Under the normal bustling sounds Saturday of boisterous running children and racket-making exhibits at the Imagination Station, the quieter snipping of paper could be heard among a gaggle of serious-faced children creating their own masterpieces.

Eight-year-old Josalyn Swaisgood, with her tongue slightly protruding over her lips, grasped a silver pair of scissors to trim away the paper concealing a circle of hiding reindeer. Her mother, Marie Swaisgood, concentrated deeply at her own work: a swirl of peacocks.

The mother and daughter from Van Buren, Ohio, were among dozens of people Saturday at the Imagination Station working under Mary Gaynier — a local artist known for scherenschnitte, the German folk art of using scissors to cut delicate designs into paper.

Ms. Gaynier, who majored in drawing at the University of Toledo, discovered her passion and talent in 2001 when her mother told her it was her turn to host the family’s Christmas gathering.

Her nephew had been born recently, and she wanted to create a winter wonderland for the new baby and the rest of the family in the basement of her home, which was the only space large enough to accommodate the festive crowd.

“I underestimated how many snowflakes that was going to take, and the more I cut just snowflakes, the more I got bored with just those geometric shapes we did as kids,” Ms. Gaynier said. “The art degree started coming out, and I started making snowmen and reindeer, and I surprised myself because I was doing it all freehand.”

Five years later, her technique was perfected, and Ms. Gaynier started entering exhibitions.

Imagination Station staff asked her to run a snowflake workshop at the downtown science museum. The center planned the activity as part of Winterfest.

Children and parents crowded around tables with bins of scissors and paper hole punchers. Scraps littered the tabletops as the young artists concentrated on each tiny cut — some of which revealed ornate designs of dinosaurs, snowmen, ducks, and a dozen other patterns. 

 Still, others resulted in a frustrated crumple of paper.

Logan Reed, a first-grader from West Toledo, said he had done his best to create a foursome of reindeer in a snowflake, but he said he was going to settle for cutting out a few rows of diamonds and head back out for the science center’s louder and more exciting attractions.

“This is a nice winter thing, but I really came to hear stuff explode,” Logan said. “This doesn’t explode unless you really mess up.”

Imagination Station hosted other events as part of Winterfest. Frostology, an exploration of the science of snow, runs through today.

Contact Ignazio Messina at: imessina@theblade.com or 419-724-6171 or on Twitter @IgnazioMessina.

First Published January 3, 2016, 5:00 a.m.