Good-Luck Birds bookmarks

Here's a paper-cut design with a Polish background, where this art-form is known as Wycinanki (pronounced vee-chee-non-kee). Carolyn Guest is well known for her incredible paper-cutting skills, learnt during her travels to Poland as a young exchange student. Carolyn has generously shared this pattern with me to try myself; one that she has adapted from traditional Polish designs.

I've cut one as a simple black/white bookmark and the other I dared to be different and cut it out from hand-coloured tissue I'd used in previous cardmaking projects. The tissue was originally white-tissue gift wrap, misted with re-inkers/water and ironed when dry onto freezer paper to stabilize. There's also a touch of silver and copper metallic rub-ons added.

Do be sure to check out Carolyn's Sheep Shear Cuttings Papercut Art site so that you can marvel at the traditional Polish method she uses to cut so perfectly, her intricate designs with sheep-shears!