Cool 3 Layer Papercut

I saw this video tutorial over on papercutsbyjoe.com. His papercuts are amazing, and he explains how he cut out his portraits. This is my first try. I showed it to Adam, and the first thing he said was, "Who is it?" It's me, by the way. :P There's the photo that I took of myself, then what it looked like after I doctored it, then the final piece!



Papercuts have to tell so much more with their simple lines than a photograph. Children's books use less words than novels, but that just means that each word has to mean something, has to contribute to the story, has to be important. Papercuts help me to look at the world more simply, and to concentrate on what's important.

Finally Some More Papercuts!

I've done several new papercuts, and have posted some on my etsy site. There's a tiger that I sent to Megan for her birthday, a line of sleeping puppies, a couple of meerkats, a German Shepherd, one of my favorites - a kangaroo with wings, and a jaguar which took me forever. Papercuts just seem to make sense to me. I love taking a photo or an idea and transforming it into something that can be cut out in one piece.

Cutting Mats

Ironically, the thing that takes the longest to do is cut the big pieces of mat to the 8x10 size. Not that the actual cutting is what takes the time, it's the time it takes me to summon up the energy to clear the floor, and wrestle with cutting the mats by hand. I have a small guillotine, but it won't help with the big pieces. I have 6 papercuts ready to be mounted, but I haven't sat and gotten them cut. Maybe it's worth an extra trip to somewhere that will cut them for me.

Alphabet Animal Papercuts

Here's three more papercuts I've put on pandagoldfish.etsy.com. I love the simplicity and fine lines of the animals as they rest on the page.
p.s. The okapi papercut sold a couple hours after I posted it this morning!

New Papercuts on Etsy

There are three new papercuts on my etsy site, mounted and ready to go!

Tree Silhouette Papercut

This papercut is based on a picture that I took of this really big, twisty tree. It's about 5"x4", cut completely by hand with an exacto knife on grey cardstock. I will mount it on matboard, then put it up in my shop. It's the first papercut to go up in my shop, the first of many!

Birthday Leaves Papercut

I did this papercut for my dad's birthday last month. It's from cardstock, and my own design. None of the details were too small, so it wasn't terribly difficult to do, but it took a long time. The finished piece is 6"x6", and I mounted it on an 8"x8" piece of off-white matboard.

Latest Papercuts

I'm concentrating more on papercutting, lately. I like it because it's fun, and I can also do it while I'm watching a movie! Here's a few I've done in the last few days.


This one is from origami paper, easy to cut and nice to get small details from. You can also sketch your design on the other side, as it's white.


This one is from an old dictionary page. Somewhat stylized, but that's what makes it fun! Old pages are nice to cut from, too, but you have to be careful because sometimes older paper rips very easily.


This one took a while to do. I did it so I could practice little circles, which are rather hard to get right. I got better towards the end...

Another Cuteable Spotlight!

Woohoo! I've been putting pictures up on cuteable.com's website, and they posted another one of my things! Yay!

A New Sweater Monster Book

This is a new book/sweater monster. I wish that I could sew the head, feet and legs on, but I have to glue them. This is because you put the base layer on and put it in a press, which I couldn't do if the pieces were attached at that point. I am getting better at hand-sewing the headbands.

Miniature Sweater Book

This is a miniature book I made out of handmade paper, linen thread, and a scrap of wool sweater. It's a pendant, and fully functional as a book. You can open it and write!

Crocheted Grapes

This book is rather simple, with a linen bookcloth spine, and a paper grape background. What makes it different is the bunch of grapes that I crocheted and attached to the front cover! You can't put it on the shelf with the rest of your books, so it's more of an art piece, but those are more fun, anyway.

Four More

Here's some more books I've been working on. Click on the fish book! I designed the fish cutout myself.

Some New Books

Here's some new things I've been working on. There's a couple of travel journals, and some pics of a couple of the commission books. I especially like how the tree book came out.

The Book Festival!

I volunteered yesterday at the Utah Humanities Book Festival up at the Salt Lake City Library. It was awesome. I didn't get to take many pictures, but here's a couple of the people making books and prints. That crumpled blue thing is the piece of paper that I tried to make.

Tabs Book

This is a simple little scrapbook, the binding kind of made up as I went along, but based on the coptic stitch. There are drawing pages and cardboard pages, with three tags. It's covered in vintage music sheets.

Autumn Leaves Travel Journals

Here's some pics of the duo journals I put together. The leaves are embossed. I absolutely adore embossing powder! It's amazing stuff. They're here in my shop.

I'd Rather Be Flying

This is a cute little book that would do well as a scrapbook/journal/photo album. The spine is bookcloth, and is slightly expandable. I need to find some rock climbing scrapbook paper so I can make Adam a book that says "I'd Rather be Climbing."