Kissing Not Required

A few years ago, okay, maybe ten, I was roommates with this amazing artist (and super good friend), Kelly. At a certain point in time, she was transfixed with the Grimm's fairytale, The Frog Prince. Her research into the story showed her that in the end, the princess did NOT kiss the frog in any version that she read, instead, she treated him badly, ignored him and threw him against the wall. In return, he married her and made her his queen. Men are so strange! Anyway, my computer broke this weekend and I found myself with an amazing amount of time and so I made this 3D papercut of the Frog Prince. The above shot is the box closed, the bottom is with it opened.



I covered the box with paper, but if I had to do it all over again, I would just paint it. I don't know why I didn't paint it in the first place. Hope you are all well!

Thanksgiving

I drew this illustration a few months ago. There's this website called Illustration Friday and I subscribe to their newsletter. They have a different topic every Friday that you have a week to illustrate. The topic for that week was "fierce." I drew the fiercest thing I could think of. I think it also works well as a Thanksgiving papercut. The amount of time it took me to cut this out was exactly the amount of time it took me to listen to my friends Nathaniel and Rob's podcast, The Gentle Tyrants. I don't think I'm going to have a lot of time to post anything over the Thanksgiving holiday because my parents live in the middle of nowhere and only have a landline and that's pretty much like life without running water for me so I thought I'd post this now. Happy Thanksgiving!

Snow White and Rose Red

I think I like too many fairy tales. One of my favorites is of Snow White and Rose Red (different than just the regular Snow White). This is a tale of two sisters who befriend a bear that has been enchanted by an evil dwarf. The only way the enchantment can be lifted is if the dwarf dies. The way I remember it is that the spell dissolves when the dwarf's beard has been cut 3 times. The wikipedia version tells it differently. I drew this papercut en route from Dallas to Salt Lake. I think I would like to revisit it another time. It's a good first draft though.

Custom Christmas Papercut

So, a little while ago, a woman contacted me on Etsy and asked if I did custom papercuts. I told her I did and she asked if I would do a profile of her and her family for her Christmas card. She send me pictures of herself, her husband and son and their dog and parrot. I thought it would be fun to have a parrot in a pear tree (hopefully people catch on that that's what it is when they see it). Kim liked the idea and we went forward with it. We both loved the result! I'm also getting one of Kim's Sweet Little Yeti Christmas Ornaments. It's to die for, you guys should check out her site!

Hedgehog Love

He wanted to tell her in so many ways that he loved her, but he was short and fat and prickly and he didn't know how she would respond.

Brüderchen und Schwesterchen Print

I realized that I never made a print of one of my favorite papercuts, Brother and Sister. This Grimm's fairy tale tells of a brother and sister fleeing from their wicked witch stepmother. The brother becomes enchanted by the witch and turns into a deer. Eventually a handsome prince comes and saves the sister and kills the witch. So classic.

Etsy site!

Christmas Cards

I spent most of last night and two DVDs of 30 Rock screenprinting these Christmas cards based on my Angel Scherenschnitt. I'm exhausted! I think they turned out really pretty though. The design is modified slightly from the original papercut to fit on the card better. Not by much though!

Find them for sale at my Etsy shop!

Here are some details from the card - this one is of one of the angel's hands and how it is shooting out stars.



This is a profile of the face. Goccos can get such great detail.


This is my favorite part, how the lettering turned out. It was so detailed in the papercut and I was worried that it wouldn't translate well into the screenprint, but the message is clear!



Enjoy!

And On Earth Peace, Good Will Toward Men.

I'm getting an early jump on my Christmas cards (probably not early enough) and did these pretty little angel papercuts in honor of the birth of the Savior.

The Knuckledragger

She liked the Knuckledragger, but found out that he only kept her around for kicks. Something had to be done.

I haven't done a papercut I enjoyed this much in a long time!

Happy Birthday, Erin!

My friend Erin is turning another year older today and I've had a couple of different ideas for things to do for her for a papercut. I wound up doing this one that goes along with the circus themed cuts I've been meaning to do but have never done. This is of Erin and her two little monkeys that she takes everywhere with her and teaches them everything she knows. Happy Birthday mi hermana!

Amazing

Okay, guys, there's a woman named Elsa Mora who just made the ultimate papercutting blog. It's so beautiful. Go see what's she's done and enjoy it to the fullest extent!

allaboutpapercutting

Conference Weekend

This weekend, my church had a conference that I got to sit and listen to. It's sometimes really hard for me to sit through the whole 4 hours on Saturday and then again on Sunday, so it helps for me to have something to do. On the second two hour block on Saturday, I drew these 5 cuts and then on Sunday, I cut them all out.

This one, I really have no idea what I was doing here. However you want to interpret it is fine with me.





This one looks a lot cuter in real life. I think I might rescan it on white paper so it turns out better. It's so cute!

Digital Scrapbooking

I must confess, when I said I would post something on here that dealt with papercutting and scrapbooking, I had really no clue what to do. I thought I would try to do something digitally since the computer is what I am most comfortable with. I kind of like it! Here is my merger of scrapbooking and scherenschnitte:


In order to create this piece, I had to draw it out first. I had a rough idea of what I was going to do and where I was going to place the picture. Knowing those things, I jumped right in.


If you are ever cutting words out and you're drawing your image directly to the back of the paper, always remember to do a mirror image. Then, before you even think about cutting, take a look at it in the mirror. There are sooooooo many times when I've cut something out only to notice that an R was backwards or that tricky N was slanted the wrong way.


The finished piece. Ta da!


After I scanned it in, I took the image into Photoshop, outlined it and colored it and placed it over my photo. I've been using Photoshop for quite some time now, so I have no clue how difficult this is for the beginner, but once you get the hang of it, it's really pretty simple!

Making Memories

I'm featured on the Making Memories (where I work) blog! I had said that I would do a piece that would relate to scrapbooking and I will put that up tonight. Check back and see!

Oh, and some people were wondering if I had a video of how to papercut and I do, I did it a while ago and I would do things differently now, but here's what I did do!

Young Love

Here's a little project I was doing for a Jinky Art down in Australia. It was going to be so cute and animated and I was going to wait until the final piece before I bragged profusely about it, but there were some problems with the animation and I think the whole thing had to be scrapped. The kids were so cute, swinging around and kissing.

Oktoberfest!

So on September 25th, I'm going to be hosting an Oktoberfest party at my house and for the invite, I thought I'd do a little papercut of a cuckoo clock. I'm going to see if my mom will send me her dirndl for the party. I don't know if I'll fit into it though. No eating for a few weeks. It's kind of fitting to make a scherenschnitt for a little Oktoberfest party, no?

First Fig

This is a simple one, but it's going to be a series. Does anyone know the rest of the poem or who it's written by?

Provo Rocks Topless

A few years ago, I went to a private college in a city in Utah called Provo. When I lived there, we would complain about how there was no art scene or community culture and how everything was just poop. I wish I were going to school there now because it's fun to venture down south and see what's happening on the first Friday of every month. They have a great Gallery Stroll and it's really quite the pretty little place. One of my friends, Raquel, is in charge of a lot of what goes on down there and she asked me to do a papercut for their next brochure featuring buildings from the historic downtown Provo area. It's taken me forever to complete, but I've finally finished it!

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.