How My Fascination with Everything Cutouts Began

My white cutout leather bag

It was only very recent that I realized when my fascination with cutting and paper began. I was always interested in everything cutouts, may it be jewelry, fabric, furniture and paper, especially.

I always wonder how it began... And then one day I remember, when I was about 7 or 8 years old, my father made me my first ever paperdoll (!), complete with a stand and 2 sets of clothes. (Yes, I got my creativity from my father and my love of creating or working with my hands, from my dear mother! It was hand-sketched and hand-cut. He used colored markers in rendering. I can still remember how it looked like - the girl he drew is simple and yet very charming. I remember it having blunt bangs and wore a plain tank top and shorts as it's 'default clothes'. He explained what the flaps in the paper clothes are for and taught me how to attach it to my paperdoll. And since he only made 2 sets of clothes, he encouraged me to make more. And so I grabbed my pencil, colored markers, scissors and papers and started creating more, to my heart's content! I always enjoyed drawing when I was a kid and that incident with my father introduced me to another potential interest - c u t t i n g !  Yey! Since then, I look forward to doing school projects and other activities with cutting involved.

When I was in college, my grandmother's brother (also an artist, yes, it runs in the family) gave me my first ever craft knife set, complete with a cute case and spare blades, but I don't know how and where to use it back then.

Fast forward to 2011, I googled a papercut art piece and I instantly fell in love with it. I immediately tried my hand at paper cutting. My early creations were nature-inspired - always flowers and foliage. I like making organic and biomorphic designs. I enjoyed every bit of the cutting process - from tracing my hand-sketches using a craft knife, to carefully taking out the negative spaces and slowly revealing the cut paper. The contrasting play of light and shadow brought by the positive and negative spaces is visually i n t e r e s t i n g.

So whenever I have free time, I make papercuts for myself. For my own delight. It's fun and liberating to make art for yourself - you are your own boss, you own critique.

3D leaves papercut

 'Bloom'
I made this in 2011 and in 2014, I gifted it to Mrs. Emma Palo, my grade school teacher.

Whenever I'm paper cutting, weird as it may sound, I feel that the blade of my craft knife is an extension of my fingers. Cutting and slicing through paper is like endorphins shots for me. I feel like I'm in my element every time I do this craft. It makes me feel so alive and I'm beyond happy that I've found my flow. :)

'Find Your Flow' available at Craftlab Shop, our online craft store: http://www.craftlabshop.com/product/framed-papercut-find-your-flow