Chinese New Year Paper Cutting

Since it is still in the Chinese New Year festive, I made 2 quick Chinese New Year paper cutting decorations with the ScanNCut machine. With the cutting machine, I can easily repeating the cutting and make more of them. I gave them away to my friends and family members so that they will have the nice red prosperous paper decorations for their home too.

For your convenient, I have included the downloaded files of the Fu (福) and Yang (羊) character for you in both FCM and JPG files in the tutorial page (Page 2). You may use the FCM files to cut directly or you may try out the Canvas software to create your own. For those of you who don’t own a cutting machine, you may download the JPG format and manually cut them out with exacto knife.

I received a Brother ScanNCut machine end of last year and it is my most wanted Christmas gift of all. I was so excited as I have been dreaming to own an electronic cutting machine for as long as I knew that there is such a handy machine in the market. Now, Brother ScanNCut machine comes with a scan feature which has made the crafting even easier and fun. I have been doing some quick cutting since then (here is an example) which you can use the built-in design comes with the machine. You can also scan a simple image and cut it out all in one machine. Cool!!! Watch all the demo videos to see how amazing this machine can do to us crafty person.

Today, I am doing something more complex by using the online software called “ScanNCut Canvas“, all I need to do it to find an image in jpg, load it into the software and trace it to transform the image into a FCM cutting file! You may find how to do it in the following Youtube Video, by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. She has a lot of ScanNCut video tutorials, be sure to watch her creations.

Besides JPG files, you may also use GIF, PNG or BMP files of less than 5MB. In addition, ScanNCut Canvas is able to import SGV, DXF and FCM of less than 2MB files from other cutter machine.

Note: Please use downloaded images with cautious and make sure to use only those royalty free images which are meant for personal and hobby use.

I have created a ScanNCut Crafts board at Pinterest to collect the cut files and images to be used for future. I will add more as I go. Please follow me at Pinterest to see what I have added to this board and other boards.

At the mean time, I would like to share with you some photos of my home decoration I did for this year’s Chinese New Year. In 2015, it is the year of Goat according the Chinese Lunar Calendar, the Chinese writing of Goat is Yang (羊). I did a paper cutting of (羊) calligraphy character besides the word of (福) . Fu (福)  means “fortune” or “good luck”, it is greatly use in the home of Chinese since it represents the desire that one’s good luck will be expansive and come in many forms.

We DIY a faux Plum Blossom tree by using tree branches and artificial plum blossom flowers. Similar to pussy willows, Plum Blossom symbolises auspicious and prosperity, it is believed to help in building a harmony relationship within friends and family.

Both my kids have to submit a DIY Chinese New Year craft at school respectively. The wall hanging ornament was done by my daughter by using red packets. I am so proud of her as she did it all by herself. While my son and I did a Chinese New Year card. I helped my son to cut out the printing from red packet, he glued them on the red card and finished off with some drawings on it.

Here is mine, the flock of sock sheep wishing you a Prosperous Chinese New Year by saying Gong Xi “Baaaa” Cai!!!