So this week in between rescue attempts at car accident scenes and pooping on a London surgeon I have been experimenting with miniature papercuts. I should say it's been a resounding success, I mean, who doesn't like tiny things? There's something a bit magical about something small, like it belongs to a fairy or you could find it in the niche of a tree somewhere. Let me rewind a bit. I recieved from eBay a vintage letterpress printing tray and popped a hook on it and it's on the wall in the hall. I then scoured the cottage for tiny things of wonder to put in the little spaces, then pootled all over Etsy for other oddities of the itsy bitsy variety to add to it. The next day some new frames arrived from Dave the farmer, and oh my...they were so small! After I'd stopped laughing I saw the potential and got to work. Miniature is the new black.
PP has, over time, developed with the farmer a seriously cool way of floating papercuts in gorgeous handmade frames, and on a small scale this technique has worked brilliantly. Bunny was able to float with a 'shmall' balloon next to bird which is always a bit special and reminiscent of the recent popular House floating papercut that reached a record price when it went up for auction. I'm enjoying cutting the tiny pieces so much I wish I could make them all the time, just getting smaller and smaller. Have you seen the guy that carves animals from burnt matchstick heads? Ooooh I'd love to try that!
At the other end of the scale I'm battling with a massive A1 papercut that I spread over the kitchen table every few days and add a bit to it. I just sketched very loosely a nature inspired design and I'm busy ignoring all that and just cutting freehand. It's scary and I'm not sure it's going to work, and if it DOES work how on earth will I frame it? We shall see. I'm not a big fan of working on a large scale so far, that's for sure. So if I ever pull off a fabulous large piece of papercutting then you know it's pretty much a fluke and I'm feeling rather relieved that a cat hasn't used it to dance on. Or maybe it has and that's why it looks fabulous, who knows?
Apart from small things, something else has happened this week and I'm still not sure if it's really happening or if there's some kind of Facebook bug. My Facebook likes are increasing by approximately 800 likes per day. Where on earth are they all coming from? Why is there a sudden influx of people clicking the 'like' button? I'm getting quite obsessed. I'll go for a wee, come back downstairs, refresh the page and announce to Mr Panda that we have gained 8 likers in the time it took to visit the lav. I'm sure my time can be better spent but right now it's quite exciting to watch.
Usually, with Facebook, you'll find people with other crafty business type pages will come and 'like' your page and leave a copy and pasted message asking you to return the favour, but this isn't happening. These are regular people who are liking it for, well, me and no other ulterior motive. How strange! My likes have increased by 34 whilst I've been writing this, if you are interested.
Is my ol' mum paying them?
Well, I best go and get out of these panda printed pyjama's and start some cutting. It's 12.55pm and all I've done so far is drink two cups of tea and eat a boiled egg from a Holly Hobbie eggcup. Artists keep such odd hours, you know - well, this one does ;)
39....40....41....
Heard of it? I hadn't until very recently but I think it's a grand idea. I gave up booze in June 2012 so I can't be a part of it myself because it's waaaay too easy and nobody would sponsor me - but you guys can give it a shot!
So, as an added incentive every Facebook Paper Panda page liker that signs up for Go Sober 2013 will be entered into a draw to win a wee Paper Panda goody bag. In fact, there will be two, one for the person that raises the most money for Macmillan and the other will be randomly drawn from the entrants.
Part of the goody bag is the tiny weeny papercut below, one in gold for the person that raises the most money, and one in...'something else' (because I haven't made it yet!) for a random person, as well as other PP goodies just to say BLOODY WELL DONE, YOU.
Once you have signed up, pop your link on the Facebook photo the same as the one below so I can see how well you are doing - and so can everyone else! You may even get some sponsors :)
This is not in any way linked to Facebook.
1. Be a page liker.
2. Sign up for Go Sober 2013
3. Pop your link in the comments below and/or the FB picture pinned to the top on the FB page before 1st October 2013
4. Be sober for October and raise lots of pennies!
Find out about Go Sober 2013 and sign up here: http://www.gosober.org.uk/about/
You can do it, YOU STAR!
So I seem to have found a little place on the interweb that I can ramble away on and only 6 of you see it. I like that. It's cosy. It can be quite daunting when you make a spelling mistake in front of 13,500 Facebook people, (where the hell did they all come from?) especially if you write like me with some kind of odd Northern accent and my typo's are usually on purpose. Why am I Northern when I type? I have no idea! I have quite an odd, silly voice like a guffaw type drawl, not Northern at all even though I grew up in sunny Widnes.
I digress. As usual.
Today I took a trip to the garden centre and had lunch with a friend. This is unusual for two reasons. One: I generally don't go outside as a rule. Two: I don't have real life friends.
So how did this come about, then? I met up with Kath from Genie Lampshades on Facebook, she lives down the road from me. I actually warned her right in the beginning that I don't make friends because real life people can be a bit bastardy. She wasn't phased at all though and just keeps coming back! The lil' monkey. So, she is now my friend, only taking the title because she made me see that not all people are bastardy (new word for you there) and some can actually enjoy roaming around garden centres, looking at material, saying how expensive everything is and cooing over the pottery.
She bought some lovely Emma Bridgewater fabric and made a shade this afternoon and sold two of them immediately. She's a bit clever. It's handy having such a talented friend. All my lights look AWESOME.
Am I rambling? Tough. This is my diary, um, blog, so the 6 of you will just have to wait until something more interesting happens.
So I came home, drew a picture of a cat, ate a 'Cook' ready meal (fab posh quick food, I don't cook) and cut the cat out of paper, like you do. Photographed some cushions that have just arrived from the fabulous Ohh Deer and already half of them have sold to friends before I've even put them on the website. Um, sorry! They are nice though.
Tonight saw the release of the very first collaboration piece between me and Rebekah Heyburn Jewellery. She has taken my papercut design and turned it into a silver masterpiece. I adore it. So I popped it on eBay at a starting price of 99p and an hour later it's on £36 - cool huh? No idea what it'll reach. I love that about chancing it with the 99p start, it lets other people decide what something is really worth themselves rather than me putting a ridiculous price on it and hoping for the best. Oh, and it's really good fun watching it!
I blame Miranda for all this writing a diary/blog lark. I just finished reading her book and found it rather jolly. If you haven't read it then give it a go.
Right, I'm off to show those Facebookers my picture of a cat called Bruce, then off to watch Big Brother (I know I know, it's naff). Cheerio!
So today I've been framing a lot of cuts that have been hanging around the studio for a week or so before they get damaged. So I wasn't concentrating and ripped one. POO! Yes, I swore a little and was about to chuck it in the bin when I figured that one of you guys might like it.
I stuck it on ye olde Facebook and got hundreds of comments before I called down Minecraft addict, Poppy (age 10) to scroll through the names and randomly pick one.
I video'd (how DO you spell that?) it all on my little phone fandangle, but being completely crap I couldn't get it to upload to Facebook. Tried Instagram instead but it'd only show snippets and 99% of you guys don't even have Instagram (you should try it, it's pretty addictive!) so all in all a big fat FAIL.
So here I am to write in these black and white wordy things that I'll be sending *goes to check spelling* Jessica Kyei-Yamoah this sadly ripped yet magnificent papercut.
Thanks for your support guys. You are, as always, a bit odd but I do like you ;)
....may one day be something that applies to me. Until then I'll make do with being in this months Craftseller Magazine. I jest, it's been great and I'm still astonished that anyone would want to read about lil ol' me.
When the nice lady came to interview me I was so scared! I hadn't seen any people (apart from my husband and daughter) for about a month, being a proper loner oddbod artist, so to meet this wildly enthusiatic little jumping-bean of a lady was quite astonishing, but pleasantly so. She soon had me at ease, complimenting me on my nail polish (always a winner) and before long I was nattering away almost oblivious to the tape recorder.
Then the photographer arrived. He was incredibly stern and professional. He never did edit out the spots on my chin like he promised, though. He took some very good photos, but you didn't get to see the REALLY good ones as they would have had my heavily tattooed arms in them which wouldn't be a good look ;) We had a good 'ol romp around the garden with the cats. I sat on the strawberries while I posed. I tried to go for demure but ended up looking slightly awkward, but the effort was put in and I think, in the end...it turned out rather well. Don't you?
Pick up September 2013 copy of Craftseller in all good retailers. And possibly some not so good, but we won't hold that against them.
