Scherenschnitte Border
As you may already know from my recent newsletters, I have recently been really inspired by American folk art. Diving into the art history, I went down a rabbit hole looking at Scherenschnitte art pieces.
Scherenschnitte is the traditional German/Swiss technique of intricate paper cutting. I find it really beautiful, and kind of crazy, that people can create these pieces by hand with such detail.
In the beginning, Scherenschnitte was often used as decorative pieces for birth certificates, love letters, and marriage certificates. These designs tended to incorporate nature motifs, and for Germans, many of the pieces were based on folk tales.
Literally meaning scissors (scheren) and cuttings (schnitte), Scherenschnitte arrived in America in the 1700s with German-speaking immigrants from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It became especially rooted in Pennsylvania, particularly Lancaster County, before spreading more widely. Typically, Scherenschnitte is made by cutting a single sheet of paper, with all parts connected, into a single design.
Tin Type Portraits
I was excited about the idea this year of creating our own Scherenschnitte design as a border around an old-fashioned image of our family. Lucky for us, a neighbor of ours is Conrad Young, a tintype photographer with a studio in his garage and a darkroom in a bus in his driveway. Conrad was such a great guy with years of knowledge in this aging art form. He captured exactly what we wanted and was kind enough to walk us through the whole process.
Here are the final results after 24 hours of the wet plates drying and finishing processing. This was such a great experience! Riley and I are both photographers as well as designers and have experimented with many types of film, but never anything this old. It really gave us an appreciation for photographers that came before.
Putting it together
Once we had our images done, I went about creating the design. I chose to use my Cricut to cut these since there was no way I could do so many by hand. I created the design digitally, then went through many small tweaks for the Cricut to make sure it was strong enough to stay together while still feeling delicate. I also wrote a little poem for the back of the card, inspired by a California winter and looking toward the new year.
Riley was a big help in scoring and folding the border pieces to go around the printed piece. Here is our final card design! This was a labor of love, but a really fun process, and I’m so happy with the result.
I am going to be taking some time off for the holidays! This weekend I am hosting a big Christmas cookie exchange, so I may share some recipes from that, but besides that, I am going to take a week or two off to spend some time with family.
Happy holidays to everyone!
