When your everyday surroundings begin to feel a little mundane, try this: Imagine what it would be like were you to shrink to the size of your thumb, suddenly dwarfed by items you might normally hold in your hand.

If you have a fanciful imagination, you might dream up something very similar to @rubicantekid’s Instagram feed. For the past year, illustrator Mike Rubenstein has been snapping photos of his tiny paper people amid a variety of humorous backdrops. “The whole fun of the project is in shifting the context of everyday things through these little cutouts,” says Mike.

“The first of these little people was really just a doodle from a Post-It note, but I got such a kick out of how the photo came out that I started looking around my desk to see what sort of stuff I had lying around… and at this point I can’t look at anything without wondering if a little paper guy might look good alongside it.”

Follow the adventures of Mike’s tiny paper people at instagram.com/rubicantekid, and view more of his work at ShrugLyfe and Astrostrange.