Papercraft

Papercrafting

Hear 'papercraft' and immediately your mind locks onto images of origami swans and intricately shaped papier mache sculptures; projects that you can't even comprehend tackling without serious professional supervision. But wait, you couldn't be further from the truth! Anyone who enjoys cardmaking is a paper crafter at heart, because we'll let you in on a little secret, cardmaking and papercraft are exactly the same thing! Papercraft is an umbrella term which covers everything from quilling to paper-stitching, pyriamage to embossing, cardmaking included! But now you're party to this deeply guarded craft myth, you must keep it to yourself – otherwise we'll all have to admit that instead of 'just a spot of paper crafting, darling', we've actually been throwing a few layers of decoupage together on a greeting card. It just doesn't sound as glamorous!

Papercraft ideas

In every issue of Crafts Beautiful magazine, we pack in as many paper craft ideas as we can, from the innovative patchoupage to new ways to incorporate quilling into gift-boxes and hanging decorations, so you're never stuck for a new project to get kick-start your creativity. Then, being the kind people that we are, we upload step-by-step tutorials onto www.crafts-beautiful.com for you to view whenever the mood takes you. So if you find yourself staring blankly at a freshly stocked paper craft stash, we'll show you exactly how to use those pretty patterned papers, glittering chipboard and dainty brads to create papercrafting projects to be proud of. Or, if you've got a special occasion which requires a little extra crafty oomph, like an anniversary or Christening, you can search through our archive of projects for the perfect project. We even list all the papercraft ingredients needed on each tutorial, so you can just hit print then hit the shops!

Free Papercraft Templates

We know how heartbreaking it is to tear templates from a treasured book or magazine, so we've devised a cunning plan so you can keep your copies of CB completely pristine. Our tech wizards upload all our papercraft templates online, so you can print them out and keep your scissors where they belong, far, far away from CB's pretty pages! Another reason why downloadable free templates are so fab is when you're crafting en masse. When a gaggle of crafters get together for a paper craft sesh, we inevitably get project envy when glancing over at our friends' makes. There's often a long and drawn out process of explaining exactly how they created the masterpiece, with hand-penned instructions and diagrams – it's an exhausting experience! But if you've created your design from Crafts Beautiful paper craft templates, you can simply direct your friends online and no lengthy explanations or visual aids are required, leaving more time for the good stuff, card making! Oh, wait, we mean 'papercrafting, darling'.