The art of paper cutting

This week I wanted to try my hand at Scherenschnitte - the German art of paper cutting. Martha Stewart featured a demonstration of this art on her TV program. It looked interesting so I decided to see if I had enough patience to complete such a project. There was a template and instructions available on the Martha Stewart website so I downloaded these, grabbed my craft knife and started cutting. The instructions indicated that you should place the paper template over another piece of paper folded in half. Basically I was cutting through three layers of paper. If I do another of these projects, I think I will transfer the pattern so I am only cutting through two layers of paper. This project was time consuming and my results were mixed. Some of the cutting looked a little rough. I tried to clean this up a little bit after I finished the project and unfolded the paper underneath the template. I don't know if it would have been easier and smoother looking if I had used small scissors. Next time I might try that.

I am reading all of these wonderful artist blogs and really enjoying it. I probably would be better off spending less time at the computer and more time creating, but I tell myself that the blog reading is an activity that stimulates inspiration.