Hola! It’s Chelsea from Lovely Indeed, and I’m back with a little DIY project in honor of Cinco de Mayo! (Can you believe it’s next week already?!) Cinco de Mayo just so happens to be one of my favorite holidays – probably because it’s a good reason to celebrate with loads of delicious Mexican food. But today we’re taking the Cinco celebrations to the next level with a DIY take on a Mexican folk art tradition.

You’ll need some cardstock, embroidery thread, scissors or an X-Acto knife, invisible tape, and various shades of tissue paper. Start by making a template for your design out of cardstock, 5 inches wide and 4 inches tall. Scallop the bottom edge.

Next, dream up a design for your papel picado!  I kept mine very simple, because I wouldn’t exactly describe myself as a genius with an X-Acto knife. Make it as plain or as glamorous as you like (and feel free to copy mine). Draw your design on the cardstock, cut it out, then trace onto tissue paper. You can cut through multiple layers of tissue simultaneously; however, I wouldn’t recommend trying to cut through more than about 8 layers. Tracing the design with your blade, cut it out of your tissue.

Take a single sheet of your cut-out tissue paper, and make a crease at the top (non-scalloped) side, about a quarter inch from the edge. Tuck your embroidery thread into the crease in the tissue, fold tissue over the thread, and tape the tissue down to itself using a tiny piece of invisible tape. (After much experimenting with different glues, I came to the conclusion that tape is simply easiest for this project! If you don’t want folks to see the tape, make sure it ends up on the back side of your finished project.)

Repeat the last step, alternating colors along your strand of embroidery thread. When you’ve reached your desired length, cut the thread, and decide where to hang your papel picado! I recommend somewhere that it can flutter in the breeze. Feliz Cinco!  xoxo