How to Cut Shapes Out of Paper

Series Summary

Origami or paper folding, is a form of visual representation defined by the folding of paper, which originated in Japan in the 1600s. Since then, this ancient art has become a popular hobby for many around the globe. Origami has been popular in the United States and England since the early 1900s, but did you know that the first published origami book, 'Hiden Senbazuru Orikata' (which translated to English means 'Secret of 1,000 Cranes Origami'), was published in 1797? Origami is regarded as a complicated and delicate art form, and in this free video series, a graphic design artist demonstrates how to use origami to fold pieces of paper into unique pieces of art. Some of the patterns and designs include paper drinking cups, hearts, penguins, dragons and flying birds, among others. With these origami folding instructions, a simple sheet of paper can quickly transform into a work of fine art. In this free video series on paper folding, origami specialist Robert Segundo demonstrates how to create a variety of different objects and animals through the art of paper folding. Segundo begins by explaining how to create a paper book cover, a paper snowflake, a paper bag and even Mexican paper flowers out of paper. He then uses his knowledge of origami to demonstrate how to create other objects, such as: a paper rocket, swan, rose, doll, football and even a Christmas tree. Watch these free videos and learn to create several items through the intricate art of paper folding today.

Video Transcript

"So you want to know how to cut shapes out of paper, so do I. My name is Robert Segundo, actually I'll be the one showing you how to do it. So what we're going to do is we're going to start with paper because that's really what you need to cut shapes out of. And scissors, these are the pointy ends, this is the end you hold it by what we're going to do. Let's say we want to take a triangle out of a sheet of paper. Actually let's do a square, squares are easy. We'll just take our shape, our paper, fold it in half and fold it in half again. There you go. What we're going to do is we'll just basically going to cut a square out of it, open it back up, viola, there's a square. Let's say we want to do a circle, let's do a circle. Let's close it over, close it over again, I want to fold it one more time. The more times you fold it, the less of an arc you're going to have put on your circles so we'll just do it like that. Open it up, there I got two circles, either way. And let's do a triangle just for fun. Let's see, cut this way, basically just cut a triangle into the paper and there you go. Now if you do like I did here and you fold it over a couple of times, you get two circles on either side, it really depends on the shape that you're trying to cut out of the piece of paper. I mean if you want to like say this looks kind of like a robot so let's give him a little robot mouth. So come over here and cut something real funky out like that. There it is. There we go, now he's crazy looking. That's basically how you're going to do it, just fold your paper and cut it so play around with it, have fun and enjoy."