Isagra Naglia

So I mentioned I was going to London for Christmas, right? Anyway, I am visiting my friend Alex and we're going to his mother's for Christmas. I thought, what am I going to get for his mom? Of course I decided to make a papercut for her. I didn't make this idea up though, it's patterned after the style of Cindy McKeen. My mom has a few of her laser cut trees and borders and I thought Alex' mom might like one. (Sorry, Cindy, for kyping your style, I just didn't have time to purchase one!)

Last month I did a few mockups for Modern Bride to possibly be featured in an upcoming magazine. One of the ones I did had a silhouette theme. I used the profiles of my friends Crystal and Edan for the invite. I had these great little frames from Ikea and thought, "Hey, I already have their profiles, I'll just make them this cute Christmas present!" So I did and I think they turned out great!

I'll make one for you, too! Just e-mail me (cindy at cindyferguson.com) and send me pictures of your profiles and I'll send you my address where you can send payment.

Price: $30 each.

So for Christmas cards/gifts this year, I made a calendar for people. I did a drawing of Baba Yaga. It sort of looks like a scherenschnitte, but it's not really. Merry Christmas!

Oh, and if you want one, email me your request (cindy at cindyferguson.com) and I'll send you my address. Price: $15 includes shipping and handling. I have them in blue too!

I'm going to England for Christmas and wanted to make my host a papercut for a present. I don't think he looks at this site, but if he does, Merry Christmas Alex!

So I stumbled upon this bird blog that is run by John Dempsey in England. It is updated pretty regularly and I saw this image of a hawk sitting on a telephone post (November 17, 2007) and thought that it would make a great scherenschnitte. So I made one. There's another image of some rooks that I'm going to do that will kick hiney too.

I thought, this being the holiday season, it might be a good time to remind people that I had some great Thank You cards available for purchase. Want some?

These aren't actual papercuts, but they are papercut inspired and illustrated by me! I've got sets of 5 for $7.50 (add $1.50 s/h for each set). E-mail me at cindy@cindyferguson.com and I'll e-mail you my address and you can send me some lucre.

Size: 5.5" x 4.25" (A2 card with envelope)

Colors: Cream or robin's egg blue. All with black silhouette.

So last April, I went with my friend Dan out to Port Townsend for a visit. Surprisingly, there's a lot to see out there. We went to this park and I looked up and saw this squirrel climbing across small delicate branches and it silhouetted so well that I took a picture and tried to recreate it. Drawing and cutting branches like these gives me a newer and greater appreciation for nature. Even though I did a lot of little cuts, this papercut is nowhere near as intricate as the glory that is around us everywhere. It took me so long to cut out that I nearly went blind.

My friend Sarah won the free give-away of a scherenschnitte on my other blog for the 50,000th visitor. She also allowed me to stay in her house for two weeks while I looked for an apartment. I figure she really deserves one of these. When I asked her what she wanted, she said a tree and then sited this poem:

Another Sarah for Christopher Smart
by anne porter

When winter was half over
God sent three angels to the apple-tree
Who said to her
"Be glad, you little rack
Of empty sticks,
Because you have been chosen.

In May you will become
A wave of living sweetness
A nation of white petals
A dynasty of apples."

I'd like to think this is the apple tree right before it shoots out it's blossoms and is just done with being a rack of empty sticks.

The length is right, the height is wrong. my head should be a little bigger and my legs a little thicker to be accurately proportioned in this scherenschnitte silhouette of me last Friday night when my plans fell through and I tried using Redbox for the first time and couldn't get Transformers, but could get Evan Almighty and it was a nice movie.

So my friend works at the Gallery of Contemporary Art, UCCS, and asked me to make a How-to video of papercutting. Here I talk about different types of paper, tools and techniques I use in the art of papercutting.



Here's the template used in the above video. Enjoy*! Download Free Squirrel Scherenschnitte.


*But don't enjoy it too much, please feel free to make this cutout for personal use and gifts for friends, but selling it is just bad karma. I used my brain to make this, use yours to make your own. Copywrite 2007: Cindy Ferguson

I made this one from a template and didn't mess up the white, so now I have two scherenschnittes of birds!



This one is modeled after some taxidermied birds I saw last summer when I went to the Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.

It's been a while, sorry! I finally moved into my apartment and got everything put away and now I can make squirrel scherenschnitte to my heart's content. This was made in anticipation of an exciting video that I will be posting within the next week. Check back soon!

This post is nice because it also updates my Goose Girl blog. I haven't been able to do any papercuts because of various reasons—reading Harry Potter, getting ready for the garage sale, recovering from the garage sale—I think this will help me get back into the swing of things.

A little while ago, I got a disc of patterns for Scherenschnitte from a member of my scherenschnitte yahoo group that I haven't been very active in. I used these templates to help teach my Family Home Evening group how to papercut. They all did very well.

Here's Andy's. He did the 3 Blind Mice.


Terry did a good one of a kitten getting into a fish bowl.


Kristina made some pelicans.


Joseph won the award for skinniest cut with his Tom Sawyer papercut.


Meredith took to scherenschnitte like a fish takes to water.


Oh my gosh, I did some unicorns.


Stacy made some cute kitties.


I made the beginnings of a squirrel garland.


And Sharon, the newest member of our group, took on one of the toughest patterns and did an excellent job. She's going to take the rest of the templates to her second grade class for an activity.


After all that hard work, we needed some sustenance. Andy and I went to Burgermaster and ate some tasty burgers.


Burgers are so tasty!

I had lost the password to this damn thing and now it has changed all over the place. I guess I will have to mess around in here to see what I can and cannot do.

A long time ago Claire commissioned me to make some flowers for her and because I'm so on top of things, I've finally gotten around to it a year later. I don't know if this is what she had in mind, but they are scherenschnitte of flowers from her sister's garden. If you don't like them, Claire, no purchase necessary. I really like how the Columbines turned out.

I took a picture of some birds sitting on a wire outside of the Hilltop Service Station on Capitol Hill right across from Sonic Boom. It was my 32nd birthday (way back in March) and I thought what a great scherenschnitte this would make.

Brigham turned 30 today and he has a nice friend, Sariah, who sent out little postcards to all his friends and asked them to create some art on them and send them to him. Without letting him know what it was for, I text messaged him asking what kind of papercut he would like. He replied that he would like a giant squid fighting the grim reaper and a shark, or just a giant squid. I opted to have the giant squid fight the shark. Happy Golden Birthday Brigham!

It's taken me forever to get around to it, but I've finally finished the Cherry tree scherenschnitte I had promised to create for Joe to trade for some of his art. I hope you guys like it!


Claire, yours is up next!

I wanted to try my hand at the silhouette. This weekend I went to visit my old friend from home, Melanee, and her family. I did one of her 5- and 3-year olds. I think they turned out pretty good. I haven't done profiles of little kids and they are harder to draw because their proportions aren't the same as ours. This gave me a lot of respect for the guy who did my silhouette in Salzburg who just did it with scissors in five minutes.

Hans Christian Andersen wrote one of my favorite stories called The Wild Swans. It's about a princess who has a wicked stepmother, as most princesses do. She also has 11 brothers who the wicked stepmother turns into swans. After doing that she banishes the princess to live with peasants in the forest. Somehow she finds out she's a princess and that the way to undo the curse on her brothers is to make them shirts of stinging nettle. If anyone has ever felt the sting of nettle, it's not fun. The catch is that she has to do this without speaking a word until she's done. Of course while she's making the shirts, a king falls in love with her and marries her. The townspeople think she's a witch and just as they're about to burn her, she finishes the shirts and frees her brothers and her tongue and proclaims herself innocent of witchery and everyone lives happily ever after. I love that story.

I cheated with the shirts and made a net and there are only 6 swans instead of 11, it's okay. Don't cry about it.

P.S. I fell on the bus and sprained my hand/wrist and it just now healed. I'm still worried I might have carpal tunnel syndrome, but not as much.

I got this little vertical frame from the thrift store (6"x3.5") that I had no idea what to do with. I've been wanting to do some birds on wires for a while and thought this would be the perfect frame for them. I'm trying something new and using aged paper in the background. I know this isn't archival, but neither is the frame. I think, with my sophomoric knowledge of blade use, that doing the birds on a wire bigger would be better in the future.

7 a.m.

I did this seahorse scherenschnitte a while ago but forgot to post it. I think the horse turned out really pretty. I love the fins.

I love to look at the shapes of trees in the winter, they are so intricate. They remind me of when my friend Kellie tried to teach me about the chaos theory.

I'm going to go see a movie tonight with one of my top 5 friends. We're going to see Music and Lyrics. I made her a ballerina scherenschnitte. I hope she loves it!



I didn't concept this one myself though, I stole the idea from Threadless. It works so perfectly for Erin though.

Here's one for my unrequited love ex-boyfriend Damian. The bear is not actually murdering the puma, but he's about to.

The school of law at SU is having an auction. I think it's to help out law students. I can't remember. My co-worker's partner is in charge of getting pieces to auction off. Natalie asked if anyone in the office would be able to pitch in some sort of talent. I thought birds would be something that people would like to bid on, so I made one!

I see there is a new version of blogger. I have not messed in this as of yet. Please be aware, these templates are for the old system. I aplogise but I still use the old version here myself.
I will take a look at the new version later this week and see what the difference is.
Thank you
Caz.
PS, you are welcome to stop by and say hello to me at my new home. Please do not leave comments about helping you with these templates.
I will not answer them, this is a personal blog for myself, not a help centre.
Blessings
Caz
One Wyld Aussie

My friend Suzanne came to visit and me, Nathaniel and Suzanne took a ferry ride over to Bremerton to visit Nathaniel's parent's. On the way there, I asked for some suggestions on things that I could cut and Suzanne said a squirrel and a city. So I made a squirrel village! Squirrels running around everywhere.

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