Paper Cut Cards
30 stunning handmade
cards with eye-popping 3-D designs
By Emily Gregory
Search Press 2016
Paperback £12.99
ISBN 978-1-78221-386-4
Star rating: ****
This charming book is, perhaps, mis-named. If you are looking for a papercutting book,
you should probably look elsewhere. If you are looking for an ace 3-D
cardmaking book with designs contributed by a talented bunch of international
paper artists – you’re in the right place. This book contains projects of
graded complexity – but even the simplest designs are hooky and original. This
is a go-to title for getting your paper engineering skills in gear.
The feats of paper engineering magic are divided into three
sections – Cuts & Folds, Tabs & Slots, and Discs & Spirals. So –
you’ve got your standard pop-ups and fold-ins, plus mechanical cards. All the projects
are handmade (but they could certainly be adapted for digital cutting if you
are so inclined).
Star projects include Pot
of Flowers (Freya Lines) – a simple papercut with a colourful backing so both the design and the background pop; Fiesta (Freya Lines) – Mexican papercut-inspired
pop-up; Bird Box (Whispering Paper) – a pop-up kraft paper shadowbox with a
delightful papercut bird, Knight’s
Fortress (Lynn Hatzius) – a spectacular concertina castle that is
deceptively easy to make. In the second section, Carousel (Tina Kraus) would
make a splendid birthday surprise, Snail
on a Leaf (Rosa Yoo) is a super dimensional pull-tab pop-up. In chapter 3, Bird in a Cage (Kyle Orman) impresses
(as the name says, it is a paper cage card - pull the string to reveal the
lattice cage).
These cards are all-singing, all-dancing – in many cases,
you will have to rely on the description to use your imagination to create a
mental gif of the card action. As you would expect, step-by-step how-tos accompany each project.
Outstanding features of the book include a picture gallers "Project Selector" and capsule bios of the contributing papercrafters. Nice.
There’s a template section at the back of the book – due to
the nature of the cards, enlargement is necessary in most cases.
So – a pleasing round-up of all-occasion interactive cards.
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