These wintery leaves from Germany’s Vera Kleist-Thom rely on extruded polymer strings for their color. The oblique cuts at the edges reveal Vera’s palette of dark reds and blues highlighted with a dash of bright yellow. Like the leaves at our feet, seemly simple leaf earrings are more fascinating upon examination.

Look at her Flickr pages and you’ll see that cut, gouged and sanded extrusions figure prominently in all Vera’s experiments. She likes to reveal what’s under the surface. Look on Etsy and Facebook too.

Cut it out

Yes, you could cut this shape out by hand, slowly, carefully, patiently in polymer. But once you see what a die-cutting machine will do, you may reconsider. Join me on Saturday at Craftcast to see what’s happening in the world of die-cutting.