Deborah Brewer in Colorado reached out recently to share a wonderfully creative collaboration: she and her software engineer son, Nick, have teamed up to create Pause Tiles, a meditative tile matching game app built entirely around Debby's hand-cut paper art.
She describes it as a gentle, quiet app designed for moments when life feels a bit overwhelming. It's free to download, features four calming game modes, and has no loud noises, no stressful timers, and no point scores. You can listen to your favorite music or podcasts in the background without interruption.
Doesn't it sound like a breath of fresh air?! I was curious how one translates cut paper art into a functioning mobile app, so I invited Debby to share her creative process.
A Kitchen Table Brainstorm
Debby said:
Nick sat down at my kitchen table after recently moving back to town following ten years of college and working in other cities. “I want to do a side project,” he said. “I’m looking at ideas for an app.”
I had one that I’d been bouncing around... a tile-matching game that would feel like walking a spiral labyrinth in a quiet churchyard - a gentle pause featuring an easy puzzle, a pretty design, and a little peace for moments when life is tense.
“We can make it,” he said, “but you would have to make the art.”
The catch? The only art I make is cut paper! But I quickly found my happy thought: I'll figure it out.
Designing for the Small Screen: The Woodland Walk
I’ve been a paper crafts hobbyist since childhood and recently joined the Guild of American Papercutters, so I had hand-on cutting experience. However, I was definitely not a photographer or a digital designer, nor was I particularly tech-savvy. There was a steep learning curve in taking my physical art from paper to screen.
Pause Tiles features themed tile sets, starting with Woodland Walk. Wandering in woodlands has always washed my worries away, so I focused on elements I love seeing in nature: trees, flowers, and animals.
One thing I kept in mind was scale. Even though I like to work at a comfortable 6" to 8” size, the final digital tiles in the app would be tiny. I had to capture just enough clean shape and color so that each image would remain instantly recognizable once reduced, while adding subtle details for delight.
The Cut Paper Process: From Sketch to Studio
The Study:
Before making a single cut, I considered carefully what a feather, a dogwood flower, or a fox looks like. I’m okay with do-overs, but I don’t like to waste my art supplies. I made a sketch or two before jumping in with scissors, often using one of the drawings as a guide.
Cutting the Image:
I generally work in quiet. I love the texture of paper and card stock - the swishing sounds as I dig through my bin of scraps, the soft crunch of paper between the blades. Because I cut better than I draw, my guide usually ends up being just a suggestion. I also rely on circle templates, standard hole punches, and a mini star punch.
Shaping and Assembly:
I have a few paper-shaping tools that I use to bring my art to life. I like to create a shallow relief, maybe half an inch at most, of soft curves and grooves. Tweezers help me place the tinier bits, and I use only the smallest amount of glue. Because I sometimes need to edit an image, I often glue the pieces together with a few hole-punched circles of paper or card with a smidge of glue on each side. This results in less damage when I tear the pieces apart.
Taking Photos:
Photography is an adventure in itself! I set up my phone on a stand with a removable spotlight, lights off, window covered, in the mudroom of my home. I placed each papercut onto contrasting cardstock, similar to the background the image would have in the game. That way, if any pixels of the color remained after the original background was digitally removed, they would blend seamlessly into the game.
My one piece of advice is to pay attention to light and shadows, rotating your artwork until the depth looks just right.
Processing the Image:
I used several apps on my phone and tablet to trim the photographed image, remove the background, and make it into the right file type and size. There are many photo processing apps, complex ones like Photoshop, Krita, and Procreate, smaller ones that do a few tasks well, and some useful features in the photo apps on camera phones. To develop a workflow, I had to take inventory of my skills and access, learn new things, and be willing to fail a few times before I found success.
A bonus that I didn’t expect from this “photograph and remove the background” digitizing process was how versatile the resulting clip art or sticker images would be. I’ve turned these illustrations into emoji-like stickers in my phone’s messaging app, print-on-demand merchandise, and for advertising.
Stitched Puzzles and Playful Surprises
Pause Tiles includes more than just matching. It also features a puzzle game with four unique backgrounds and even stop animation celebrations. For the puzzle, I hand embroidered a cardstock background and combined it with a cut-paper chipmunk to create a 9 or 16-piece tap and swap challenge.
I love physical paper art and pushing my craft in new directions, but seeing my paper cuts come alive on a screen has been pure joy. If you’re inclined to digitize your own paper creations, I encourage you to try it!
Download Pause Tiles and Connect
Pause Tiles is available for both Apple iOS and Android devices. It is free to download, has no third-party ads, collects no user data, and is packed with lots of handcrafted paper art. I hope you’ll check it out. Happy paper crafting, everyone!
Download and Info: Visit pausetiles.com
On Instagram: @pausetiles
Reach Debby directly at hello@pausetiles.com
A Note of Congratulations! A big round of applause is in order: Debby's cut-paper piece - Charm Bracelet - has been selected for the upcoming Guild of American Papercutters exhibition, Cutting East to West, showing at the Heritage Museum of Asian Art in Chicago from October 7 - November 7.
