In keeping with tradition, here is 2021’s origamic architecture / kirigami holiday card.
Inspired by the 2015 Snow Elf Cottage, the Snow Elf Manor is a larger home in the snow elf community. This was fun to design. The cards were cut from the Arctic Gold stock with translucent vellum for backing the windows.
I made a short (5 minute) video showing the whole process of building a card.
So wonderful, thank you for the video! I love your work.
Wow, I learned a lot from your explanation.
dang, that is some great work. best I have seen in ages.
That is so pretty! I’ve bookmarked this for future reference. 
That’s just amazing. I love popup cards!
Wow, @evermorian, this is awesome! Thank you for sharing the video of your process. I am inspired!
Thank you so much for this video. This is a lovely elf manor.
Cool!
What gadget did you use to move the camera for the panning shots?
I have a little motion-control robot:
Neat, thank you!
You sir are a master of ‘Origamic Architecture’.
This is so full of wow!! I love the front steps and door.
How cool is it to lay your design out and score the folds - as opposed to ‘the old ways’?
It’s a puzzle you solve by not only the design but by making the bends go right. I can see the draw of that craft. The concentration required is a form of meditation.
I’m sure your friends and family look forward to the cards you send. 
The first cards I designed did not involve computers at all. I laid them out on graph paper and, cut them with a scalpel or craft knife. In some cases, there were also isometric pencil drawings. The first holiday production run I did (42 cards) was brutal on my hands.
Being able to lay them out in a vector editor was a lot easier and, made changes less difficult.
Then came the plotting cutters. The first one I played with was a commercial sign cutter but, companies quickly moved towards making machines for home crafters. The second one of those I got (a Bosskut Gazelle) was good enough to cut some designs. Those still put pressure on the paper as they cut and, friction can do a lot of damage. Smaller detail can be difficult. It helped with prototyping and, I could knock out some designs pretty quickly. Those machines are still great for some things, like plasticized stock, which looks awful when laser-cut.
At that point, some of my friends had commercial laser machines for cutting cards and, wow, did I want one of those. Cutting paper without putting any physical pressure on it is the bomb. The Glowforge showed up and, was a lot more affordable than the other laser cutters I had used. Having one right here makes prototyping and production SO much easier.
For one of my earlier videos, I cut the same card with both the Gazelle and the Glowforge:
I did a design for a festival a few years ago that appeared in a zine distributed to attendees. I made a video showing how to cut that one by hand:
Together, those kind of show how it progressed as the technology matured and got less expensive.
My goodness——you are an amazing artist. The video is GREAT.
Congratulations you are now a Glowforge Super Hero.
Cool! I guessed from your age that you came up analog, you have a better appreciation for the tech that way. With the control over power, you can easily embellish the designs with engraving also.
Thank you for sharing. It’s incredible!
Love this. Your work is beautiful and your artistry inspiring.
Thank you!
Absolutely beautiful! Making cards like this is fun!!
Saw this on Instagram and loved it! The video is great too. There are some very helpful tips for working with card stock in there. Thanks!
