Martha Stewart Crafts Holiday Paper Projects

So these are not free downloads, but there are some beautifully simple paper projects now available at Martha Stewart Crafts. Her line of paper projects, scrap-booking papers, and more is carried in many Michael's Craft shops and online.

Mechanical Man letterpress paper toy.

Hope you don't mind a self serving post, but I wanted to share with you guys my latest project the "Mechanical Man" paper toy. It's a 2 color letterpress print on metallic paper. It's a limited edition run of 250. Prints 1-50 will be hand cut and assembled by yours truly, numbered and signed. Prints 51-250 will be sold flat also signed and numbered. So avoid the crowd at the mall this weekend and stop on by my brand spanking new Big Cartel shop "The Custom Paper Toy Company" and have a corporate-free Christmas.

Calakraft (skull buddy)

Here is a fun paper toy from Mexico, Calakraft. You can download this little Skull Buddy at the Triloblog here. There is a template you can design your own or download one of the several different moods.

Playroll

Here is on of the more interesting designer paper toys I've come across recently, Playroll from the Netherlands. Super heroes here to save mankind from it's own waste. The paper toys are built with the help of toilet paper tubes. They are sold in kits that come with scissors, glue, template, instructions and yes a roll of TP. You can find out more at the Playroll website here. Also for those of you who love the free downloadable paper toys check out the Crash Test Bunny in their download section.

King of all that Folds

I've seen many many spectacular paper origamists in my days but master origami artist, Eric Joisel has got to be the absolute best practitioner of his art medium of choice I've ever seen. He's taken the impossibly precise folds of the Asian style and married it to the more sculptural, emotional rendering of his native France. Some of his masks look exactly like artist Julie Taymor's sculpts for Fool's Fire, but Joisel's total body of work is spectacular in its own way.

You can not only marvel at his glorious pieces sorted by type at his site, but also gawk at his creative process.

(found via Paul the Himselfness)

Paul Shih + Tnes = T-wrecks

You may remember Paul Shih's Bigfoot model previously blogged here. Now he's teamed up with TNES to bring us T-Wrecks. Available in two flavors Original and Rainbow Monster Remix. You can download them both for free from Paul's web shop here.

Mundo Sopa- Designer paper toys from Chile

Sopa Diseño from Chile has some fun and free paper toys on their blog Mundo Sopa.
I like the Dino TV pictured above. Check it out.

The Sa-Buddha! or Enlightened Paper

Long overdue post of some of the newer Sabuda/Reinhart pop-up masterpiece books. The photos sitting idle on my desktop the last six months were of their Encyclopedia Prehistorica Mega Beasts (Candlewick Press) and not the Sabuda influenced Reinhart release of The Jungle Book (This is the first time I've ever tried to post a video clip through Blogger! Woo! How's it look on your system? ok?)(Little Simon). Paul and I are very happy to have both titles, they are each filled with inspiring, supersonically clever illustrations, as per usual for this dynamic paper duo.

You'll see a large scale dramatic pop-up on each spread accompanied by several smaller, yet equally mind-cavorting mini works on either side. There are about 35 pop-ups in each book. The text is informative on the subjects, I'm sure, but I've yet to "read" a single Sabuda/Reinhart pop up book! Who could slow down to read when these creative paper shapes are flying at your head!?

Robert's web site is choc-a-bloc with pop-up information and resources too, including features on emerging pop-up aficionados around the world, free downloads of Robert's simplified card pop-ups for all occasions. I've made several of these, hoping to unravel the mystery of their pop-up genius--no luck yet!

Craft Magazine paper power issue.

Craft is a great magazine and the latest issue #5 has a paper theme! Lots of cool articles about paper and a lot of neat paper projects. They have a cool project that shows you how to make custom paper out of junk mail. There is also an article that features Paper Forest's own Dan McPharlin and even a little project by me. So if you don't already pick up Craft now would be a great time start.

K, Cera Cera!

Click to see girl animation action! I shouldn't have typed that.
I bloggy-linked around and landed on the Mother Load, Forest People. I found an aggregate site that fed to a ton of paper sites, many that have already been profiled here.

But I don't believe this one had, at least it was new to me, I'm completely delighted by it. You know that feeling, we all do, admit it. The one where we see a totally NEW-TO-US paper automata download that is fun and witty. One that you would actually want to build! Paper fans, if you haven't met them before, from Japan, tenderly meet... Cera Cera I must order that new goldfish! Ack!

Cera Cera Design Notes BLOG! where they actually document their development of new automata! Even the failures bless 'em!

PS: I've had photos of King of the Pop-ups, Robert Sabuda's, Jungle Book on my desktop to post here for six months. Moot? Anyone interested in seeing?