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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Lotus symbol in Korean culture .....

In traditional Korean Hanji art you can see many different designs of plants, animals, letters and insects. I'm sure you've wondered what they all symbolise as they are repeated so often and in many different ways. In this post I just want to take a brief look at the lotus plant and what it symbolises for the Korean people. I've used this design on a few articles but I never really knew the full meaning of what it represented until I started doing some research for my book. Even though many of us aren't Korean we can still use these designs and in so doing, translate a deeper meaning to our articles. Here are a just a few of my favourites from the easiest to the more difficult to cut out. The lotus flower symbolises creation, birth, liveability and reproduction and therefore it's one of the most important symbols in both Korean culture and its traditional religions. In both Confucianism and Buddhism

The Buddhist symbol, Hanji & Korean culture ....

When selecting designs for my Hanji pieces I tend to make stylistic choices as to what will look best on each piece but the Korean designs all have very deep symbolic meanings. None more than the Buddhist swastika (manja) design. ‘Manja’ (만, Man is “卍” and 만자, Manja literally means “letter Man”) is also called Srivatsalksana in Sanskrit. It is one of the thirty-two (32) marks of excellence of the Buddha and is said to exist on his hands, feet, hair and waist. For those of us in the West this is often confused with the German Nazi swastika symbol but in fact it's been around for about three thousand years. The swastika is an equilateral cross with arms bent at right angles and all in the same direction, usually to the right, or clockwise. It's a symbol of prosperity and good fortune and it originally represented the revolving sun, fire, or life. The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit swastika which means, "conducive to well

Online Hanji paper store, in English .....

I'm really pleased to be able to share with you this website where you can order a variety of Hanji papers from Korea and it's all in English !!! The store is based in Daejon, Korea. HAMINBRIDGE ( Thehanji ) was established by Moonyang Park in 1983. It's a family owned 2nd generation business and they have a factory in Junju. They also have a factory in China where some of the paper is made. The website is at www. thehanji.com and it provides a selection of specialty Hanji paper (Korean paper) and products. I ordered some papers from them recently to see what it was like and they were extremely efficient in dealing with the order and it was here in the UAE within 5 days so I was really impressed. The prices were good and they even have some on special, the paper is beautiful and the ease of ordering was amazing. They do sell rolls of paper, traditional papers and lanterns but overall I did think the range was a bit limited for what I wa

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