Paper cutting first appeared in the Northern and Southern Dynasties.

Paper was invented in the Western Han Dynasty BC (6th century BC). It was impossible to have the art of paper-cutting before that. But at that time, people used thin sheets of material and made them through hollow carving techniques. It has become a handicraft, but it has been popular long before paper appeared. It uses the techniques of carving, engraving, ticking, carving and cutting to carve patterns on gold foil, leather, silk, and even leaves. "Historical Records" records that in the early Western Zhou Dynasty, King Zhou Cheng cut Wutong leaves into "Gui" as a gift to his younger brother, and granted Ji Yu the title of Marquis in the Tang Dynasty. During the Warring States Period, leather carvings were used (one of the cultural relics unearthed from Chu Tomb No. 1 in Jianglingwangshan, Hubei Province), and silver foil hollow carvings (one of the cultural relics unearthed from the Warring States Period site in Guwei Village, Huixian County, Henan Province) were both used together with paper-cutting. Their appearance laid a certain foundation for the formation of folk paper-cutting.

In the "Mulan Ci" during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, there is a poem about "applique yellow on the mirror". The earliest paper-cut works found in China are five group-flower paper-cuts from the Northern Dynasties (AD 386-581) unearthed near the Flame Mountain in Turpan, Xinjiang. These paper-cuts adopt the method of repeated folding and the image does not block each other