Saber-toothed Pigeon

There are few things less feared than a Saber-toothed Pigeon.

I Know You Like Chickens

I made a new set of silhouette thank you cards. This one features chickens! Most everyone likes chickens. I, myself, am rather afraid of them, but that's just me.

Red Riding Hood

This one I did for my friend Brigham's mom, Claire, for her birthday. It got to her a few weeks late, mostly from my own procrastination. I had it all drawn out well before her birthday, but didn't get around to cutting it out until later. Those flowers were so daunting! When I was a little girl, I had a German Shepherd named Tanya. I loved that dog soooooooo much. I loved scratching her chin and while scratching, she would lick my hand. I thought that would be a nice moment for Red and the wolf while she's off picking flowers. Happy Birthday to Claire!

Sage Advice

Recently I was contacted by Faith, a professional food writer for Apartment Therapy. She is getting married soon and wanted an icon that is a mix of elements from her and her fiance's life. Since she's a food writer, a lot of their budget will be going towards food (oh how I wish I could go to that reception), so that element had to be present in the image. Also, they have a cute story about sage from when they were first getting to know one another. Their religious beliefs are very important to them, so the wine and the bread has a double meaning. Faith was a pleasure to work with and I am really pleased with the results. Congratulations, you guys, for finding each other!

Woman at the Well

I've been sitting on this one for a while. It's been in my sketchbook and I finally got around to cutting it. This papercut is of the account of the woman at the well found in John 4:7-30. The Savior asks her to draw some water for Him from the well. She asks Him how He could request this of her since she is a Samaritan and the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. He replies that if she knew who was before her, she would ask water of Him. She doesn't get it and He expounds some more. Still she doesn't get it and He tells her to go fetch her husband. She tells Him she doesn't have one and He replies, "No kidding, you have five." Finally she gets it and understands who sits before her. Sometimes I feel like that is what happens in my life. There are so many examples of God's abundance all around and I trudge through thinking about me and how sucky my life is and in reality, all I need to do is trust in the Lord and do as He says and everything will turn out all right. Maybe not in this life, and I really hate that answer, but in the life to come. As for me and my house, I'm pretty happy and grateful for all that I have received so far, I really can't complain.

Someday My Prints Will Come

I put some more prints up on my Etsy site. Thanks, Billy, for the idea about the color variation on the heart print. It looks pretty cool!

Come Thou Fount

You know how sometimes you sit and analyze yourself and think about some of your superficial faults and think, "Oh, if only I weren't this way, this would happen for me," or "If I didn't have this physical problem, so and so would like me." Then, for some reason, whether it be through your own tenacity or through sheer luck, that problem goes away. Then you still have the junky job or the boy doesn't like you and you wonder, "Maybe it's just me, maybe he just doesn't like me," because some other guy is blowin' up your phone with his love texts and you're sitting there mooning over the person who doesn't even think twice about you and you realize that the guy you don't like likes you just the way you are and who you think you really want is dumb. It's way late at night when I'm writing this so I don't know if I'm making sense. All of a sudden, you realize that you need help and that help isn't going to come from your mom or your job or the attentions of the guy that's never going to give you attention and you wonder why you haven't talked to God in so long and how the answers are really easy but you're too stubborn to see them, so you let it all go and shape up and talk to the being who created you in all your glory and selfishness and you go ahead and accept yourself a little more and love your follies because they make you who you are. This papercut comes from a line in the song Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing and I really should read verses before I spend hours cutting them out of paper because it really goes "Here's my heart, O take and seal it," but I think it matches the hymn just as well with the word Lord in there. I've loved this song for ages. It sums up my weekend and it comforts me.

Fail Better

When I was in London, I saw this quote by Samuel Beckett and thought it was kind of depressing, but encouraging at the same time. There are so many things that we fail at that may destroy our will to continue trying them, but try them again we must and if we fail again, it is with more knowledge than when we failed the first time.

Idaho State Bird and Flower

I finished this last Sunday for Mother's day for my mom. She wanted another bird to fill in her three frames that she had. She got the original California Quail and I made two of these Mountain Bluebirds. The Mountain Bluebird, Sialia currucoides is the state bird of Idaho. I put him with the state flower of Idaho, the Syringa, Philadelphus lewisii. I think I'll try to do the rest of the 50 states, although there are some repeats, but the flowers are different!



Purchase a print of the Mountain Bluebird and Syringa at etsy!

All Right Already...

Ooo...I just got a real job in real life and haven't had much time for papercutting, but when things settle down, I'll get back on it. For now, though, I think you should behold this Martha Stewart Craft Knife, which is glorious to behold in its custom case with cushy handle.

Papel Picado

I bought some tissue the other day with some hopes of creating some papel picado. I kept procrastinating and procrastinating until Sunday when I thought, "I know! I'll have a cinco de mayo party and put up some papel picado!" So I send out an invite and now I was committed.


Papel picado is the Mexican form of papercutting. You layer a bunch of tissue together and by whatever means possible, you cut through all of it and have a remarkable decoration. I used an exacto blade and one of those grommet hole cutters. I wish I had some carving tools.


This took me probably about 4 hours to make, I sat through two NPR shows and a LOST podcast to create it. I think it was worth it though. My porch looked the prettiest, I think, with all the sparky lights. Happy Cinco de Mayo!

A Little Packaged Love

Adam and Eve Papercut

I looked at a lot of old masters in referencing this image and in pretty much all of them, we see Eve handing Adam the apple. I decided to give Adam a little agency in my image. I placed a lamb in the arm of Eve since, as the mother of all living, through her lineage comes the Savior who redeems us from the Fall.

Here I will now do something tacky. This images is available on my etsy site along with prints of Red Riding Hood. Woot!

Randel McGee

So, Saturday I went up to Ogden to the Treehouse Museum to see Randel McGee. Randel contacted me a while ago and mentioned that he was going to be in Ogden for a couple of weeks and was a papercutter and was interested in meeting up. I thought it would be fun since I haven't met any official papercutters ever and so we arranged an encounter.


The above picture is a shot of Randel with one of his papercuts. Randel does a show where he pretends to be Hans Christian Anderson and tells a story. While he's telling that story, he'll cut out a papercut image. I think he's going to be doing another show like this at the museum on Saturday. Here's what it says on the Treehouse webpage:

Randel will also be conducting two workshops – one for teachers on Wednesday, April 30 at 4 p.m. where he'll be doing projects from his recently published paper craft books, and another, more informal meeting with families in the Treehouse Art Garden on Saturday, May 3 from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m., when he'll be making dragons with children. Preregistration by calling 801-394-9663 is requested for the teacher workshop on April 30.

So if you have a chance to get out to the Treehouse museum on Saturday, go for it! It was great fun meeting Randel. I got to see his performance with his tame dragon, Groark as well. If you have small children, take them to see it. Groark teaches you a song and some great life lessons. Thanks for contacting me, Randel!

Mucha Muchacha

Ooo...I was doing some experimentation on color variation and cut the same image out of three different kinds of paper. It's Mucha inspired. I think I'd like to do more like this, only take a little more time with the details.




I think one thing I really love about Mucha's work is that the beautiful women that he draws aren't stick thin and they don't have cookie cutter faces. I suppose it was a different era and glamour had a different definition, but I think the beauty he captures is timeless.

It Taught Me To Hope

So, if you were a woman, and you were married to a man who knew your favorite movie was Pride and Prejudice and you found out that for your anniversary, that man had commissioned a papercut for you of a scene from that favorite movie, would you pretty much want to make out with him every day for the rest of your life? I would. That's what Roger did for his lovely wife Krista. Krista, if you're reading this, I hope you love your papercut, it's in the mail!

Here's the scene from one of the final chapters of Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth Bennett is explaining to Mr. Darcy how she regrets her treatment of him and Darcy is telling her how he heard from his aunt that Elizabeth hadn't denied her affection for him. "It taught me to hope," said he, "as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before." And then they get married and hopefully take vacations to Bath and sit in the Roman baths and make out every day.

The Unsuspecting Fisherman

I've been thinking about doing this one for a long time now. I've always loved mermaids and I've always loved my friend Carl and I wanted to do a papercut featuring Carl. He is a marine biologist and so I thought, "Ooo...I'll do one where there's a fisherman and he's being beguiled by a mermaid and then other mermaids are stealing fish from him while he's not looking." Originally the guy was supposed to be freaking out because if a topless chick with a tail came swimming up to his boat, Carl would climb out of his skin. But then I decided to give this guy hair, so it's not a good representation of Carl and so I loosened him up a bit and now he's being entranced by the lovely lady.

Oops!

I think when I deleted my old website, I accidentally deleted my header. Oops! I'll have to fix that.

* Fixed. I couldn't find the old one to scan, so I made this new one.

Update

So I updated my regular website and showcased not only my design, but papercuts I've done in the past. Check it out!

www.cindyferguson.com

Thank You Uncle Lloyd!

My friend Kim has this Uncle, Uncle Lloyd. For the longest time, since he didn't have any kids and had an enormous load of frequent flyer miles, he would take his nieces and nephews on trips all around the world. I have been able to be an honorary niece to places such as Buenos Aires, Bali and all over Europe. I'm pretty sure I always remembered to say thank you, but sadly I never sent him a card thanking him or anything. So I decided to do a papercut. It's of a scene from Utah so that he can always remember his roots and the quote on the bottom says, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory - Isaiah 6:3" I thought this was fitting since through his gracious nature, I have been able to see some of that glory.