Here’s a design option you may not have thought of: stencils designed on the iPad using the Amaziograph app. These lacy stencils are really hot right now in the cardmaking world. Using the right symmetry options in Amaziograph, I designed the stencils in the pen width I thought would work well as a stencil. Then pulled the .png into Illustrator and autotraced using the Technical Drawing preset, which created the cut lines. And voila! (Cut from 10 mil Mylar)
Here’s the original png files:
I really like the hand-drawn symmetry! These would make great holiday ornaments, too. Thanks for reminding us about Amaziograph… time to sharpen my finger and get to work. 
Thanks so much. I so want my production unit to do stencils in paper and the Mexican paper art for Dia de los Muertos (look for “picados” images)
I saw this illustrator tutorial video on lace work patterns and want to figure this out for Inkscape. All the squiggle bowl work has me thinking about pattern making.
So I went through the tutorial and made my template. It works great! Here’s my first mandala from Illustrator:
Mandala_1.pdf (111.7 KB)
I’m digging the hand-drawn aesthetic. You could make some impressive wrapping paper by engraving these designs on paper! 
