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.

Waterbird ATCs

This month's trade theme is water. I decided to make all the ATCs with birds that live near water. The first piece is a duck. I have done ducks before and enjoyed it.


The second bird is a pelican. I went simple with this one.


My third piece is a cormorant. I used magazine pages for the background color on the bird and wood.

The last bird is a snowy egret. This is based on the bigger papercut that I did in January. I still haven't cut that beak right. Maybe, I'll try again sometime.

I haven't been cutting as much the last couple of weeks because of this. I hope to get back to cutting more soon.

I Wish Spring Was Really Here

After a mild winter, spring has been taking a turn for the worst. The past week has felt more like January. We received over a foot and a half of snow in the last week, and the wind yesterday was cold enough to drive me back indoors for another three months. I have been yearning for flowers and a warm breeze. My yearnings led me to create this cut of hollyhocks. Hollyhocks are some of my favorite flowers. I cut the black outline from black paper and painted the paper underneath. I only glued the very top of the paper cut to the background paper so that it would hang loosely over the watercolor and give it a slight three dimensional feel.

The Brave Little Taylor

I have always enjoyed a fairy tale where the hero uses his brain instead of his brawn. The Brave Little Tailor is a good example of this. The only time he uses is muscles is in the beginning when he hits those seven annoying flies, and who could fault him for that? Flies can be very annoying, and they don't listen to reason. Our brave tailor uses his brains to outwit giants and bad kings and wins a kingdom and princess in the process. That's not to bad for a man who earns his living making clothes. In this cut our hero is heading off into the world to see what he can make of himself. He unconcerned that he is entering a giant infested wood.

Borders

The last couple of days I have been playing around with borders. I have been intimidated by floral borders for awhile, so it was good for me to stretch a bit.


For the most part, I am satisfied with the results. These will make nice thank you notes sometime or maybe I can put a poem on them and place them in a frame. I haven't decided yet.

Weathervane ATCs

I'm sorry that I haven't posted for a couple of weeks. Sometimes it is easy to become distracted by other things.

This month's theme for my ATC trade is weather vanes. I was surprised by the variety of weathervane designs that are out there. I picked some of my favorites to use as the basis of ATC papercuts. I found that the letters were the hardest part to cut. This first one is of a sun and moon.

I like the idea of a llama on top of a weathervane.


I think the mice on the directional letters on this one was a nice touch.


The crane on this one will always know what direction it is flying.

I'm So Glad That It Is March

I'm very happy to be done with January and February. March is such a much more pleasant month. I love it when the promise of spring is in the air. I knew spring could not be very far away when I woke up with this cut in my head.