My Fast Growing Love Affair With Papel Picado & Ety’s DIY Cure

Remember way back in the day when you learned how to cut a heart by folding your paper in half and cutting out an awkward crescent shape within the fold?  Then you discovered that upon opening that paper that by creating a mirror image, you made a heart?  Turns out that is the very basis for Papel Picado.  What pray tell is Papel Picado exactly?  Not to cheap out, but without over doing it in the explanation  area, its a decorative craft made out of paper cut into elaborate designs.  For a  full read, here is the Wiki write up Papel Picado

I am sure without even fully realizing what you were looking at, you have seen many variations of Papel Picado!  Your most basic version of Papel Picado is something like this simple cut out flag in various colors, then crafted into a banner, as shown in this wonderful and easy DIY by the ladies at Green Wedding Shoes  This is a simple design, repeated & strung together.  Think making snowflakes!  See, you’ve already made Papel Picado and didnt even know it!

Further down our Papel Picado rabbit hole would be more complex and intricate designs.  These are typically first created on a harder card stock, which will then serves as template to use.  The template will then be laid on top of various pieces of tissue paper, while using a razor or exacto knife to cut out the various bits to craft the piece.  Etsy has a great DIY for this more complex and intricate design type.  Have a crack at this a time or two and you’ll soon find yourself creating your own unique designs totally from scratch!

While these sure can be made into some amazing decor elements for any event, believe it or not, they have transcended their way into elegant wedding invitation accompaniments & sometimes even taking center stages as the actual invite!  Two Paper Dolls has created this absolutely amazing invite wrapper using the papel picado technique!  I am in love with these & considering throwing a party just to use these lil beauties!

A stunning example of this technique being used to create gorgeous invitations is exemplified by Avie Designs, who allow Papel Picado to be the staring artist in what is sure to be a wow factor invite.  While this technique isnt exactly the most cost effective choice for your wedding budget, the outcome just may out weigh the price!  Believe it or not, I have also heard of couples who have cut their own Papel Picado invites out by hand!  What commitment!!

No matter what the use, I am totally falling for this technique & actively looking for ways to get my scissors handy & give it a go!  Something tells me there is a DIY of my very own in the near feature, so do check back, as this is totally happening!

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