Banana leaf papercut - now in my shop

So. Much. Papercutting. 

I'm really enjoying being so productive at the moment. I'm really happy with my latest piece, this banana leaf design:

It's also now available to buy in my shop if you want to bring some tropical decor into your home - and surely everyone wants that? 

I did a decent job of documenting stages of this piece: 

The intact outline, cut from one sheet
of black paper.

The first, lightest colour green is
added...

The reverse of the papercut which
is always a scrappy mess!

All the shades of green are added
and just need to decide on the
background.

This was pretty daunting to begin to assemble. Once I finished the outline and had to start deciphering what leaf should be what colour I had a headache for a while. But once I got stuck in it all came together. 

It was fun to take the plants I've done earlier another stage further and get involved in some detailed foliage. 

I think this would be awesome as a tessellation print...it's got me thinking about papercut patterns and some of the blackwork embroidery I did.

More on that soon.  What other plants could I do? Thoughts?

Papercut giveaway! Plants and lamps

I'm on a roll with the paper cutting - James bought me a drawing table for my birthday and I slotted my cutting mat onto it and hey presto: no more hunching over the living room table!

To celebrate my increased productivity and improved working conditions I thought I'd giveaway my latest papercut: 

I really like how this little guy turned out! I love the lamp...its a vintage red anglepoise that we picked up in a Crystal Palace second hand shop and I use it for all my crafting and cutting so it seems like a fitting tribute. 

So how do you enter? Well, this lamp is one of my favourite things in our home - so leave a comment on here or over on my Instagram post (or link on the right) telling me what your favourite piece in your home is. 

We are in the process of buying a house (eek!) and we'd love some inspiration!

This is open to anyone anywhere and postage is included. 

I'll choose a winner at random on Saturday 30th April. 

(A bit more about the piece: Its an original piece of papercut art, designed and handcut by me from layers of artist quality paper. Its 10cm x 15cm so will easily pop into a standard sized photo frame) 

Thanks for in inspiration and good luck!

Pot plant papercut

I did another papercutting this weekend and although halfway through I felt like I was going insane I am so so pleased with how this turned out! 

This piece reminds me a lot of Jean Jacques Rousseau, He was one of my favourite artists growing up. I love all the stylised foliage in his jungle pictures. Apparently he spent a long time in botanical gardens painting different exotic plants which he later used in his paintings (that from a essay I wrote for my IB art class..). 


I especially like that this piece depicts our actual plants on our actual window sill. Most of my papercuts are pulled from my imagination so it was nice to do something different. 

But man, I could really tell that this was a new direction...I must have gone through 10 blades cutting this piece. That window pane was a killer. I'm glad I stuck at it as the lines of the panes work really well with the organic shapes of the plants. 

I'm excited to do more of these but for now this one is now available in my shop. 

DIY terracotta plant pots

I have always loved plants. When I was a kid I used to save up my pocket money to buy African violets...very rock and roll of me, I know. 

Since we moved to London I have been slowly accumulating a new family of house plants and a couple of years in, some of them are in need of re-potting....which was a good excuse to do a DIY I had in mind for plain terracotta pots.

Pots are annoyingly expensive and most of the time not what I really want anyway. I really like terracotta but it does get a bit same-y if you have a lot of plants in one room.

I picked up a few different sizes of pots from my local hardware store. They were only a couple of quid each. I also got 2 pots of gloss paint in magnolia and turquoise - look for little 'small project' or tester pots to save money unless you have other projects in mind for the rest of the pot.






Stuff I needed: pots, masking tape (I actually used packing tape as I didn't have masking tape to hand which was fine but masking is probably better), brushes, white spirit and gloss paint.

I just wanted to try something simple so decided to try one colour block type-pot and one drip...






So for the drip one...

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I upended a pot and started by painting the base and slowly easing the paint towards the edge until it began to form drips and trickle down the sides of the pot. 

I think in retrospect I could have thinned the paint down a bit. I was quite thick and when it dried it went a bit crinkly. I don't really mind it though and James just described it as looking 'organic'. Fine. 

For the colour block one I taped off the base of the pot and painted the upper half. I also painted the inner inch and a half or so in the pot... I just think this gives it a more finished look but its down to personal preference.

I left it to dry for a few hours and then peeled off the masking (packing) tape. Very satisfying.

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They aren't perfect but I think they turned out well and unlike some other projects I have done, I don't mind the imperfections.

I really like the colour block ones - I'll be doing more of them for sure. And maybe something with more stripes or zig zags? I'll need to pick up some masking tape for that!

I think my plants look pretty happy with their new homes.