Another Blogger Blog....Bloggity Blog Blog

Jaime Zollars has a wonderful blog called Paper Forest. I have had a link on my blog for ages, but I figured that I needed to plug it again because of all the wonderful stuff turning up there that may be missed. Like this wonderful pop up lotus card from Tatyana Stolyarova. Definite Masahiro Chatani influences. Simple elegance and beauty.

You can find the file for the card here. Oh, you could use some instructions? You can find the instructions here

Xin Nian Kuai Le

Happy New Year to all my friends who follow the lunar calendar. This year February 18th starts the year of the Pig. In China, the Boar ( 豬 ) is associated with fertility and virility. To bear children in the year of the pig is considered very fortunate, for they will be happy and honest.

For your creative consideration, I have a link to a wonderful card for the new year. It is made by a very talented artist named Marivi (Maria Victoria Garrido). Her work is truly wonderful, and is displayed on both her site and her daughter's site. Definitely worth a look.

Just in time for Valentine's Day

Here are a few last minute ideas for Valentine's Day from the Canon 3D Papercraft site. These will come in handy if you were stuck for ideas, lazy, or, like me, forgetful. Just remember to stop by a store on your way home tonight.

Family Crest Kirigami

Here is a pop-up card I did a while back. Directly inspired by the work of Marivi. If you haven't seen her origami achitecture site, it's worth a look. She is a truly talented paper artist. She is also kind enough to share some of her designs with the world. Her daughter Vanessa also has a site that you should check out.

Charges on the postal service

How is it that of the 25 hand-made New Years cards that I made, all were delivered except three? About a week after I mailed out these Dave crafted beauties, three of them arrived back at my house, the front of their custom envelopes besmirched with big stamps saying that they were undeliverable due to their small size. Now if the other twenty-two were the same size, why did they make it to their recipients? I smell incompetence. Well what do you expect for .39 cents.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Well the Christmas Cards are finally finished. I only have a shot of the interior. The exterior photos didn't turn out the way I'd hoped. Just a greeting printed on vellum attached to the outside anyway.

Thanks to Evermore Designs for the pattern. Probably the hardest part of the whole thing was getting the gold leaf in place and burnished. I am proud of them though. Now it's time to make the envelopes and hope that these babies survive the trip.

Longing for a new scanner & printer

The Halloween cards are finished and ready for the mail. I used Kinkos to print the buggers out, thinking that the quality would be better. Plus, by the time I got them printed out, I would have drained the color cartridge in my printer. Well yes they look really nice, and the ink is much better than what my printer uses; but damn, at about two bucks a card, I would have been better off going to Hallmark. I think my cards are great though. I love the fact there is no mistake that mine were made just for friends and family.
I need a new printer and scanner. A good graphics printer for photos and cards, and a good scanner to load years of photos and negatives. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Why do I bother custom making cards? First, I love working with paper. Second, I like to think that the person who receives a custom card knows that extra effort was made to let them know that they were being thought of, and not just part of a robotic holiday mass mailing. But then I could be blowing smoke up my own ass.

Hard at work or hardly working?

Here is a picture of a recent piece I did based on the work of Marivi. Her pop-up and origami achitecture work, like Robert Sabuda's, will even have cyinics agreeing that this truly is a beautiful artform.