Paper Leaf

Three WordPress security releases landed within four weeks this summer, and several of our clients asked us the same question: is this getting worse, and should we be worried about the platform our site is built on?

The short answer is no. WordPress isn't riskier, but things have changed, and the maintenance plans we suggest to our clients have changed too.

In our latest blog post, Matt Graham, Development Manager at Paper Leaf, covers what happened, the questions you probably have, and how to move forward:

How this Summer's WordPress Incidents Tell Us What Comes Next - Paper Leaf AI is speeding up how fast vulnerabilities are found and exploited. Here's why that doesn't make WordPress riskier... and what to do about it.

From six websites to one.

That's what we built for Daytona Homes (a Tacada brand) — consolidating six regional sites into a single Statamic multisite with centralized content, shared templates, and HubSpot-integrated lead tracking.

The results speak for themselves:
- 82% increase in active & new users (259K combined users over 3 months).
- 64% increase in organic search traffic since 2023.
- 6 sites streamlined into 1 scalable platform, with one admin login and no more duplicated work.

Read the full case study here:

From Six Sites to One: How Daytona Homes Built a Unified Digital Experience How we helped unify 6 regional websites into one scalable, branded platform—improving governance, consistency, and user experience.

Big things happening under Calgary's blue skies ☀️

Whether you're planning a leisure trip or your next big event, Tourism Calgary has a brand new home built to serve you. With a handy toggle in the main navigation, audiences can switch into content built specifically for them.

New platform, simplified navigation, real-time CRM sync, and a mobile-first build made for how people actually plan and explore trips.

The result: traffic up 163% and a Gold AVA Digital Award for website design and UX.

Full story here:

Bringing the Blue Sky City to Life Online: A New Website for Tourism Calgary Paper Leaf partnered with Tourism Calgary to redesign the Visit Calgary website, earning a 2026 Gold AVA Digital Award.

Exciting news at Paper Leaf: Drew McQuarrie is now our Emerging Technology Specialist. 🎉

In this role, Drew evaluates emerging tools and technologies, advises clients on where AI fits (and where it doesn't) in their digital strategy, and helps our internal teams stay current as the landscape shifts.

Drew's spent the last 7 years with us as a Developer and then Development Manager, so this new role is a natural evolution.

We sat down with Drew to answer the top 5 questions we hear most from clients about AI and digital strategy. Get to know Drew and read the blog here:

Introducing Drew, Our New Emerging Technology Strategist We're excited to introduce a new dedicated role: Drew McQuarrie, Paper Leaf's Emerging Technology Strategist. In this new role, Drew evaluates emerging tools and technologies, advises clients on where AI fits (and where it doesn’t) in their digital strategy, and helps our internal teams stay curre...

10 years ago, one of our developers wrote a tool to solve an content migration problem. Then he wrote a blog post about it. People still read that post. People still star that GitHub repo.

So we asked him: "hey, how would you build this today, with AI in the mix?"

Turns out the old approach still holds up — but the "effort to update this" math looks completely different now. A lunch hour, a couple of prompts with Claude, and a decade-old internal tool got a CLI interface, no more jQuery, and a config file that doesn't need a find-and-replace every time you use it.

This one is for the developers out there. Devon breaks down what AI actually did, what it got wrong, and why "AI saved us 15 hours!" isn't really the takeaway here.

Read it here 👉

Blog: Using AI to Modernize Internal Tooling How we'd solve a similar problem from 10 years ago today, using AI to modernize our internal tooling. Ten years ago we built an internal tool to solve a content migration problem. Here's how we used AI to modernize it — and what AI did (and didn't) do.

We've worked on a lot of meaningful projects. But ARCQEtivity might just be the cutest.

ARCQEtivity is a parent resource platform for Alberta Resource Centre for Quality Enhancement — guided at-home activities to support early childhood development, with a dashboard tree that grows new leaves as activities are completed, illustrated cards, custom child profiles, and a separate educator interface for child care staff.

It's delightful to use, thoughtfully built, and won a 2025 Platinum AVA Digital Award.

Read the case study:

ARCQEtivity Website Case Study | Paper Leaf Built for parents and guardians, ARCQEtivity gives families access to guided, at-home activities that support early childhood development.

Running programs across a growing network of early learning facilities means a lot of moving pieces — and a lot of data to keep organized.

For Alberta Resource Centre for Quality Enhancement, that meant time-consuming manual reporting and inconsistent workflows across teams. We helped consolidate everything into one portal — bringing program management, reporting, and coordination into a single place, so staff could spend less time compiling data and information was more accurate and accessible.

At the same time, we refreshed their public-facing website to better support event integration, registration, and content management, giving the organization a more modern digital presence.

Read the full case study of how we did it here:

ARCQE Website & Portal Case Study | Paper Leaf This case study covers two projects for ARCQE: a public website redesign and an internal portal built to support their day-to-day operations.

What does being a client in a software project actually involve? What do you need to bring to the table? How often are you in meetings? When do you need to make decisions? What can slow things down?

We broke it down: from discovery through UAT, what you're doing, when you're needed, and what to expect at each stage.

Your role as a Client in a Software Project Your involvement is one of the biggest factors in whether a software project succeeds. Here's a phase-by-phase breakdown of what to expect.

Grant funding is a big deal, but it can also come with some unknowns and strict requirements.

Timelines are fixed. Reporting is real. And sometimes you need to move before everything is fully figured out.

We've been there with a lot of our clients — non-profits, public sector teams, growing tech companies — and we've picked up a thing or two about making grant-funded projects actually work.

Our latest blog covers all of this from someone who has seen her fair share of grant-funded projects — Catherine Plante, our Business Development Lead.

Whether you've just secured a grant or you're still exploring your options, hope there's something useful in here for you. 👇

Making the Most of Grant Funding Grant funded projects aren’t always straightforward. Learn how we can help you navigate grant parameters for technology development.

We're proud to be a sponsor of Upper Bound 2026 — one of Canada's premier AI conferences.

We work with organizations navigating the fast-moving world of AI and emerging technology, helping teams cut through the noise, identify real opportunities, and build practical solutions that drive meaningful results. Upper Bound is exactly the kind of space where important conversations happen, connecting with thinkers, builders, and decision-makers shaping the future of AI. We're excited to be part of it.

If you're attending, we'd love to connect.

Amii - Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute