My first paper cut
I was a very lucky girl this year because my Secret Santa bought me a book about Paper Cutting. I had admired paper cutting at the Norwich Makers Market earlier in the year and somehow my Secret Santa found out - be warned boys and girls, Santa is watching.
There is not a lot that I like more than a cheap craft and papercutting has got to be one of the cheapest I've encountered. All you need is a cutting mat, a scalpel and blades and some nice paper/card. As a beginner, I know very little about the weights of paper or the different shapes of scalpel blade but my new book by Paper Panda is full of tips and ideas...not to mention designs and templates.
Each design in the book is graded with scalpels to give you an idea of its difficulty. I chose the easiest, then taped the design to my cutting mat and was away.
My first few cuts are shown above. I have since read that it is better not to push out your cuts until later in the process as the paper becomes less stable as it gets more holes in it (makes sense!). However, I just carried on, hacking away at bits of paper, until I had the final product.
I was fairly pleased with the final result. If you look carefully, you can see it's not actually very clean and there are a number of wobbly lines but, for a first attempt, I was happy. I framed my finished work and gave it to my Secret Santa to say thank you. Again, having read more of the Paper Panda book I discovered better ways to frame the work by 'floating' it in the frame using acetate - I'll remember to try this next time.
Paper cutting is a deeply satisfying craft. It's completely absorbing and for the time you are working on your design you can't think about anything else. You also have a fairly impressive result in a fairly short amount of time which is the sort of craft I like! I enjoyed it so much, I tried this Harry Potter design seen on Pinterest, which my daughter now has displayed in her room.
So thank you to my Secret Santa (who has also started paper cutting) for the book, for the extra book and for the discussions about paper cutting that we have had and will continue to have x
There is not a lot that I like more than a cheap craft and papercutting has got to be one of the cheapest I've encountered. All you need is a cutting mat, a scalpel and blades and some nice paper/card. As a beginner, I know very little about the weights of paper or the different shapes of scalpel blade but my new book by Paper Panda is full of tips and ideas...not to mention designs and templates.
Each design in the book is graded with scalpels to give you an idea of its difficulty. I chose the easiest, then taped the design to my cutting mat and was away.
My first few cuts are shown above. I have since read that it is better not to push out your cuts until later in the process as the paper becomes less stable as it gets more holes in it (makes sense!). However, I just carried on, hacking away at bits of paper, until I had the final product.
I was fairly pleased with the final result. If you look carefully, you can see it's not actually very clean and there are a number of wobbly lines but, for a first attempt, I was happy. I framed my finished work and gave it to my Secret Santa to say thank you. Again, having read more of the Paper Panda book I discovered better ways to frame the work by 'floating' it in the frame using acetate - I'll remember to try this next time.
Paper cutting is a deeply satisfying craft. It's completely absorbing and for the time you are working on your design you can't think about anything else. You also have a fairly impressive result in a fairly short amount of time which is the sort of craft I like! I enjoyed it so much, I tried this Harry Potter design seen on Pinterest, which my daughter now has displayed in her room.
So thank you to my Secret Santa (who has also started paper cutting) for the book, for the extra book and for the discussions about paper cutting that we have had and will continue to have x
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