The Art of Paper Cutting at CHANEL School of Makeup

I love paper cutting but haven’t found much time for it recently. I was so happy to find that Poppy Chancellor was running a free Art of Paper Cutting workshop at the CHANEL School of Makeup in Harrods. I booked myself a place, told the husband to look after the children and headed into town.

I’ve taken part in a few paper cutting workshops, such as at The Handmade Fair, but never in a department store before. I actually haven’t been to Harrods for years but I arrived a little early so I could have a look around. I found the CHANEL School of Makeup on the 5th floor and took my seat.

The Art of Paper Cutting at CHANEL School of Makeup

I was one of 10 participants in the workshop run by Poppy Chancellor. I really love her contemporary style and have mentioned before how much I love her paper cutting book, Cut It Out. In case you haven’t really heard about paper cutting, Poppy describes it as illustration from a single sheet of paper.

In front of me was a cutting mat, scalpel and sheet of designs. After a brief introduction we were let loose to try out the practice sheet. As the workshop was in collaboration with CHANEL there was the famous interlocking and opposed letter C – did you know this was designed by Coco Chanel herself in 1925? There was also a lipstick, lips and stars – all different shapes so we could practice cutting out.

After I had warmed up it was time to start on some of the papercut templates Poppy had brought along for us. There were 3 to choose from – an amazing Chanel-themed design (you can see the original on her Instagram), hands holding a cup of tea and a ‘Create Yourself’ design.

I started on the Chanel-themed design as it was so eye-catching. It was a really lovely design to cut and Poppy showed me how to mount it using foam pads. I’ve never mounted any of my paper cuts but I’m definitely going to do this from now on!

I really love how the finished paper cut looked. I quickly cut out the other templates too which wasn’t bad for a 2 hour workshop. A few of the other participants were surprised how quick I was but it’s amazing what you can achieve when you have 2 child-free hours.

We were able to take our paper cuts home with us. Some people mounted the cuts from the practice sheet which looked really good. I’m going to play around with mine and maybe add a pop of colour to the lipstick. I can’t wait to mount the other two paper cuts too.

I had so much paper cutting at the CHANEL School of Makeup. It’s not a place I’ve ever been before but it was such a fun collaboration and I’m really glad I went. I think the other paper cutting workshops are all booked but they have more craft workshops planned in the future.