Fairy Tale Paper Cutting

The beautiful art of scherenschnitte, or paper cutting, has been around for centuries. Hans Christian Andersen told stories to many children in his travels, and he often pulled out a pair of scissors and paper and entertained them by snipping an instant paper cutting before their very eyes.

For this swap, you are invited to create a papercutting based on a fairy tale image. Using nothing more than paper, an X-Acto knife (or scissors if that is your preference), and a healing mat, you'll transform an ordinary object into something quite extraordinary.

If you've never tried this craft before, it's not as difficult to accomplish as it might appear, so it is open to anyone who would like to try. It does, however, take some practice and a certain knack, so it is strongly recommended that participants use the time before the sign up date to try their hand at the craft if you're not already an experienced paper cutter. It is expected that this swap is for beginner scherenschnitte, however, so please appreciate your partner's effort when you receive your swap.

The paper cutting should be:

• neatly cut to the best of your ability from the color/paper of your choice
• glued onto contrasting/complementary card stock in a standard 4 x 6, 5 x 7, or 8 x 10 size
• mailed with sturdy backing and adequately protected.

You may use existing templates, seek out additional sources, or even design your own paper cut! These paper cuttings make beautiful decorations as framed wall hangings, pasted into a scrapbook, etc. These are very fragile, however, so please be sure you practice cutting and pasting (just the tiniest dab here and there is required) before you attempt your final product.

Techniques and tutorials

Cindy Mindy Pindy Video: How to Do Scherenschnitte
Elsa Mora tutorial (includes free practice sheet download)
Dude Craft Paper Cut Video Tutorial
Acorn Valentine
Martha Stewart papercut hearts

Free online templates:
Rapunzel
Cinderella
Rumplestiltskin

Additional ideas & inspiration:
Paper cutting on Etsy
Su Blackwell book sculptures

It's often easy to do your own paper cut just by printing out and tracing an existing one. Since this is for a craft swap and not for commercial purposes, you should be fine pulling any images that you like.

Hope you'll join in this fairy tale craft! Please do post any questions below. It would be really wonderful to have the swaps posted to our group Flickr pool as well.