Mokuyobi x Mowgli Pop Up Papercut

Mokuyobi and Mowgli have been planning a month long pop up shop at Urban Outfitter's Space 15 Twenty! We will be launching new products and are having some musical guests for the event. Part of the process has been making some promotional images that both Mowgli and I have contributed.

For the opening party promo I made an abstract paper cut with some crazy cool colors and shapes and hand cut out the Mowgli x Mokuyobi type. I think it turned out great! See below for more photos of different angles and detail shots!

Golden Birthday Card

Every year I send my good friend Dustin a birthday card. He is exactly one month older than me. I like to make him a little something fun each year and this year was especially special because it's both of our Golden birthdays. If you are unaware, a Golden birthday is when you turn the age of the day of the month you were born on and for both of us that is 28 because we were born on the 28th or our respective months. It's not as exciting for people who were born in the beginning of the month and most of the time they are unaware of this fun birthday bonus but I've been waiting 28 years for this one so I'm pretty pumped. It's my lucky number!

I started with a metallic golden paper which I cut into card size and folded in half. Then I used a x-acto knife to cut out the number 28, a party hat, and a bunch of confetti shapes which I filled with colored paper by taping it to the back of the card. I made the party hat stripey and cut some fun drip shapes for the number cut out. I packed it super securely in a mailing folder and covered it in colorful washi tape. Check out the work in progress and final photos. I had a good time making this! Although reflective surfaces are certainly a challenge to photograph!

Horsing Around Paper Cut

For my Dad's birthday I made him a paper cut card of a horse head. He doesn't even especially like horses but picking something random is always the best option when giving someone a gift. It also allowed for a lot of amazing horse puns in the message on the back.

I started with picking my color palette. Good thing I had some good paper color options lying around. Next I cut out big shapes and played a lot with the eyes and eyebrows. A great part about paper cut art is how easy it is to move everything around when you're working. Like a real life version of illustrator but more sticky when it comes to the glue part. Check out all of the in prog photos below!

Paper Flower Tutorial

I recently made some paper flowers for two peeps who mean a whole lot to me. Paper flowers are fun to make and although they are a bit time consuming they don't ever die which is a definite plus. You can make them to look like an existing flower from Earth (or another planet, no judgement) or be a Crafty Mother Nature and make your own.

I used double sided crepe paper. It has a nice thickness and the two tone is a winner for sure.

For the stem you will need floral wire and floral tape to wrap around the wire to give it an extra nature-y texture. A pair of scissors will be helpful unless you are equipped with go-go-gadget laser fingers. You will also need some type of craft glue.

Cut out at least two different sizes of flower pedals. Make a pedal shaped template and enlarge it to your heart's desire. You will also need to cut a wavy piece with a flat bottom as your first flower step.

Wrap the tape around the floral wire. It's self sticking so you don't need to use glue, just squish it a bit with your fingertips as you wrap it.

Take your wavy piece and add a drop of glue to one side. Tightly wrap it around your floral stem hiding the stem top. Add another drop of glue at the end to hold it in place.

Now you can begin adding your flower pedals. Start with the smallest ones first and add a drop of glue at the base covering where your first piece went. As you build the pedals make sure you are covering the bottom of the previous ones, this will prevent the base of the flower from building up and will make it easier to finish at the end.

When adding pedals I placed them about halfway over the previously placed pedal so it was partially covering it but there's no rule book on making paper flowers so feel free to switch it up.

Continue to add pedals from your smallest to your largest size pedals until you feel that your flower is finished.

When you're done adding pedals, cut at least two pieces with pointed ends and round bottoms. Wrap and glue these pieces around the base of the petals to finish the flower.

It should look something like this :-)

Congrats! You made a flower! Now make some more and take pretty pictures of them to show off your crafty green thumb.

With these flowers I used a limited color palette on each one to make them look more flower-like. Next I went for making a full on rainbow flower.

Watch it grow!

Paper House

Paper cut art is a technique I keep coming back to. It's very detail oriented and can be difficult when cutting out tiny shapes and not to mention the glue & sticky fingers! But it's always very rewarding in the end and totally fun to conquer. I made this little paper cut house as a thank you to a very cool Cali mom I met recently.

Paper Party

In Progress…

The aftermath!

Some close-ups