Following on from yesterday’s post when I rediscovered the book “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments“, I have been relaxing this evening by doing a bit more papercutting by hand. It makes a refreshing change from doing it by laser.
Here are my latest cuts:
…see if you can match any in my sketchbook compared to the actual original designs in the book:
I’ve just found a book in my SuperShed called “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments“. I bought it a few years ago with the intention of adapting the designs so that they could be turned into papercuts, and my theory was that if I made all 922 then by the end of it I’d be really good adapting designs, and really good at papercutting.
Un/fortunately then I got really busy and so haven’t done much papercutting by hand for ages. But now that I’ve found the book again I’m going to see if I can get any further with my quest.
Here are a couple of designs I cut while I was half-watching “Britain’s Got Talent” this evening:
I’d forgotten how therapeutic it feels to really get into papercutting by hand. I look forward to continuing my quest to finish cutting all 922 designs…
Wherever I go my eye is always drawn to laser-cut and laser-etched items, and (as I mentioned in the last post) I was really pleased to see plenty of good quality laser-y products while I was on holiday earlier this month. In fact I was so pleased to see them that I even bought a few laser cut souvenirs.
This is a card that I bought in the Doge’s Palace. It’s got a nice simple front…
…and then when you open it you get the “wow” of the pop-up effect:
Here is a close-up of the inside:
This is the back of the card:
The makers are a bit mysterious – I can’t find them anywhere via the usual search engines – so if you can point me to their website please let me know! You can do that via the contact us page or Twitter (@LaserSister), or Facebook or the comments section below. Thanks!
I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I’d come back from our recent holiday with a few laser-cut souvenirs that caught my eye while we were away. Here’s another one. We visited Ceaușescu‘s bonkers giant palace while we were in Bucharest, and it was amazing and frightening in equal parts.
This piece is a bit more complex than the previous fridge magnet, because it’s also coloured, somehow. I’m not sure how it’s made, to be honest, apart from the shape itself being laser-cut from a sheet of wood. Maybe it’s a transfer/decal applied to the surface of the wood?:
If you know what the process is, please give me a shout – I would be very interested to find out! You can use the contact us form, or Twitter or Facebook or the comments section below. Thanks!
Laser Cut Souvenir Fridge Magnet – Belogradchik Rocks, Hungary
We got back from holiday last week and only just finished unpacking today – and I’d forgotten that while I was on holiday my eye had been caught by several laser-cut souvenirs.
This one is a laser cut souvenir fridge magnet from Belogradchik Rocks, in Bulgaria. Mmmm, laser-y!
Laser cutters are so versatile that sometimes it’s really easy to get sidetracked, and think “I wonder if I could…” and then start on a whole new series of experiments. That’s how I ended up the other day wondering if I could create a birthday card with fairies on it. I’m not brilliant at drawing though, so I needed to try to find some royalty-free images that I could use as a basis for the designs, where I wouldn’t be infringing copyright and/or stealing someone else’s idea. At times like this, I usually turn to the brilliant Dover Books. They might just as well have “Royalty-Free Laser Cutting Resources” written all over them.
These books are absolutely great to use with art and design projects, including (of course) laser-cut and laser-etched projects. The books are specifically created for artists and craftspeople, to allow them to use the designs in their own projects. Once you have bought the book you may use the designs without having to pay royalties, and – more importantly – without breaking copyright laws.
As it says in the front of most of their books, “You may use them for graphics and crafts applications, free and without special permission, provided that you include no more than ten in the same publication or project…However, republication or reproduction of any illustration by any other graphic service, whether it be in a book, electronic, or in any other design resource is strictly prohibited.”
In other words, you can make artworks which include these images, but you can’t (e.g.) copy the images and sell them as stock images yourself.
The books used to just be in physical format, but in recent years they have included CD-ROMs with the artwork on them digitised as vector images and ready for you to incorporate in your own projects. (And now an increasing number of the books are available in eBook format.)
So I ordered a copy of Fairies and Elves Vector Motifs (Dover Electronic Clip Art) from Amazon, and it arrived the next day.
I found three images where I liked different parts of the fairies, and then combined them into one single fairy and added some “Birthday Wishes” text:
Finished design for the laser-cut birthday card:
Here is a link to the “Fairies & Elves Vector Motifs” book.
…and here are some other similar books, but they maybe don’t have vector-format images:
“Children“
This week I’ve been developing William Morris-style laser cut birthday cards.
After a couple of days’ tinkering, I ended up with some really nice filigree designs of card toppers:
For the letters shown above, I bought the extended licence from Dreamstime, which is a website where you can buy royalty-free photos and vector-based illustrations.
Here are the art nouveau alphabet images that I used. Alternatively, you can enter your own search terms in the box below, to look for specific resources. For example, type “Art nouveau”, or “William Morris alphabet” in the box, and then click the ‘search’ button.
Another great resource that I’ve found for royalty-free designs is Vectorstock.com. They seem to have forgotten to use an apostrophe in the link/banner below, but they still do a brilliant range of illustrations. And because their files are all vector-based graphics, that means that they are usually very straightforward to cut with a laser cutter:
And at the moment (April 2018) both sites are even more useful if you have your own laser cutting business, because they can provide a little bit of extra income on top of your actual laser-cut products. You can either upload some of your own original designs and allow people to buy licences to use them, or can sign up as an ‘affiliate’.
For example, with Vectorstock I uploaded my elephant design so that other people with laser cutters can use it in their own designs. Then every time someone purchases a licence for the elephant, I receive a few cents, but there is no extra cost to the purchaser. Win/win!
Similarly, with affiliate links and referral schemes, you can also receive small payments just for pointing people towards something that they are already interested in. As another example, if you include the banners/ads for these services (like the ones shown above) you could receive a small payment each time someone signs up and/or purchases a licence.
Hope you enjoyed this post. Don’t forget to say ‘hi’ via the contact us page, or to tweet me @LaserSister if you’ve tried any of the above ideas or if you’ve got comments or questions.
Over the last couple of days I’ve been cutting some sea-themed laser cuts, ready to turn into items for the Inspired by the Sea gallery in Worthing.
This is the “before” stage, when the pieces are fresh from the laser cutter, and then they will be turned into jewellery and fridge magnets:
Now I just need to add some magnets and some beads and jewellery findings.
