Cutting Paper

Lately I have had this fascination of 'papercuts'. These papercuts are single pieces of paper that have a design cut into it and make a "picture". This has been around for centuries in different countries such as China and Mexico and modern artists have put some really unique spins on the art of papercutting and I completely LOVE IT. Another reason why I like them so much is that they remind me of a one color block print... with a catch. In order to keep the design held completely together everything has to be touching... there can't be any "floating" images or it won't be connected and part of the whole design. Well, this instantly intrigued me and I felt challenged and unbelievably inspired. Here are a few paper cuts from Etsy to give an idea of what I am talking about. Click on the picture of a link to these artist's Etsy sites. Mister Rob is currently my favorite paper cut artist. I think that his designs are really modern and innovative. This one in particular I LOVE.....
...so I used it as a direct inspiration (more accurately: I kinda ripped it off) to make one for my friend, Jess and her man Joe as a thank you for hosting my Chicago trip. I used the same style border and "string" for the letters, but the house is a drawing that I did of their 1st house that they just purchased.

I used an Xacto knife and a piece of black card stock. This is the first one that I have ever done, so it is a little rough around the edges (literally). I was so excited to just jump right in and do it, that I didn't take any precautions against blistering. It took me about 3 hours to cut this out and I ended up giving myself a double blister in the callus region of my middle finger on my right hand. But it was well worth it! :-) And I happened to find a perfect glass sandwich frame that matched their living room furniture!


Blisters aside, I can't wait to do another!!!!

And.... I am back.

I am back from Chicago!!!! I would like to say that I am refreshed, relaxed and ready to tackle the world. Reality: It is still freaking crazy around here. May this year is just insane for me. Hopefully June will be refreshing and relaxing. :-) yeah right!

Here are some of the highlights from Chicago

IKEA: If you live somewhere that has one, then you might not be able to appreciate this. Or you might appreciate this even more. This is the closest Ikea to Kansas City and I was thrilled to go. It was awesome!

We were on our way to Wicker Park, so I decided to look up some "crafty" stores and this was the 1st one we went to and let me tell you.... it was SOOOOO great! I was so in awe that I didn't get any pictures of any part of the store. I will post a picture soon of what I scored.


I go to Chicago (not as often as I would like) to visit my girl, Jess (my old roommate from college) and her man, Joe. The shopping and flat tires are just a bonus. But I couldn't come empty handed so I made these really cute toys for their 2 cats: Spike and Maury. This is a free crochet pattern on Lion Brand.com for sardines in a tin can. Precious. I happen to grow cat nip in my herb garden so I quickly dried some and stuffed it in the sardines... along with little jingle bells :-) They were a big hit!
I have TONS more to post about and not enough time to do it right now, soon though... very soon.

Ahhhh

This is where I am going until Monday. I hope to get a lot of inspiration and even more pictures!