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Cutting machine for Hanji designs .........

Since my visit to South Korea last year with my Hanji friends and seeing how cutouts are being done on laser printers, I've contemplated the thought that a mini version would be handy to use for small scale projects. I still believe that cutting out the Hanji paper by hand gives so much more satisfaction on personal pieces but, I know that there have been times when I've conducted classes and needed to cut out 20 or more small designs for others to use and thought, if only .......

I was told about a paper shop that sold cutters in different designs so I went to investigate furthur last weekend and came across what I'd been looking for. It's not a bulky, expensive, laser cutting machine, which is what I'd been looking at but, it's a cutting machine which  has a tiny blade and is small enough to fit on the side of my desk with a  connection to my computer and, it didn't break the bank.  The software has a huge range of different patterns and designs to choose from but more importantly, for those of us doing Hanji, we can also use our own Korean designs as well.

I've been experimenting over the last few days and it cuts the Hani paper really well. It has a cutting area of up to 12" x 12" and I've tried small, large, intricate  and  even masked pieces and it works a treat. I'm so excited as this will be such an asset in my work.

I'm sure there are many different types of these machines around but I bought a Silhouette Cameo machine.  If you're interested to know more check out this short video to see some of the things you can do with it. 

I don't normally frequent scrapbooking shops but they're definitely worth looking at.  I also found some small hardware that'd be suitable for Hanji projects.  All in all a great find and I'm sure I'll get lots of use out of it over the years.

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