Katherine Belsey has a background in film, writing and design. She grew up in the French speaking part of Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva. After studying visual Arts at the College Voltaire in Geneva she got her BA with honors in creative writing from Brown University. During her four years in Providence she took as many classes at RISD as she could, including metal working, hot and stained glass, and lighting design. She continued her education back in Switzerland, at the DAVI film school, where she directed and produced several short films. In 1995 she moved to New York city and worked for several years for Woody Allen, starting as an intern on Deconstructing Harry, continuing as assistant to the producer for Celebrity, and ending by supervising the music and post production for Sweet and Lowdown.
She retired from the film business to look after her two sons. When the oldest asked her to build a house, she designed one which could be folded away for storage: a pop-up house. Her many pop-up card designs can be viewed here.
Then her younger son asked her to build him a halloween costume with a button he could press to make helicopter blades come out of his head. He needed to fly for real, he informed her. Startled by his complete confidence that she could MAKE ANYTHING, she set out to write this book.
In addition to designing pop-up cards Katherine has designed and made furniture, light fixtures, clothing, cosmetics, stained glass, cleaning supplies, and a sound studio for her husband, John M. Davis, a film music composer and editor. She will occasionally make dog accessories for Bacchus, her beagle. To view her work, click here, or read an interview she gave to Instructables here.