29 watercolor trinkets

cut out and ready to play

Before cutting and trimming

I'm thinking of sewing them to a substrate.

I tried using iron-transfer paper,(wating to create felt charms) which I have used in the past but the same fabric, same iron, same felt doesn't work.

Oh well, I have another idea.

26 on my desk/worktable

Folk art shapes, and Matisse shapes cut from watercolor paper, 140lb.

A mixture of Matisse inspired cutouts and my folk art cutting files.

See the sepia post

I was trying out the Vicki Boutin watercolors. Rich saturated colors, and very smooth paint. The tubes are very small and don't match the labels. Very good to replace empty pans, nice bright colors without being fluorescent.

I am slowly upgrading to better watercolors. Even if you are using cheap brushes, which are my next upgrade, bright colors, and creamy consistency, that re-wets easily are my top priority.

15 painting flowers

Remember these? The tea/coffee stained crumbles and ironed papers.

This what happened

Brown watercolor and a drippy old brush. 

It was so much fun to paint these. I

completed page after page.

Continuing on, I cut small pages then watercolored
imaginary prim style flowers.

Mermaid

I re-cut the mermaid smaller, painted and inked the pieces.

I glued some of the basic pieces together

a close up

more close ups

I'm going to collage her onto hand-painted paste paper.

Mermaid experiment

I was playing with a drawing I did a while back and decided to see what it would look like as a mermaid.

Then I turned the drawing into simple shapes adding an arm and a rock, and picking out some flowers.

I cut the shapes out of watercolor paper and did some doodles and sloppy washes. The shapes were pretty odd, so I wasn't sure what would happen.

I did a trial put together:

She still needs some work.

I'm going to re-cut it smaller to fit into my journal.

Antique cabinet again

This is one of my favorite cutting files. After I finish testing it I hope to make it available as a down load.

I painted the cabinet pieces after I cut them out.

I started auditions for  cut outs and pieces I had
been doodling on.

I glued and taped everything down while trying to
decide what to put inside.

This was so much fun to make.

More cabinet art here:

Birds

Antique cabinet 

Dollhouse

The cutting files and printables will be available in my Etsy shop.

Dollhouse

More fun with my cutting machine.

A few years ago I started playing with Ink scape. I began to make my own colored SVG files. Now I am using them with my cutting machine.

Here is a house design I have been playing with:

These were cut from two of my cutting file collections.

I painted them pink with water color. I had flowers, bird and other elements.

It's fun to lay the pieces out.  Brads and foam tape are my favorites when it comes to attaching the pieces together. I will show you in the next part How I use these to put the house together.

I love this cutting machine.I have created some SVG designs from my sketches.

I cut them from water color paper.

Wow! So much fun!

Here is a purse example:

 I cut the purse SVG file from watercolor paper.

Then I painted the pieces with watercolor, then doodle in some patterns.

Then I put the pieces together by punching holes and adding  brads.

Then I created more cuts from some paper doll files, and clothing files.

I cut out the paper-doll pieces, on watercolor paper. Painted them with watercolor paints, then punched the holes, using a pencil to line up attaching pieces.

Finished paper-doll.

Then I played with cutting out paper doll clothes and embellishments.

I used a sepia graphic pen to create the doodles over the water color.

close up

The cut files (.SVG and .PNG ) will be available here:

birdandflower