The big decisions in life!

To paper cut or not to paper cut??  MMM, now this has been a difficult one.  I keep trying to focus on my other crafts and setting up my website but I keep getting tempted!  A lovely friend asked me to do a couple of initials for her children, so pencil in hand I started to doodle!  I drew and cut each design three times in an attempt to get a design I liked.  

I thought I would share my  finished pieces with you and some of my other attempts, I wanted to see them all together to see if I have improved!

First attempt, I even did a tutorial for doing this one, If you fancy having a go click here.

Second go.  I love this one but the original design had far more in it, I kept cutting bits out and if you look close enough the lines aren't very straight!  This is certainly one of my favourites however!

I was very close to not having another go at papercutting!  after a little friendly push or two from my lovely blog readers I decided to give it another go and this little wonder was created, one chilled out Saturday afternoon.

All of a sudden it came to me!  That's right! why not try initials!  And where is the best place to start? well letter 'A' of course! he he!  A little cheer up present for a dear friend.

Here is my first go at the 'J'.  I big ideas for the snake but in the end it covered so much of the 'J' that is wasn't noticeable so unfortunately the snake just had to go!  I do wonder however if I couldn't have popped him in a tree or something though.

Last but not least (I have a few more ideas swimming through my head now) the finished 'J' and 'S' .  I am still not 100% about the J if I'm honest but I guess there should always be room for improvement!

Things I have learnt... it isn't called paper cutting for nothing, I used card for most of these and it is tiring on the hand, tough on the blades and in fact down right hard work!  I also learnt that changing the blades often really does produce a far better picture.  My next trial will be spray glue, I use a glue pen at the moment but worried every time where it will spill out or not, so spray is on my shopping list.

So what to do now?  Should I get back into trying to set up my shop, design some new story stone sets as these are selling well or do another paper cut? 

Well off to check out the lovely people hanging around in the handmade harbour, why not come and dip your toes in too?

xx