuart Allen, from Allen Paper Ltd, Winner of the Small Business of the Year Excellence Awards 2010, says “entering the Awards allowed us to take a moment as a team to step back from the day to day hustle and bustle of our business and collect our thoughts and information from our business. This work became our entry which in turn has become a guide to our business.”

Tim Gibbs of last year’s* *Regional Branding & Promotion* *winner, Te Horo Foods, says “Jeff Smith, the entry coordinator, made the process a breeze and we gained some useful insights into our business from spending time on the business rather than on it.”

Entries for the 2011 Electra Kapiti Horowhenua Business Awards close on 11thJuly.