By now, my November and December envelopes should have been delivered to winners Tess Shumaker and Diana Plazas. This time I experimented with papercuts. Here they are!
(I did one extra in blue there for a great friend.)
These were very easy and almost free to make – but they were time consuming, and there was definite trial and error. And numb fingers! In case you want to make these your own, here’s what I did:
- I used an Xacto knife to cut the snowflake shapes out of colored paper. I ended up just doing them freehand (so they look a little … um … quirky), but you could draw or print your design directly on the paper so you have a good guide.
- Then I slipped the papercut inside a home-made glassine envelope.
- I wrapped the prize contents in white paper and set it behind the papercut.
- Finally, I tossed some hexgonal glitter / confetti inside. I thought it looked crystalline and snowflake-y.
They didn’t come out exactly as I had planned, but the main goal (that whisper-soft look) did work. I’m definitely inspired to try more papercutting in 2012. You should too!
If you’d like a shot at winning next month’s elevated prize envelope, hand-made and stuffed with letterpress surprises, all you have to do is be on our eNews list. Click!
–Tara
ps. Thanks to Thalia Troianou and Ashley Delaney for the papercut inspiration this summer, and to Amy Garten for the extra hexagon glitter.
pps. Did you know you can buy giant sheets of glassine paper at Daniel Smith here in Seattle? ($0.61 for a huge sheet.)
