Hobby Thread - March 7, 2026 [TRex]

Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies (TM) a spin and it landed on paper cutting.

What are you hobbying?

As per usual Hobby Thread etiquette, keep this thread limited to hobbying. All (legal) hobbying is welcome. I understand that some people pay attention to military hardware, tactics and strategy as a hobby. Discussion of current events permitted but must be made in the form of hobby commentary. Pants are optional. As always, puns are welcome and encouraged.

Play nice and do not be rude. Do not be a troll and do not feed the trolls.

Paper cutting? Yes, paper cutting.

It takes patience and precision, but some people are wise in the ways of cutting and layering paper to make three dimensional art. Seems like a sharp knife and a working knowledge of negative space helps quite a bit.

We'll do a separate theme someday on origami and paper airplanes, so let's leave those for another time. No need to confuse paper cutting with paper folding.

Your dino host has a small brain and short arms, so cutting paper is beyond my reach. Need your contributions in the gray boxes for help.

Thomas Witte:

Not sure what makes this paper cutting "Japanese," but interesting to watch an artist create a piece based on a photograph:

Not sure what makes this paper cutting "Swiss," but interesting to watch this artist make her pieces from scratch. She cuts only with scissors. Worth watching to see her workspace too.

Works by an Ohio artist from Joe Kidd (who gets credit for the theme suggestion):

EPSON is a Japanese company that makes printers. They sponsor a wide variety of Japanese auto racing teams. Everything you see on this page on their website can be printed on paper and made in three dimensions. Race cars, transport trucks, and even pit lane crew and equipment.

Warning - the website is in Japanese, so you either need to know how to speak Japanese or know how to translate.

There are many other race car paper templates on the interweb if this intrigues you. Some are basic and targeted to children. Others are more sophisticated (like Formula One cars).

Cutting silhouettes with a live subject seems like quite a challenge:

If you're really fancy, making pop-up cards out of paper is impressive.

Cutting paper snowflakes isn't exactly the same as other paper cutting here, but the content would be incomplete without it!

Want to know more about the manufacturing of curling stones? Lots of interesting nuggets in these two videos. The heavy Scottish accent is included for no additional charge.

NOTICE: Next week the theme will be calligraphy and the written word. Think tools and technique, process, and end results. If you have suggestions, contributions, photos of your work, or photos/links of pieces by others that would qualify, please send. Space permitting, we'll feature Horde submissions in the content. If you don't send anything, I'll just post pages from the Book of Kells.

Even if you make no submissions, have a think during the week and come prepared!

Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week? We did an wood lathe turning theme. The comments may be closed, but you can re-live the content.

Notable comments from last week:

Words of wisdom:

"Because despite all our troubles, when things are grim out in that wide round world of ours, that's when it's really important to have a good hobby." Posted by: tankascribe at June 22, 2024 07:41 PM (HWxAD).

If you have trouble finding something in the content or comments that resonates with you, contribute your own. Send thoughts, suggestions and photos of your hobbying to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Do mighty things but don't run with scissors.

posted by Open Blogger at 05:30 PM

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