Grab
a knife and sheet of paper and get ready to fall in love with
the ancient craft of papercutting. Forget expensive die cutting
machines and show everybody what can be done with the simplest
of tools…
I’m no Luddite but confess that I do prefer the relaxing
and much cheaper alternative of doing it myself with a few
basic items and my own imagination. This is an ideal book
for anybody who does not need to mass produce and is aimed
at both the beginner and intermediate papercutter. To start,
there are a few pages about tools and papers, some useful
beginner exercises and information about things like layering,
infills, framing and looking for inspiration. This includes
a useful piece about the perils of copyrights and a couple
of pages on designing your own work, which is mostly about
positive/negative images and cutting words. There are three
other designers’ works in here apart from Paper Panda,
making a nice mix of styles and over twenty projects to cut.
After a brief bio from each designer, you can take a look
at all the projects in their finished state, together with
a short description regarding inspiration and a hint or two.
After this comes the templates themselves, ready to copy and
cut. Choose from inspiring words, folk art, animals, birds,
flowers, figures, seasonal, etc., including flamingos surrounded
by plants, a Dala horse, cuckoo clock, Christmas tree, sun
and moon, and a garden scene. Designs can be copied for your
own personal use or sold in aid of charities, and are ideal
for greetings cards, pictures and whatever else you can think
of to adorn with a paper cut. This is a beautiful and inspiring
book that will appeal to anybody who wants to take up the
hobby, or who is looking for some attractive and imaginative
projects to cut.
If you cannot find a good range of paper crafting materials
locally try www.searchpress.com
for a list of suppliers.
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