the art and imagination of Jen Minnis
They came!! they came!!
ok, you guys don’t know it, but I’ve been waiting *very* impatiently for my precut mats to arrive ever since I got the notice that they were shipped on the 22nd. I suddenly got the overwhelming desire to have all my cuttings matted up and stored the way they will be for sale, all nice and safe.
well they finally arrived! now I’m going to spend my day getting all my scherenschnitte matted up and bagged and ready. it will feel so good to have them ready to go.
well, I’m still working away. today I finished up a mother and daughter cutting and mounted a few… they are all up on the website for sale, just in case anyone wants to snag any before I take them to the booth in august.
and now, my index finger says it’s time to stop for a little while and paint paste papers instead.
“We are continually faced with great opportunities which are brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems.”
– Margaret Mead
“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”
– Francis Bacon
I’ve been working along building stock for the booth in SF in August.
on Saturday I went shopping for supplies. I got 2 reams of paper from the print shop and had them chop them to size. also picked up a couple blocks of watercolor paper to paint for backgrounds for scherenschnitte, a bunch of glazing medium so I can make paste paper galore, plus minor things like artist’s tape etc.
I’ve just spent the last 3 days (well, not the whole days, lol) folding 2 reams of paper to be the guts to 28 books.
tonight I got the burl glued down on the covers for 5 books. gluing burl down is a real pain, lol. it’s curled and warped, so I need to press it down while the glue sets… but, and here’s the annoying part, it is slippery on the glue and isn’t flat on the surface until you put the weight on top. so, it’s fiddly and annoying making sure it ends up in the right spot. ohhh, but it’s worth it for the finished look! but the process is not the favorite part binding these books, lol.
that means, later tonight, I’ll have 9 books ready to drill … and stitch. (no, I’m not staying up to stitch them all).
i have the covers cut for 40 more books (yes, that’s more than I have guts for so far). I need to get cracking on covering those covers with paste papers.
things are rolling along.
when I was trimming down backgrounds for some upcoming scherenschnitte cuttings, I ended up with a bunch of beautifully watercolored strips. I knew I needed to find something to do with them. well, this is what I came up with 
I’ve just add all my current stock of scherenschnitte cuttings to my website. all the 5×7 cuttings are currently for sale at $20 each. after the Golden Gate Renaissance Fair in August, I will be raising the price of the 5×7 cuttings with the watercolored backgrounds to $25 each. so, grab them while they are hot!and just to grab your interest, here’s a small peek of some….
I got the rest of the paper cuttings (the crosses) I had done mounted. I’ll be posting them later. these weren’t mounted on to watercolor backgrounds like the last set because I had already picked out patterned papers to mount them on. the next set of crosses I cut will go on watercolored backgrounds though! also, I’ve been working hard at designing a few more patterns for production work….
I got the playing card decks I ordered from the collaborative Christian Paper Arts deck today! they look great. this means we’ve got about half our Christmas gifts set, lol. and because of the amount of decks that were ordered, we got a refund of $2 per deck.
I’ve been working on making lots of scherenschnitte for sale, and last night I mounted a bunch. I’ve been experimenting with new background methods to highlight the cuttings…. watercolors!
and finally, a gift for my BIL and his wife to hold pictures of their new (3 month old) baby boy… Damon
