paper crafting

You are currently browsing articles tagged paper crafting.

scherenschnitte or papercutting of children dancing
This is my first attempt at scherenschnitte or papercutting in the Swiss/German style. I made this artwork for the spring music program at the boy’s school. Since the program will be photocopied, I was thinking about how to create a strong design in black and white and one thing lead to another . . .

As usual I never make a simple first attempt at anything. I had to include people and words, neither of which are easy in any medium. I cobbled together my design with a combination of sketching by hand and sizing and moving around silhouettes and type on the computer to get the general arrangement I wanted. I then printed out my rough and temporarily stuck it to black paper. Rather than use the traditional tiny scissors, I used a new X-acto blade to cut through both the pattern and the black paper, allowing the knife some freedom to vary from the sketch. I cut on my Merry Glo Round light box which is a treat because it spins freely as well as lighting from underneath! I’ve always “drawn” better with scissors than with a pencil. Years of comping concepts for advertising projects and cutting the occasional stencil has made me pretty handy with the X-acto!

Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the result. I don’t think I’ll be doing a lot of scherenschnitte as it is a bit hard on the hands, but I don’t think this will be the last time either. I took inspiration from several blogs of people who take scherenschnitte much more seriously and do amazing work, particularly this one, another Cindy.

Tags: ,

craft foam flowers

I really can’t draw but I’m trying to learn. Having two kids who want me to draw something fast with fat crayons really helps. You can’t think too much you just have to draw something that has the simplest relevant details. I always draw the same sort of flowers, large round center with five round petals crowding around the center. It’s taken me about three years to get the petals all about the same size and shape. Today when the girl asked to make flowers I almost drew those same old flowers. Then I decided it was time to try something different. Without looking at anything I took a pen and drew on some craft foam (yeah that stuff I don’t really care for). Admittedly I had to sketch it several times before I had a decent shape I could cut out but it’s totally different! Almost modern looking. I also attempted a different leaf shape than my standard teardrop. Here are a few pictures to illustrate the process of making the flowers less two dimensional. I’m also including a printable PDF with the patterns and instructions to make your own craft foam flowers or simply print, color and cut on sturdy paper. When I traced the flowers into bezier curves in Freehand, I did my best to retain the loose hand drawn shape of the petals. You’ll notice one of the petals is quite lopsided, almost like a boot shape, makes it easier to line up the mirror images!

PS. I also apologize for the fuzziness of these pictures. I’m trying to work on using natural light because that usually produces truer colors but I was having a hard time getting good focus at the same time.

PPS. A good way to use up those leftover bits of colored paper and craft foam is to cut them into relatively small pieces and use them to make a mosaic on black paper. Kids love this!

Tags: , ,

With all the birds chirping outside lately I thought we’d have fun making some birdies for inside the house. Both the girl and the boy were able to cut these out themselves and color them. I cut the slits in the body for them and they put the wings in and then we just hung them with thread taped to the dining room ceiling. Then we admired our handiwork swaying happily.
hanging paper birdscolored paper bird

They enjoyed it so much I thought I’d include a downloadable pdf for you to cut and color your own birdies! The shapes are very simple for easy cutting for little hands. Best printed on a bit heavier paper if you have it. Don’t forget to color both sides. :)

Tags: ,

Newer entries »