Papel Picado

What is a picado? It is a traditional Mexican craft that is created by making colour cutouts using coloured tissue paper. These "snowflake" designed flags are strung together using string and hung up at holidays and festive family and community events.

What you will need:

  • Colored tissue paper (12″ x 9″ approximately)
  • Scissors
  • Marker
  • Yarn and tape to display papel picados

How to create this colourful craft:

  • Step 1: Fold a piece of tissue paper (lengthwise) in half and then in half again. Make sure one side consists only of folds. (like creating a paper snowflake).
  • Step 2: Fold the long folded sheet in half. Mark a dot in the corner that is made up of folds. This helps the children recognize where not to cut.
  • Step 3: Just like cutting a snowflake, cut shapes along all four sides avoiding the area with the dot. To cut a shape from the middle of the rectangle, fold the paper in half again, and cut a shape into the fold.
  • Unfold carefully and tape tissue paper to a long string of yarn.
  • To make multiple panels from one cut, layer 2-3 sheets of tissue paper together add tape (carefully) while cutting.

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