‘A purveyor of snark and filth'

Papercraft artist creates success with non-traditional greeting cards line

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Adrian de Montfort says he was once called a purveyor of snark and filth. Although he knows it was meant to be a negative statement, he says he wears it as a badge of honour.

“I make things that resonate with people’s real lives and values, which are messy and rude and complicated and not represented by the larger card retailers,” he says.

That’s just what de Montfort does.

He operates his business, Paradise Papercraft, from his home in Truro, focusing on making and selling greetings cards that you wouldn’t find in mainstream stores. Although, he is quick to point out that thanks to the thriving wholesale side of his business, people can find some of his cards on high streets in the US, UK and throughout Canada.

Having his own papercraft business is something de Monfort says he fell into 12 years ago, with the last eight being a full-time endeavour. It came from a lifetime of being creative.

He describes himself as having always been the quiet, creative kid.

“Instead of doing the boy thing, I was indoors reading, making up airfix models, and building Meccano sets,” explains de Montfort.

He says his mother was an astonishingly talented knitter who also taught him her craft.

Papercutting has been an on and off hobby for him for most of his life. Around the age of seven, de Montfort says he was given a fantastic birthday present. It was a book called The Tale of the One Way Street, a storybook of modern European folktales, illustrated by papercut artist Jan Pienkowski.

Each story was illustrated with a blackwork papercut of exquisite detail, describes de Montfort. Ever since then, he says he has been trying to emulate that work.

Recently, de Montfort managed to track down a copy of the book and the illustrations are as enchanting as his memory claimed they were, he says.

Starting a creative business, let alone a papercraft one, was not the first thing on his mind. It was more something he fell into.

In the first year he happened to share on social media a few of the Christmas cards he had made for his family. People wanted to buy them, he says.

He has been at it ever since. The art of papercraft requires a lot of detail and patience.

“I would like think I am a meticulous and patient person,” says de Montfort, noting how he also knits and focuses on the Fair Isle style, which requires a lot of patience and attention.

The state of his workroom, however, tells him that he can also be quite a chaotic creator as well.

“I have bouts of frustration with my own messiness and then tidy everything into the kind of workspace that looks like my personality aligns with my skills,” he says.

When it comes to his reach with his artwork, de Montfort says he has sold items to a few semi-famous people online over the years.

Then, an art piece he cut and sold many years ago at the Annapolis Royal market apparently ended up in the background of an American TV show. Unfortunately, he was never able to find out which show. It’s a great story, nonetheless.

Following the adage, you should write what you know, leads him to create pieces according to his own life and interests. Because of this, his cards often feature reading, or knitting or anything related to being a sarcastic gay Brit.

Out of everything de Montfort makes, he says his most popular items are his bicycle-themed cards with the message ‘I love you more than you love your bike.’

“I do sell a number of sex positive (rude) designs as well, and one of those is a close second,” he says.

Because de Montfort creates new cards so sporadically, he can go months without an idea and then suddenly have a sleet of inspiration and will produce a few new cards, cut, and list them for sale online. Then, he lets the buyers decide if they are any good or not.

“Sometimes they are a hit; sometimes my instincts are way off, and they are quietly retired,” he says.

Overall, de Montfort says he loves doing custom orders, as it’s great fun to help a buyer to refine what they want to say into a pithy, rude or loving message.

“It’s a really intimate process.”

To sell his papercraft, de Montfort says he used to attend a number of craft fairs and markets, but found he was making so many cards that would or wouldn’t sell. So, when he moved to Truro in 2016, he decided to only make to order. This took a lot of pressure off of him and meant he could balance work with family and home.

When not working at his papercraft art, de Montfort can be found being a stay-athome dad to two boys. This comes with doing a lot of laundry and cleaning. He also likes to garden, bake and knit.

He has also recently gotten into miniatures and have been teaching himself scale modelling. Additionally, because of his love for words, he has been making time to reread a lot of the early 20th century British authors that he read as a child.

Anyone interested in viewing de Montfort’s work through Paradise Papercraft can find him on Etsy.

“Sometimes they are a hit; sometimes my instincts are way off, and they are quietly retired.”

Adrian de Montfort