Creative Cutting

We all used to do it when we were kids...fold up paper and cut a design then unfold it to discover our hand cut snowflake. Maybe you cut other things too, like people holding hands. Well I want to encourage you today and tell you that those fun things are not just for kids!! :) You can still do this and use them on your projects. Today I will share with you a layout that uses this technique. And I'll break it down for you. :)

First you will want to take a 12" long piece of paper and fold it four times so it looks like an accordion, as follows:

Step 1:

Take your paper and fold it in two.

Step 2:

Fold the top part over in half again towards the right.

Step 3:

Turn it over and fold the bottom part over in half again towards left.

What you should have in an accordion fold, perfectly spaced, like so:

Now that we have accomplished the folding correctly (which was super easy and you probably didn't even need directions for), let's move to the template. You can drew in pencil your design on your papers and then erase after cutting, but I prefer to draw my design on a transparency with marker so I can see it very well. That is what I have done here in my pictures, it is a transparency that you are seeing on top.

Here's my hand drawn template:

Then take your scissors or craft knife and cut out your design through all of the layers.

What you have should look something like this:

Now unfold. :)

You can do this same thing smaller or bigger, or with more folds. Play around and find what you like. Here I folded it into 8 instead of 4, like so:

And got this:

I need to fix my curve on my top part of the bridge because that one looks more like the people holding hands or something...kinda weird. But you get my point. :)

Now here's the layout I made using my bridge:

It uses the fabulous Summer At The Seaside collection from The ScrapCake. Which was perfect for this layout. Here are some close up's:

Hope you have enjoyed my post today!!! If you try this technique, doesn't have to be the bridge, let me know so I can come check it out! :)

Have a fantastic day!