Create A Papel Picado with ScanNCut

Brother Crafts Blogger

If you're a last minute decorator, like me, I have a quick and easy project you can have ready in less than an hour! I have always loved papel picado.  Those beautiful brightly colored cut paper banners fluttering in the air.  If you’re not familiar with papel picado, it’s a form of Mexican folk art where tissue paper is cut into lacy banners using small chisels.  The term “papel picado” roughly translates to “pecked paper.” I knew that I wanted to use the same rectangle format as papel picado to create a pretty banner.  However, I wanted to create a more linear finished design that had a more modern feel. Cutting all those flags by hand seemed like it could be fun, but time consuming.  I wanted fast.  Remember, I'm a last minute kind of gal!  So, I designed a cut file for my ScanNCut machine. You can see it here in ScanNCutCanvas (Brother's free online editing program):



It was pretty easy to do.  I simply started with a rectangle and then added and subtracted bits as I needed.  Watch my video on Process Overlap (previously approved, link to brother youtube)to learn how to weld and subtract images. I used my ScanNCut machine to cut the pattern 5 times.  For ease of workflow, I used two mats and while one was cutting, I was cleaning and prepping the other mat (it takes about 6 minutes for each of these flags to cut).  After that I strung the paper cuts together on a piece of embroidery floss.



Then I hung my fabulous new banner in the window!





Even without color, that lacy paper looks so fantastic against the window:



I love it!  I think this banner looks awesome and says celebration! If you'd like to make your own, you can download the .fcm file for FREE, right HERE.

Talk to you next week!