Papercutting - craft class

I have wanted to try papercutting for a long time.  I bought an Exacto knife at Harrogate a couple of years ago.  I bought a book, or maybe two.  I have paper.  But I never cut it.  Why?  No idea!  I knew a class would give me the push though, so when I saw one advertised at Two Little Magpies, and on a weekend, I jumped at the chance.  If you live near Nottingham, I definitely recommend these classes.  They are such good value.  It wasn't expensive, and not only did we get the expert tuition, coffee and biscuits, we also got to take away our knives, a spare blade, a pile of templates printed on lovely paper AND the cutting mat! 

We started with a little practice.  We worked from the back, and then turned over to see the results.  I started with the easy shapes at the top and then moved on to some curved shapes and some letters.  Can you guess Z's name?  (as if it wasn't obvious anyway!!).

Please turn your screen upside down for this shot!  This is the first go at a "proper" template.  It was quite chunky and was numbered from 1, starting with the easier shapes and getting harder.  After that we had free reign to try any of the templates we'd been given.  There was a huge variety and some seemed very hard for a beginner, but we were assured we could do it.  And we could!

Here's what I started with - remember you cut from the back.  Apparently it varies from designer to designer, but on this one you cut out the lighter colour, leaving the dark colour as the finished product.

Like this!  Yay!  It was only a 2 hour class, but I had plenty of time to cut another.

This was a bit tricky because of the curves, but mainly because I was getting a little tired.  The class actually ran over as the tutor is far too lovely to kick people out.  I was the first one to leave as I had plans but others stayed there cutting.  I have more templates to tackle and I will!  I thoroughly enjoyed this craft and it's something I definitely want to do more of.

Speed Craft #5 - Origami notebook

Before we begin, sad news.  I thought I'd already told you but can't find any evidence.

We lost our beautiful Tiff.  Her cancer had grown very large and she suddenly stopped being the happy, nosey, boisterous Tiff that she'd always been.  She started sitting in a corner all hunched up.  I knew it was time and I knew what I had to do, but it was so painful (for me) and I still feel bad about it.

I loved her so much and I miss her.

A couple of posts ago I was telling you about the Speed Craft event that we went to at Debbie Bryan.  I still don't have my concrete or ceramic pieces back and I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to pick them up, so I'll tell you about the origami table, and then we'll have to move on and come back to Speed Craft later.

On our final table of the day, we made little origami books.  They were folded from a single sheet of paper (a lovely double-sided scrap book paper).  We could then decorate them with stitches, other papers, pens, stamps etc.

I had my first go at papercutting, cutting a W into the cover of my book.

I then decorated some of the pages with music paper and pages from books torn out.  

I stuck the W I'd cut out on the back page.

I cut my pages apart to have more pages in my book, so I needed to secure them together.  I used some Perle cotton to stitch the pages together.  It's not very well done due to the time constraints, but the picture is so bad you can't really tell!  In actual fact, it's sewn expertly, perfectly, professionally.  Honest.

We also made a little envelope, folded from a single sheet of origami paper.  I added three little stitches to hold it together.

I had fun making this little book and it got me all fired up with ideas about how else I could decorate little books if I had more time.  

And here's a photo of Kate, hiding in her nest.  She's still with us even though we couldn't pair her with Colin (they fought and Colin was badly injured - he started it though).  I'm fostering her for a bit and then we'll try pairing her with Harry.

I met a lady the other day who had been to Speed Craft and she said she thought that the crafts like this were pointless, but I disagree.  OK, I may have no use for a little decorated book in an origami envelope, but I enjoyed making it, I felt creative and I had a chance to experiment.  For me, that's all the point that's needed.  I don't believe crafts, or works of art, have to be practical, though of course everyone is different. I'd be interested to know what you think?