Lesley-Anne explores paper cuttings

During the last week of school before the mid-year holidays, Lesley-Anne's school arranged for non-curriculum programmes for the students, which I thought was a nice way to end the term. Lesley-Anne was allocated the module, Chinese folk art, where she was introduced to the technique of paper cutting.

The students started out with your basic symmetrical cuttings and were provided with templates of the zodiac animals. Lesley-Anne chose these cos they represent our family (except for the horse, the teacher didn't have a template for the dragon, which is Andre's sign). Oops, I think I just revealed all our ages...

Following this exercise, the students moved on to more complex, non-symmetrical templates, requiring a sharp penknife and a deft hand.

The module sparked Lesley-Anne's interest in paper cutting and during the first two weeks of the holidays, she scoured the Internet to find patterns. She found the Chinese designs to be very complex and detailed, so she expanded her search to Western templates.

These were the first two she attempted: giraffe and wolf


Next, she did a dragon template cos she felt bad that Andre didn't have his zodiac cut-out earlier. It's now displayed on his wardrobe.

Finally, she decided to challenge herself and located this intricate design of Noah's Ark.

I thought it was a show-stopper and was very impressed by the results. I love her attention to detail and her patience. That's what holidays should be about! Not attending enrichment classes but taking the time to have fun and explore your creativity.