Cut Paper Christmas

I'm not sure why, but I always have urges to do cut paper crafts at Christmas (which is why the floors are always covered in tiny scraps at the holidays).

The two paper cuts above were leftovers from a flurry I cut one year to decorate packages. They're basically just the snowflake idea. I precut thin paper (these were origami paper) into a circle, folded it in half (right sides together), in half again, and then into thirds and then cut patterns out freehand. There are a few simple tips that may help you make especially intricate ones: first, do the folding carefully and press the creases well (you can even iron them). Second, have a mixture of large cut away areas and others that are narrow and repeating. Be sure to use very sharp scissors; I use embroidery scissors. (Though check out these amazing Polish paper cuts that were traditionally made with sheep shears!) Finally, take care not to tear delicate areas when you unfold them. (Small tears can be repaired by gluing narrow support pieces to the back of the paper cut.) I always iron my finished piece flat.

The paper cut above was done by my oldest son when he was almost 10, and the similar one below was cut when he was not quite 5. You can see he gained a lot of skill in the years between. In both cases, I folded a piece of paper for him (right sides together) and drew one image onto the wrong side, making sure I had an area of join along the fold. By 10 he was able to cut the design out pretty accurately by himself. I showed him how to trim the excess paper close to the drawn lines and then to cut into tight areas, removing sections at a time, rather than trying to cut along the whole perimeter. When he was younger, I held the paper and rotated it for him as he snipped (mouth open - why do kids do that when they cut with scissors?). Even so, he accidentally snipped off the antlers, but they're cute fawns or does anyway.

Other tips to help young cutters: First, work moderately large and minimize the number of curves or delicate stand-alone areas. Also, use a moderately heavy paper, like old paper bags (below) or coated silhouette paper (above). Cardstock is usually too heavy for folded designs - takes a lot of hand strength - and thin papers flop too much, becoming frustrating.
The teddy bear below was by my daughter when she was going on 6. She had better fine motor skills than my son did around that age, and she was able to cut the bear on her own, though I recall cutting out and gluing in place the eyeballs and nose/mouth pieces.
Can't recall which kid did the penguins below, but they were accordian-folded, like the strings of paper dolls.
The tree below was our Christmas card one year. Last year I made up a page of smaller images to use as gift tags, and meant to post them as a printable pdf - but apparently I never did. I'll see if I can hunt it down and put it up tonight. I made the ornaments with handheld punches while the design was still folded in half.

Hm. I just thought of one thing that has probably prompted my Christmas paper cut connection: these Danish paper cuts. I bought these at a little shop at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware many years ago. (Sorry the photo is blurry.)

The top red one I hung the Christmas after I got it. Then I decided I could leave it up until Valentine's Day, because of the heart theme. Then I decided I could leave it up all year because of the kitchen/cooking theme. Then it faded to almost white...

I was about to throw it away when I realized I could just paint it red again, so I did! I think it's even brighter now than when it was new.

If all those paper cuts sound too complicated for you or your kid, you could make something like these trees instead, which are crafted entirely from recycled materials (from left: newspaper, greenish magazine and catalog pages, and someone's old physic's homework. The stars are from a Triscuits box and the papers are just taped to cones I made by twisting - and sometimes stacking - and taping together subscription cards from magazines. I stuffed extra recycled paper inside the cones to weight them and make them stand better).

To make these, cut long strips of paper, fold them in half, right sides together. Mark a line to cut to, and use your scissors to cut fringye-y "bites" up to the line. For younger kids, cut the strips over-wide, so there's less chance they'll cut all the way through, and stretch the paper taut by taping it between two chairs; you can trim the paper near the fringe afterward. Start attaching the strips of fringe near the bottom of your cone in a spiral, anchoring it frequently with small pieces of masking tape. You can make a little extra piece taped into a cone for a nice pointy top, and tape a star on to hide any lopsided parts.

I used these for a centerpiece at a party last year, and several people asked me where I bought them - they really come out looking nice.

After you finish your craft, relax with Jan Pienkowski's gorgeous silhouette illustrations in his telling of The First Christmas. This book was first published in 1984, making it toxic waste under CPSIA; fortunately there are later printings available.

Or enjoy this incredible silhouette version of The Night Before Christmas by Thai artist Niroot Puttapipat. Absolutely breathtaking - and with an amazing pop-up on the last spread. (It's a recent book - 2007 -- so no CPSIA worries.) Although the cover says it's a papercut edition, I think Puttapipat actually made his silhouettes with pen and ink (as did Pienkowski I believe). [You have to scroll down to see the photo of the spread - I think I needed to crop the photo.]

Resolved

Happy New Year!

This was my holiday card a few years ago, and I've decided to use the proverb as my new year's resolution this year - I'm giving up on my usual ones to lose 10 pounds and get organized, seeing as the 10 pounds have been joined by a a bunch of friends and my level of disorganization has also grown incrementally. Instead, this year I'm going to concentrate on hoping, chewing, breathing, saying and loving more. (Okay, I'm hoping I magically lose 20 pounds and get organized in the process). I'm sticking a copy of this picture on my fridge this year, and you can too by downloading the high-res pdf here. (It's not a great image, because I gave away the original and this scan was made from a copy I had - sorry.)

I love making this type of papercut, although I haven't done any for a couple years. To make one, I do a soft pencil drawing, indicating all the black areas on high quality tracing paper, and then transfer the areas that will be black to the back of a piece of silhouette paper (which you can buy from Dick Blick Art Supply here). (I use a wooden tool with a point to rub over the penciled areas.) Next I cut away all the parts I don't want to be black with a craft knife, starting with the thinnest/smallest places. I then use the tracing paper drawing again to transfer the shapes of the non-black sections onto the backs of colored papers and cut those shapes out. Finally, I carefully glue the colored papers to the wrong side of the silhouette paper. I use a toothpick to apply the glue very carefully to the black areas, which can be very thin so it's a bit painstaking; other artists glue the colored papers in position and then add the black on top. Some paper artists call this technique "paper applique,"and it's known in Japan as kiri-e. 

One of my favorite illustrators/fine artists, Aki Sogabe uses this technique with greater skill than I can muster. You can visit a website with samples of her art and a discussion of her technique here.

Here's one more example of my applique cut paper art. This picture was a sample of final art for a picture book I've never sold (But I Won't Share My Bear). All the black areas are connected, except the eyes, nose and the circle things on the baseball cap. My oldest son, Kyle, posed for the drawings; he turned 21 yesterday. Can't believe how quickly the years have gone!

Wishing all of you fun experimenting with new crafts and ideas, the thrill of discovering more wonderful books, and the pleasures of sharing time (and those wonderful books) with young children in 2009!

Reading for Pleasure, Part I

Sara Reading; cut paper; Copyright, 2007

According to a recent NEA report, (read about it in the Boston Globe) almost 20% of teens never read for pleasure, and, even worse, almost half of Americans aged 18 to 24 never read a book for pleasure. While many smart people have since debated both the report's accuracy and the significance of the results, I am nonetheless convinced that pleasure reading at any age has many benefits, not the least of which is pleasure, and I know there are too many people who haven't discovered how wonderful books (and other reading materials) can be. This is important to me because people who read for pleasure tend to be better educated, more successful, happier, thinner, etc. than people who don't. Also, most importantly, they are more likely to buy the books I write and illustrate.

I'm lucky enough to have three teen/young adult kids (daughter age 15, sons 17 and 19) who love to read. I'm also wise and humble enough to realize that genes, the influences of other people, and of course, luck have probably played as big a role in making them readers as I have. Nonetheless, from watching the development of pleasure readers and nonreaders among my kids and their friends, and from encouraging readers during my past life as a child therapist and teacher, I have gleaned some tips that might increase the odds of making your older child a reader. I'm mostly skipping the standard, well-supported ideas and going with my family's quirky strategies. Here are my first five tips -- I'll try to follow up with more soon.

1. Lower your standards By all means, stock your kids' bookshelves with some award-winners and great literature -- but also provide plenty of series books, collections of favorite comic strips, books that are too young for your kids, books featuring fart/gross humor, action-adventure stories, romance novels -- whatever floats your kids' boats. There's actually research supporting the unique ability of "formula fiction" (code expression for junky series books, whether Nancy Drew or Janet Evanovich) to build kids' reading fluency and comprehension skills. And my own experience is that junk books are the literary equivalent of marijuana; they're a gateway substance to trying and getting hooked on more serious stuff.

2. Cherish books with cracked spines and dog ears It means they've been read rather than preserved on the shelf, and it means your kids aren't growing up so afraid of damaging a book that they're afraid to touch one. There's nothing wrong, of course, with encouraging your kids to use book marks and to refrain from leaving their books in the puddle of milk next to the cereal bowl, but don't go so overboard that you make books the equivalent of fragile heirlooms (and if you have books in that category, lock them up until your kids are older. Well, grown.) Contrary to what the school librarian may have led you to believe, treating a book with less than perfect respect will not turn you into a pervert or worse. Heck, I used to color in my favorite books, and I'm not yet a mass murderer.

3. Keep books in the bathroom The tub in our first floor bathroom is so small that no one uses it for bathing anymore -- and over the last few years, it has slowly but surely filled up with books that people enjoy reading while on the john. (It's probably a good idea to grab the Purell after handling one of them...) This tip is not a good idea if you have too few bathrooms -- since one of the main side effects of keeping books in the bathroom is that people spend way more time in there.

One of my own favorite rituals as a teenager was soaking for hours in the clawfoot tub on our third floor while reading one of the "bathtub" books stored in the bookcase across from it (that was a wonderfully big bathroom). Our bathtub books were mostly tear jerkers like Love Story by Erich Segal, "outgrown" favorite middle grade novels like The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken , and humorous memoirs like My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell and Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson -- but depending on your kids' reading tastes and gender, you might need a very different selection. Such was the power of those books and that experience that I can quote long passages from most of them, and my sisters and I still squabble over custody of the original water-stained copies.

4. Teach this equation: Waiting = Reading Before heading off to the dentist's office at my house, the scramble isn't so much to floss for the first time in months (though it should be), but to find where the heck you left your book. I'm actually disappointed if there's not much of a wait.

Last night, when I took my oldest to the airport for his flight back to school, we had to turn around and come home, not because he forgot his ticket or his cell phone, but for something equally essential -- his book. And one of my kids even brings a paperback to Kennywood, the local amusement park, so he can read while he stands in line. As a bonus, my kids are much less impatient about long waits than most kids are.

5. Get audio books rather than DVDs when you head off on a long trip It's much more fair to the driver, who can't (or at least shouldn't) watch the DVD along with everyone else, and it builds listening muscles amazingly well. Choose books wisely - suspense, action, humor, etc. are especially important if you're stuck in a traffic jam or wedged between your annoying little brother and the laundry basket of smelly beach towels. We get most of our selections from the library and always grab more books than it seems like we need, in case one (or more) turns out to be a dud.

Okay, more tips in a few days. Now get busy hanging shelves in the john.