The Paper Arts site talks about everything related to paper including stationery, scrapbooking, and DIY paper projects.

I was all set to post about an interesting “Monkey Party In A Box” kit from Martha Stewart Crafts, but when I went to look at the item it turns out they’ve taken …

It’s awfully difficult to pick out just ONE item to feature from the Mahar Dry Goods shop. They carry a line of some incredible vintage and artisan crafts, clothing and toys. …

We’ve earlier talked about Klutz’s Twirled Paper toys. Here’s another fun idea for kids paper activities: tissue paper flowers that are supposedly “good enough to fool bees.”

This booklet provides all the …

Are your upcoming party or wedding shower favors looking a bit humdrum? You might be able to spice them up a bit by packaging them in these Jadeite Take-Out Boxes from Paper Source, one of my favorite online places to search for cool paper ideas.

Instead of the usual candies wrapped in plastic wrap with ribbon, you could use these printable giftboxes that resemble takeout boxes from Chinese restaurants to package up your goodies. They actually come in a ton of different flavors, er, colors - I saw over 30 when I was browsing.

I found these beautiful paper flowers from a post off of Paper Forest. As any novice green-thumber who has ever tried growing them can attest to, orchids can be notoriously difficult to keep happy. Enter the Paper Source store who’ve created these realistic, delicate …

Just a quick note about a website I came across that has yet more paper automata and models… it’s called Paperpino. There are several different automata as well as models that caught my eye. The models are mostly boxy-headed figures and caricatures, but also include some …

If you like pop-up books and you don’t know about Robert Sabuda, you should immediately head over to his website and get to know his work. I’ve found a few references to him as the “king of pop-ups” and that title is well-deserved. I can’t believe the detail of the mechanisms on some of the books he makes.

Drawing on his early love of pop-up books as a child, New York’s Sabuda utilizes his skills as a children’s book illustrator to create amazing works of art. Stunning and complex, his pop-ups challenge the boundaries between books for children and paper art. One of his most popular works is the Encyclopedia Prehistorica. I’ve shown a page from the “Dinosaurs” book in the series here. The footprint for the book is only 7 and a half by 9 and a half inches, but the popups that spring out when you turn the page are often so large that they make you wonder how it’s possible they’re contained in such a small package.

There is also an intriguing Encylopedia Prehistorica Series book coming out on April 30 called Prehistoric Sharks that I may have to get a hold of…

This is some of the coolest type of paper arts I’ve found yet. Over at Cera Cera, they sell downloadable paper model kits for automata. What are Automata? Well, I’m not 100% sure but I believe that these are related to automatons which are supposed to be robotic type creations that move and talk without the influence of human beings. I’m actually thinking of so-called “steampunk” technology (a la Gibson and Sterling’s “The Difference Engine” and the movie Wild Wild West).

However, the key difference here is that these are made out of PAPER. Now, before you think you’re going to make some sort of robotic creation out of paper, I have to tell you that the majority of these are actually hand-crank type models. But still, it’s fascinating that they actually move!

The company basically sells downloadable digital files (in Acrobat format) that you print out on artpaper and then cut out and construct them. They have a number of brilliantly colored person and animal kits for sale. The cool thing is that you don’t really need any special tools to create these paper automata other than materials you probably have, such as an Xacto knife, cutting mat, ruler, glue, pens, scissors, and a simple thin wooden stick or dowel for getting into those hard to reach places. According to the site, they say each model can take about 2 to 3 hours to make depending on your experience with paper construction.

Here’s an example of one of their models. This is supposed to be a “paratrooper” who’s jumping out of a plane. They have an animated gif on the site that shows how it works… basically when you turn the crank he moves up and down in the air so it looks like he’s falling out of the sky. Did I mention this is constructed ONLY out of paper? Very neat. The dimensions on this particular model are 9cm x 12cm x 16cm.

Note the really detailed directions in the cutout documents that you download. It’s nice that they provide excellent instructions along with the cutouts so you know exactly what to do.