A 'Happy Birthday Big Sis' Card!

Happy Birthday to my older sister! With a fall birthday, it's become somewhat of a tradition of hers to go apple picking to celebrate. Since I live on the other side of the country and unfortunately can't be there for that, I thought I'd make her an apple picking card. Here's how it turned out!

A Personalized Birthday Commission

Here's another birthday commission I just did with some heavy personalization. I was asked not to emphasize anything about how old she is turning (I hear ya), so I chose a more neutral design of a flower pot with a fern plant. Given a ton of things to describe the birthday girl, I was able to fit in the following: a love of cooking and drinking, a job as a journalist, time lived in Maine, a love of travel and time spent in France (hence the Air France ticket and plane!). This person has accomplished so much by this birthday that I had to pick and choose just a few things so that the cut didn't look too busy!

A 50th Birthday

Apologies for the long gap in posts. I have an excuse! I'm excited to say I recently moved from New Orleans to a teeny tiny town in Oregon. The move, while very exciting, left little time for posting. But I'm settled now, and expect to be able to post with a little more frequency.

To get started, here's a commission I finished recently for a 50th birthday. I was asked to create something unique and personal for the birthday of a man who "needed nothing". This thoughtful friend sent me a long list of his favorite things, and asked them to be put into the number 50. Here's the result!





In its floating frame, all ready to ship. I really need to learn how to take pictures of frames without glare!


I can't wait to hear how the birthday boy likes it!

To request a personalized commission, please send an email to papercutsbykatie@gmail.com.

A Vine Birthday Card

My good friend turned 30 a few weeks ago (I'm a bit late in posting this), so I made her this card! It was a simple design of vines going through the numbers, and I mounted it onto the card itself instead of cutting through the card and backing it like I usually do. Happy birthday, Lisa!

Evan's Paper Cut - Updated

My little nephew turned one this past summer! For his birthday, I wanted to give him something that I made myself that he could have in his room as he grows up. I had a couple of things in my childhood bedroom that my aunt made me, and I wanted that for Evan. So I made him a big ole paper cut (8.5 x 11) that I had framed.

For the design, I decided to do a bunch of different scenes in one cut. They're all original, and this is the final product, after many different renditions.

UPDATE:
I wanted to share with ya'll what this paper cut looks like in its "natural habitat", aka on the wall in Evan's room. Thanks to my sister for sending the pic!

Oh and, as a side note, I made that circle mobile hanging from the ceiling for him too! He'll not forget who is favorite auntie is! If you're interested in that, here's what it looked like all put together, and here's the link for the tutorial.

My first commission

A few weeks ago something awesome happened - I got my first commission for some cards! I mentioned to a friend that I do this and she had some occasions coming up that she asked me to make some cards for. This was very exciting for me, as it was my first chance to turn my hobby into a little more!

She asked me for 2 birthday cards and an anniversary card. The bday cards are here below, and the anniversary card, which was much more involved, will get its own post soon (when it's done).

The first card was for her 3 year old nephew. I figured a pop-up would be fun, and used a simple template for pop-ups that can be tailored to almost any design. I was also told not to stick to boyish colors, so I used a whole bunch of different colors. I put some 2D balloons on the front, and for the inside I started with the cake and the banner, and then decided it was looking too plain and added the sparklers.

The front:

The inside:

The second card was for her partner. I was told his favorite colors are grey and orange together, and that he was born in Brazil. So I took one of my favorite birthday card designs of a flag garland and made them look like the Brazilian flag, and set the whole card in orange and grey. Then she said she wanted something simple for the front, so I did a quick candle paper cut. And voila!

Thanks, Megan, for being my first customer!

A simple birthday card

This is a card I made for my friend's birthday. She and I lived in Chile together after college, and anyone who's lived in Chile knows that you can't ride a bus without accumulating a million little tickets. They serve no purpose, but every bus must give you a ticket, and they all have their own design. So a couple of years ago I found a bunch of these tickets in a purse I hadn't used since I lived there, and decided to make a little something with them. Some mod podge and paper later, and a simple collaged card with sentimental meaning for my friend!

A big project deserves a big post

My parents both turned 60 last year. My sister and I decided that, to celebrate, we would both come for a visit (with my boyfriend and her husband in tow) and cook them dinner. That sounds a little boring, but this wasn't just any dinner! We created custom menus for each of them - a "for him" and "for her" menu based on their favorite foods. It was pretty work intensive, took a lot of planning, and was a lot of fun. The two of us (three if you count my little nephew that was, at the time, in her belly!) and our men went shopping and made the whole meal, and it all came out great.

That was the easy part.

Since we did the dinner closer to my dad's birthday in January, we also gave my dad his present at the dinner. My sister and I both like doing DIYs, so we decided it would be great to make something together for him. My dad is kind of hard to get gifts for because he knows what he wants, and he goes out and gets them himself! Not to mention that the things he likes are generally out of my price range, since it's usually whatever the newest technology is.

Well, we decided that since he loves his technology, and since he also travels very often, we would make him something that would incorporate both those things. After much Pinterest searching and emails between the two of us, my sister and I decided that we would make him a binder where he could cleanly store all of his cords and techie items when he travels, to avoid things getting tangled and keep everything in one place. A tutorial on how to make the book can be found here.

My sister, as I've mentioned, has the sewing ability between the two of us. Not to mention a sewing machine. So she took on the task of creating the actual book. As it turned out, this was much more difficult than anticipated, and I'm glad it was her, not me!

We of course wanted to personalize the gift, and that's where I came in. We decided that I would do a paper cut, or two or three, to cover the front, back and spine of the book. Since it was for travel, I decided to do a map of the world for the cover, names of cities my dad has been to for the back, and then treat the spine like it was a real title of a book. Once I finished the 3 cuts, I sent them off to my sister who mod-podged them onto the outside of the book.

All went fine except for that stinking map. See, when I make a papercut, I draw out the design in pencil and then cut around it. When I'm done cutting there are often pencil marks left over that need to be erased. However, you have to be so careful when erasing because, once cut, the paper can be very delicate. That was the case with a map, and on the first papercut I ended up ruining it when I tried to erase the pencil lines. So another technique if you don't want pencil is to just flip it over and the back becomes the front. Well that of course means that whatever you draw will get reversed, and that doesn't work out too well when you're doing something like words or a map. I also don't own a light box (my next purchase!), and so there I was, free-handing a map of the world, backwards. It took a LOT of fine-tuning to get it to actually look like the world, but I have to say I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Pictures of the finished product in all its glory and angles below.

That darned map:

The back of the book:

The inside - you can really see my sister's amazing handiwork here!

The whole outside, including the spine:

Getting the Hang of It

This is a papercut card I made for my sister's birthday. Can you guess how old she was turning? I don't have a picture of it after it was backed, but I mounted it on silver tissue paper. I like the way papercuts look unmounted as well, but with cards it's hard because you want to be able to write on the inside, but doing that can ruin the silhouette.

The design for this card was original.