TPD: Kirigami/Jianzhi/Scherenschnitte swap

Kirigami is Japanese paper cutting. Jianzhi is Chinese paper cutting. And scherenschnitte is German and Pennsylvania Dutch paper cutting!

All of them involve cutting a picture -- sometimes a very intricate picture -- from a single sheet of paper. Sometimes the paper is folded and cut double, producing a symmetrical picture; others are cut singly.

European paper cutting, as far as I can tell, is usually done with small scissors; other forms can use scissors, scalpels or craft knives.

I've recently tried it for the first time in another group and absolutely loved it -- although most of us found it quite challenging and needed several attempts before we were happy with what we had created.

I thought this group too might have some people who would like to try it..

For this swap, create a papercut picture, at least four inches square. There's no maximum size.

If you are working with cardstock, it's fine to send it as it is. If you are working with thinner paper, you must mount it. And many of the examples I've seen have been mounted on contrasting paper or card and have looked really good. So even if you are using cardstock, you might consider mounting it.

The swap is for a flat picture. There are versions of kirigami which create three-dimensional objects -- we'll save that for a possible future swap.

It's absolutely fine to use a pattern or a template. The craft here is in the cutting skills -- you don't have to be able to draw the picture yourself.

Make it as simple or as complicated as you personally are comfortable with. Better to create a really nice simple design than a badly cut complicated one.

And it's crafter's choice whether to go for a folded symmetrical design or one cut without folding, and whether to use scissors, a knife or both.

I'm giving us a longish time to do this swap because some of us may need to have several goes at it. It is rather easy to make a miscut halfway through the project and have to start again.

But don't let that put you off -- it's also fun and very rewarding!

Link to papercutting images

Paper cutting tutorial including some patterns and templates. Good on links to other sites.

Website with irritating adverts but some links to nice fairly straightforward folded cutting projects

A simple and an intricate heart template

Free to print templates

If you're googling for templates, it's worth trying 'kirigami templates' and 'scherenschnitte templates' as well as 'papercutting'.