County Fair

This month's ATC theme is the county fair. This first cut is of the dreaded judges who decide whether your work is worthy of that coveted blue ribbon.

Here is the winning jar of canned peaches. I love to look at the displays at the county fair, but it is hard to be excited about looking at jars of fruits and vegetables.

What is a fair without animals? Other than the rides, the animals are always the kids favorite thing to see. I personally don't care much about pigs, but they make interesting papercuts.

The last cut represents those big trailers that show up that claim to have the world's biggest something inside that will only cost you $5 to see. I wonder what is really in those mysterious boxes, but the ticket price always keeps me ignorance. Here is the world's biggest horse.

September ATCs

It felt really good to sit down and do some cutting the other day. It has been too long. ATCs are a good way to get back into it. I decided not to go along with this month's trade theme. Sometimes it is fun to just cut whatever I want.

I based this cut on a child's back-to-school fashion spread in an old 50s magazine I had sitting around the house.

I thought this one worked out really well as a straight silhouette. Fingers are hard to cut that small.

I had lots of fun with this one. I had to search for a picture of a painting that would be small enough to fit on that little canvas.

How many times have you seen a child and a dog stare each other down while the child eats something sweet and sticky? Why does that sticky sweet almost always end up in the dog's mouth?

Yes, I am Still Here

I am sorry that I haven't posted anything for awhile. I just can't believe how busy I have been with other things this summer. I'm glad that I have squeezed in some time for these monthly ATCs. They have kept me cutting.

The theme for this month's trade is national parks. Since I did rock formations in national parks last year, I wanted to do something a little bit different this time.

These are based on vintage "greetings from" postcards. It was a fun experience to just cut type this time.

The photos behind the letters were downloaded from the Internet. Crater Lake is the only one of these national parks that I haven't visited.

OWLS

This month's ATC theme was owls. I used coffee filter paper that I painted with watercolor for the owls.


It is a good thing that I have had these trades because I have had a hard time the last couple of months getting to any other cutting. I'm still hoping that things will slow down a little in the next months. There is more paper out there to cut.

First Sign of Spring

The weather is really springlike today. I'm not looking forward to the summer heat. I have been working on this cut for the last couple of weeks. It is the biggest cut that I have done so far. (15 in. x 19 in.) The blossom is made from coffee filter paper that I painted with watercolors. I like having that one splash of color. It is mounted on a piece of wood that I stained.

Spring City

Here is what I have been working on all month when I had a spare moment. Every year on Memorial Day weekend, Spring City has their Heritage Days. As part of Heritage Days, they hold an art auction at the old school house. The proceeds go towards restoring the school. John, my husband, and I have participated the last two years, and this is this year's contribution. I decided to try something a little bit more traditional. All the buildings are based on actual buildings in the little town. The cut is 11 in. x 11 in.

For those of you who have been wondering, the ATC trading group that I am involved with is the yahoo group, Papercutterstrade. I have really enjoyed the monthly trades, and there is always room for more.

Going Green

I haven't had as much time to cut this month, but I did manage to squeeze in enough time to put together my ATCs for this month.

This month's theme was "green". The first thing that came to my mind was frogs, but I had done frogs only a couple of months ago. My second thought was little green men from Mars. Here they are! They are happy little green aliens. I hope you enjoy them. I should have something else to post soon.