January 2020 will mark exactly one year since I launched my Etsy shop Papercut Puppets. Well, um, technically it was a re-launch of my shop.

The backstory: my Etsy shop proudly displays the text since 2010, and this is certainly the case. I did create a shop on Etsy way back in 2010, shortly after graduating with my MFA in Visual Arts. I made a short-lived and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to sell my original art and lithographic prints online and abandoned the shop a few months after its initial launch. It lay dormant for over eight years, until early this year when I decided to give it another try. This time, I decided to go cheap and crafty with articulated paper puppets and paper dolls. A rather niche product, admittedly, but one which I felt I’d enjoy creating.

Now, if you regularly follow my blog, you’ll know already that my paper puppets are not your run-of-the-mill, rosy-cheeked cutesy toddlers, puppies, or kittens. In short, these aren’t your Grandma’s paper crafts. My Strange Girls series of paper puppets, for instance, includes a pair of conjoined twins, a doll with a parasitic twin named Myrtle (a reference to the 19th-century sideshow performer Myrtle Corbin), and a girl with a condition called hypertrichosis which causes excessive hair growth on portions of the body. Other puppets include butterflies, two octopuses, a mermaid, and toddlers with bird heads. All puppets and dolls have a vintage look, inspired by illustrations from the 19th century (though all are original drawings by me).

My custom, hand-made paper puppets and dolls celebrate the odd and beautifully unusual. Prices range from $6 for DIY downloadable paper crafts, up to $25-50 for pre-assembled puppets (Canadian dollars, eh).

https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/PapercutPuppets