Hi guys,
I’m planning to hold a Papercutting Workshop in Alabang on either February 13 or 20, and I need a show of hands (virtual hand, that is) so I can plan accordingly. Venue will be at the Spectrum Lifestyle Store at Commercenter Alabang. Comment below with your e-mail address so I can add you to the preliminary list. Thanks! 🙂
Wendy
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 🙂 )
A couple of weeks ago, our family went for a vacation in Baguio, a tourist destination north of Manila. This is the go-to place for people who would like to take a break from their busy urban lives and enjoy cool weather and a laidback atmosphere. Now Baguio is a city, but it has this suburban feel to it where you wouldn’t have to keep track of time and everyone’s nice to everybody. I was just there earlier this year but I cannot possibly get tired of visiting this city with its beautiful parks and sites to see. There is just something about this place that makes me want to, as cliche as it may sound, stop and smell the flowers.
Taken at the Baguio Botanical Gardens
La Trinidad, a city just outside Baguio, is famous for its Strawberry Farm. Too bad strawberries were out of season when we visited, though they also have rows and rows of fresh lettuces to get lost in!
This was taken at The Good Shepherd Convent. The convent sells products made by the Good Shepherd nuns. They carry items such as fruit preserves, strawberry and ube jams, cashew and peanut brittle, and coco jam. According to the City of Pines website, the money generated from the sale of their products is used for the different charities sponsored by the Good Shepherd nuns and also for the maintenance and upkeep of the convent. Cool, huh?
They don’t call Baguio the City of Pines for nothing. 😉
This post may have been generally about my latest travel but of course I could not possibly forget to insert a papercut project, could I? This was a papercut I made a few months back, which my brother promised to photograph for me. I figured this would fit nicely in a blog post about spending quality time with your family.
This is a commissioned papercut inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s best-selling book The Little Prince.
For this project, I used three pieces of paper to cut on: plain white paper for the little prince image and text, blue cardstock for the rays, and light blue printed scrapbooking paper for the waves on the foreground. The crumpled paper background was placed by my client herself. If I remember correctly, she used three pieces of Japanese paper and wrinkled them for a textured effect. Neat, huh? 😉
We can rise from this catastrophe. Bangon Pilipinas!
All inspired by songs closest to the hearts of the soon-to-be bride & groom.
A line from the Eraserhead’s Huling El Bimbo
First of Summer by Urbandub
Hands Down by Dashboard Confessional (a personal favorite of mine too)
Now who doesn’t smell love in the air?
This weekend has been extra busy for me as I’ve been finishing papercuts for colleagues and friends. On saturday alone, I was able to finish these 2 pieces:
“As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (The “Lord” cutout is in the banners but barely seen on this photo. Apologies for my poor photographing skills).
The house papercut is a gift for a family friend while the black one is commissioned. The client requested for this specific design from Lois Cordelia which she found online.
Making the black piece was a tough one. If you know me well enough, you’d know that my drawing skills are quite challenged. My solution was to trace the design on black paper then cut it. I added the text at the bottom which was requested by the client herself.
Personally speaking, I would prefer doing my own design. In spite of my drawing ability, or lack thereof, there’s freedom in sketching and cutting your own design and it’s much more gratifying to see the finished product. Admittedly, some of my papercuts are inspired by what I see online, but I always make sure that my personal touch is still present.
At the end of the day, though, be it a requested design or my own, I still enjoy cutting and producing art with endless possibilities from plain paper. And based on other papercutting or craft blogs in general, I find that I am not alone on this 🙂
My friend in Singapore who’s also a blogger has requested for a home-themed papercut to be displayed in their place. To be honest, I find commissioned papercuts more challenging to make than my regular projects because of course, there’s the pressure (from myself, not from the client) to have a satisfied client. The design must suit their taste and the cuts must be flawless.
For this project, I used the quote “Home is any four walls that enclose the right people”. Sketching this piece wasn’t that hard, though it took me quite a while to perfect the main text. I also made use of a lettering stencil for the first time for the text at the bottom. As it turns out, this stencil is a papercutter’s friend as you can just flip it to trace the mirror image on the back side of the paper. Saves you some time from imagining how to draw the text backwards. And mind you, drawing backwards is not my favorite thing to do.
Cutting took more time than I usually do with my papercuts as the flowers have a lot of holes and curves. In the end, I was happy with it, which is an important thing. After all, you can’t expect your recipient to like your work if you’re not happy with it in the first place.
So here’s the final output. I placed it in a double glass frame which I think gives the papercut more depth and drama.
Visit my friend’s blog here. 🙂
Were you one of those kids who used to make cards for their parents on special occasions, or sometimes, for no reason at all? Well, I was. I was thinking of a crafting idea the other day and came up with these pick-me-up cards. I call them as such as anyone would appreciate being a recipient of this long-lost tradition of card-giving. Anyone with a heart, that is. 😛
I added a white paper and lined each one with washi tape for that special touch.
What do you guys think? I’m thinking of putting them up for orders too. 🙂
Papel de Pinay 