Elephants

It’s been a week since my bazaar stint at Estancia Mall in Capitol Commons —  my second time to join the Maker’s Market — and I’m still over the moon. It was a successful one! I can’t wait for the next one in September. (More on my bazaar experience in my next post)

One of the people who paid my booth a visit was an old friend. She was my first ever best friend; we’ve known each other since grade school. I’m going to spare myself the task of revealing my age by not going into more details (*cough*specific year*cough*). Let’s just say it was in the 90’s. Yeah.. We’ve been friends thaaaat long, and so, it was really a lovely surprise for me to see her there. 

She commissioned me to make her elephant papercuts: a bookmark and a framed papercut. I’m posting just the framed papercut as I haven’t gotten a good photo of the bookmark yet. Anyway, here it is: 

 

  
I love how it turned out. I used stone paper for this piece as the lines are very fine which made the papercut delicate, then framed the final piece in double glass. Total time to make this: about 1.5 hours, including the sketching bit.

Fun fact on elephants: Did you know that when elephants meet up with family or friends, they entwine their trunks? That’s elephant-style hugging right there!

I’m ending this post with a song which played while I was just about to finish my elephant papercut. Spotify is magic.

Latest Projects

 Some of my latest commissioned artworks.

I also posted a time-lapse video of one of the papercuts below. 

  

  

https://youtu.be/rMtstQTrVg8

 

Papercut + Watercolor

Happy Holidays!

I had some down time during Christmas break (by down time, I mean one free afternoon) so I finally had the chance to bring out my first ever watercolor paint set I bought a few weeks ago. I have zero training on painting, so please be nice. 🙂

Anyway… These are my latest papercuts, with watercolor-painted back material.

They’re not so bad, right (I hope)?
I badly need/ want to attend a workshop on Watercolor Painting, though. That’s definitely on my list of to-do’s for 2015. This year has been a year of firsts. I had a blast. Here’s wishing 2015 would be an even better one.

Cheers, everyone! 🙂

Good Housekeeping Philippines

Hi guys! I have a mini feature on the Time Out section of Good Housekeeping Philippines‘ October issue.

I was asked to make a papercut based on their theme for the month which is fitness.

I came up with this:

I took the photo myself. I laid out the papercut on our red garden soil for effect. I just love how it turned out. 🙂

The magazine issue is still on local newsstands, but you can also download an online copy here.

“As we fell into the light, Our worlds collide”

My, how ancient was the last time I posted here? The past months had been crazy busy with work (and a bit of travel) on the side that I hadn’t used my trusty craft knife for weeks. This week is a different story, though, as I had to finish 3 commissions which were all needed urgently… but that would be for a different post.

So I was browsing through my phone’s photos and I saw this papercut which I made more than a month ago. I like the design (credits to Tina Tarnoff) because it silently tells the start of a love story, with cupid aiming his arrow at the couple.

This was to be given as a wedding anniversary present so I incorporated the name of the couple to customize it.

You must wonder where and how I got the title for this post. It’s a song which I like very much (just the intro itself is a beauty) by the band The Mostar Diving Club. Listen to the song here:

Wedding Papercut Present

I was recently commissioned to make a papercut by my aunt as a wedding present for my cousin and his soon-to-be wife who are both based in the US. I barely know them as a couple so I opted to do a theme that is somewhat safe for wedding papercuts: leaves and flowers.

I wanted to make the names in formal script so I decided to have it digitally printed instead of drawing it by hand. I used my favorite cursive font to cut: Egregio script. It’s flowy and formal, but thick enough for easy cutting. I would’ve loved to use a thinner font, but unfortunately, I ran out of stone paper, and cutting text with thin strokes is only doable (I’m speaking based on my own experience) with good quality paper, i.e. stone paper.

The only parts that are digital are the text and the oval (in mirror image, of course), the rest are handdrawn.

Everything was cut using a single sheet of 8 x 10 in. cream paper and an X-acto blade (yes, I’m back to using X-acto and I must admit, I kinda missed it 🙂 )

Glass on Glass

I just love the effect of clean white paper between two glass frames.

These are my two latest projects which were both commissioned (and did I mention, were due on the same week too?).

For the “Gilles and Leslie” papercut, I used stone paper (papel de piedra). I always find it easier to make clean cuts on stone paper. It doesn’t tear easily and my knife glides smoothly on the paper when I make a cut. I wish I could find a stone paper that’s bigger than what I have, though. I only have 6×8″ ones. If you do know where I can find larger ones, please do tell!

The “Louis and Laarni” papercut, on the other hand, is made from a plain acid-free paper with 100gsm thickness.

Which of the two do you like better? 🙂

Latest Commissions: Birthday messages and Bookmarks of Sorts

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Disclaimer: The wizard bookmark design is an original by Eileen Lim (thedaydreamprincess on Etsy).