Critters!

Nothing like a trip to the museum to get inspired. I'm always worried that I'll never have another good idea. I think we all fear that sometimes. Jen and I recently took the trek across Boston by train to the quaint college town of Cambridge, home of a little university called Harvard. Heard of it?

My beetle design, which is based on a photo I took of a massive beetle we found in a park in Iowa, was quite successful, so I thought it would be fun to do some more bug and critter-based designs. I wanted to have a bit more masculine touch to my newer designs to balance all the cute stuff. That and I really wanted to hang some bugs on my wall until they sold.

Well, next time you visit, skip the Yah'd, and head straight to the Harvard Peabody Museum. Okay, fine, you need to walk across the Yard to get there, but don't pay attention to it, it gets enough press.
Since 1866 this museum has been one of the greatest institution for natural history and archaeology in the WORLD. The archaeological collections are close to my heart, and Jen and I got to take an incredible behind-the-scene tour of their storage facility when we took an archaeological collections course at Boston University; however, this trip was for the bugs. And bird, and snakes, and fish, and beasts.



We left full of ideas for new designs, and I quickly got to work creating some Natural History inspired pieces. I still have about 12 more that are designed and need to be cut, but things are getting busy so they may be a while before they are released. In the mean time, enjoy the first batch!

Here's the rest of them: http://www.etsy.com/shop/papercutsbyjoe?section_id=7401476