I did a lot of yarn-craft for Christmas, and so when the time came to start another project (never mind the five half-finished ones in the corner) I reached for my craft blade. Papercutting was one of the first crafts I taught myself, and so it's an old standby when I want something to do. I have plenty of cardstock in a whole rainbow of colors left over from an old project, so I already had the supplies on hand as well. The only question was what to make.
I rummaged through my desk drawers hoping for some inspiration, and came up with the jackpot: a handful of little electric tea lights! I had originally bought them in order to illuminate a paper luminary I made: why not use them for the same purpose again? My windowsills are sadly bare at the moment, and a set of small luminaries will do wonders for them.
After ruminating on the idea for a few days, I settled on a leaf-centric papercut design. One of my absolute favorite things is the look of light as it filters down through leaves on a summer day. I love the dappled shade. I love looking up and seeing the delicate outline of veins through the leaf. I love the colors, both in the height of summer and as the leaves begin to turn in fall. Right now, there aren't any leaves on the trees to admire: why not make some that I can keep year-round?
I took to the internet to search for reference photos, in order to keep my leaf cutouts true-to-life. I wanted a variety of leaf types: everything from maple to oak to gingko! Using the photos, I traced the outline and vein structure of each leaf onto a net of a cube, printed on cardstock. Simply put, a net is a 2D representation of a 3D shape that can be folded up to recreate the shape. Cubes have very simple nets, but you can also make weird, wonderful, complex polyhedra in the same way. Make a dodecahedron luminary! Hang platonic solids from your ceiling as a crazy mathematical mobile!
...Ahem. Back to the luminaries. After the shapes were traced, it was a simple matter of cutting out the shapes. As always, I work from the fiddly inner details outwards while papercutting. The added stability while cutting out tiny vein patterns makes things so much easier!
Once everything was cut out, it was time for my secret weapon of luminary-making. You could certainly leave the sides open, and it would be pretty. However, the open papercutting is very fragile and prone to bending, and the light from the candle doesn't diffuse nicely around it. It's great for shadow puppets, and less great for home decor. So, I went to the store and bought myself a package of plain white tissue paper: the kind used for stuffing in gift bags. I cut out little squares of tissue paper and glued them carefully to the back of each luminary. The tissue paper provides just enough of a solid foundation to make the papercuts sturdy and resistant to tearing. It also diffuses light coming from the candle inside, resulting in a very pleasing, soft image. But don't take my word for it: look for yourself!
(And what kind of person would I be if I didn't include a video of the lovely flickering of the electric candles?)
For those curious what these look like in the daylight: I tried to match the cardstock colors to the actual colors of the leaves (either in full summer, or fall foliage)
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