Cutting Machine Crafts, by Lia Griffith. Review.

Cutting Machine Crafts

Cricut®_,  Sizzix®, or Silhouette®

Projects to Make with 60 SVG Files

By Lia Griffith

Clarkson Potter 2018

Paperback £14.99 UK/$16.99 US/ $22.99

ISBN 978-1-9848-2235-2

Star rating: ****

Books on digital crafts are few and far between, so this new title by Lia Griffith is cause for celebration. It includes 50 projects for home-makes, party decorations, and giftables. Not all the projects are papercrafts – many are for vinyl  – but there’s plenty to keep papercrafters very happy. Lia Griffith is a prolific name designer with a team that helps to make the magic happen.

If you have an electronic cutting machine, you know that SVG design files (scalable vector graphics) provide the instructions for your machine to cut out the design outlines. SVG files can be accepted by many brands of cutting machine, which makes this book possible. The SVG files are accessed by going to a link on Lia Griffith’s design studio website, where the design downloads can be accessed by a code. The physical book is a “look book” which displays the designs (lovely photography) and also provides step-by-step how-tos for project assembly.

The projects are exquisite – they are stylish, modern, and totally professional-looking in appearance. My one big gripe about the book is that instructions for accessing the design files should appear prominently – and repeatedly – throughout the book. How-to access the templates is mentioned inconspicuously in the upfront matter of the book. Detective work should not be required!

Projects are divided into three categories: For the Home, For the Kids, and For Celebrations. Papercraft projects include Tropical Leaves (fabulous cheese plants and ferns), Southwest Cacti  (fun 3D plants), Mushroom Meadow layered picture, Boxwood Greenery (fun topiary plants on a Styrofoam base), Meadow Cloche (lovely bell  jar-enclosed scene),  Fall Leaves (a wreath project), and Paper Lanterns.  Lia Griffith is particularly strong on paper flowers – elegant shapes, 3D effects, but not too fussy. Papercrafts for the kids include paper boats, and bunny goodie boxes. A fun party idea is an “Ice Cream Stand”:  themed projects which include a bunting and ice-cream cone holders.

Cutting machines have revolutionized papercrafting. Let’s hope that there are more titles like this one in the pipeline.

Note: I was provided with a review copy of this book.