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Craft Craft fairs Notebooks Origami Paper

Festive Craft Stall: Northants Christmas Sparkle Fair

Sunday’s Christmas fair at the Benham Sports Arena was really fun and festive! Lots of different stalls and music throughout the day.

Here are a few pictures of the stall and my handmade goodies. The first one was taken early on… I’d only just got my coffee!

Stall

Key books        Tree decs       Mini books

Tags & masks

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Craft Notebooks Paper Stationery

Handmade Wedding Guestbook

Guestbook work

After working my way up to doing bigger notebooks and sketchbooks over the years, I got the chance to try my hand at a wedding guestbook (yep, for the same friend I did the flowers for!). This was a great opportunity and I found working with a specific purpose made me push myself more.

I chose a song that was special to both of them for the inside cover. The cover itself was navy sewn with silver thread, to match their colour scheme. Opting for a Japanese stab-binding method, I found this fantastic tutorial for the spine. It’s not as complicated as it looks, I promise, and it’s well worth the effort. I’m incredibly grateful for the tutorial.

Here’s the result!

 

Guestbook work 2         Guestbook Inside        Guestbook 2

 

 

Guestbook 1

 

Categories
Craft Craft fairs Notebooks Origami Paper

Northampton Christmas Sparkle Fair

This fabulous event is ticket only and y’all will want to book up and get the date in your diaries, I’m sure. Yes, it’s the Northampton Christmas Sparkle Fair and it’s only just over 3 weeks away!

Northampton Christmas Sparkle Fair

There are going to be loads of fabulous stalls there, music, food, festivities… and of course handmade goodies from The Craft Fantastic! I’ll be there with a stall full of festive paper creations, including gift tags, decorations, and present ideas. Please come and see me on November 29th!

 

Tickets are only £2.50 adult, £1.50 child and are available here.

Categories
Craft Origami Paper

Origami paper wedding bouquets

It’s been a while since I’ve updated my progress on the handmade goodies I’ve been working on for my friend’s wedding. I’ve lost count of the number of kusudama flowers I’ve made, but it’s well over 100! Things are nearly finished, though; buttonholes are all done and delivered, bouquets so very near. At the weekend I fully completed one of the bridesmaid bouquets – what do you think?

Bridesmaid bouquet

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Craft Origami Paper

Origami kusudama flowers

These beautiful flowers are quite simple to make – a little time-consuming but well worth the effort. I’ve made a couple before, just because they’re so pretty, but a good friend of mine recently got engaged (whoop!) and wants a lot of things to be handmade, so I have been enlisted to help out! I’ll be making lots of paper flowers: one bridal bouquet, six bridesmaid bouquets, six buttonholes and maybe a wrist corsage or two! Oh, and being queen of notebook making, I’ll be doing the wedding guest book, too. I’m looking forward to the challenge enormously and have been practising making these origami kusudama flowers. Here’s what I’ve done so far:

Kusudama flower 1

Kusudama 2

Kusudama flowers

Happy with my progress so far! Updates to follow.

Categories
Craft Origami Paper

Giant origami – first attempt!

Following on from last week’s post on origami and art (yes! I actually followed up :D) I decided to have a go at some larger origami models. I have a few old rolls of wall paper which I thought would be ideal for this, as the paper is thick and sturdy; note for future reference though, take time in cutting as precise a square as possible.

Giant origami sheet

Starting with something I’d made before seemed like the best plan, so I folded a Kabuto (Samurai helmet):

Large origami Samurai helmet
Large origami Samurai helmet

Then transformed it into a goldfish!

Origami big goldfishNot quite sure what I’ll do with this chap now but I’m sure I’ll think of something! It’s definitely inspired me to try more.

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Art Craft Inspiration Origami Paper

Weekly Inspiration – Origami as Art

It is said that origami (from the Japanese ‘ori’ (folding) and ‘kami’ (paper)) is the art of folding paper. Without getting too philosophical, does that make all origami art?!

Well, no, but some of it certainly ticks that box. Personally I like making things that either look pretty or are functional (flowers, hearts, boxes – the usual, in fact); while other people have actually challenged themselves. Go them! Note to self: challenge accepted.

Of course there are some really great articles to be found already on this subject- see here for one such article from the Huffington Post.

Here, though are my favourite finds and inspirations from the wonderful world wide web.

This awesome Parisian street ‘graffiti’:

Origami Street Art Graffiti

This cosmic 3D project, using folded paper, tape and lights:

3d-origami-art

This epic elephant, folded by Sipho Mabona (with a little help!) from a specially-made single sheet of paper:

origami-sculpture elephant

This totally fabulous dress:

Origami dress

And finally this great example of jewellery from the linen cat:

Origami necklace

Categories
Books Craft Notebooks Paper Stationery

New Notebook – hand stitched spine with key closure

Finished this beauty recently! Handmade from sketchbook paper with an up-cycled leather-look cover (used to be a handbag), fancy hand stitching on the spine and a key closer attached with a suede cord that goes into a place holder inside.

Work in progress 1

Work in progress 2

Hand stitched spine

Key closure

Categories
Craft Notebooks Paper Stationery

Top 10 Stationery Essentials

If you’re reading this then it’s likely to assume you love stationery – and you may already be aware that this week it has been National Stationery Week. It really has. I ran out of stock of my handmade Coptic-bound sketch books on Notebook day, of all days!!

Depending on your needs, there are a massive range of stationery products on the market, but here I’ve outlined what I think are the essentials.

  •  Pen. A good pen, for writing or for drawing. I love a fountain pen for handwritten letters, biros for crosswords; but my favourite all-rounder has to be the Mitsubishi uni-ball eye. Smooth writing, waterproof, fade-proof, comes in various colours.

Mitsubishi-Uni-Ball-Eye

 

  • Pencil. A decent pencil is indispensable! And with it you need the following:
  • Eraser – often the one you get on top of the pencil is absolutely PANTS. So invest in something soft and non-smudgy, that doesn’t tear the paper!
  • Sharpener. To keep your pencil happy. I quite like this one: double hole, a home for the shavings and a lid so they don’t spill out.
  • Notebook. Sketch book/journal/jotter – whatever you call it, you need somewhere to write and draw your ideas, plans and thoughts. Handmade books are my specialty, so here are some examples of my work:

Mini coptic 1Grey mini booksMini map openKey hardback      A4 books      Notebook stack

  • Ruler – this needs to be sturdy and long lasting. Metal ones are great for craft work.
  • Paperclips. Handy for when you don’t want to staple things! The more fun shaped, the better. Paperchase and (perhaps surprisingly) Ikea do some great ones.

Ikea paper clips

  • Stapler. For when you want to permanently paper-clip something together.
  • Hole-punch. For those of us who like to print things and put them in files 🙂
  • Post-its. Other makes of sticky note labels are available! Sometimes you just need to stick a note on something. Perfect for reminders.
Categories
Craft Paper Tutorial

Paper feathers

 

So far, so good; this is the first of my Pinterest Picks that I’ve actually attempted to make for once!
I’d seen a few tutorials for paper feathers, it looked pretty easy so I just got my stuff together and tried it out. Here we go!

Firstly, I cut some feather shapes – two for each feather – from some old sheet music:

Paper feathers 1

Next, I tightly rolled some paper, for the end of the feather:

Paper feathers 2

Then I made sets of the feather components. Paper shapes, a thin bit of wire to go up the middle (this really helps with shaping the feathers!) and a snip of the rolled paper:

Paper feathers 3

I covered the back of one of the feather shapes with glue, positioned the wire and end, then placed the second shape over the top:

Paper feathers 4

At this point I smoothed it as much as possible and left it all to dry. The last thing to do is snip along the edges to create the feather effect. I found the more of a downward angle I cut at, the better the effect; also, snip as close together as you can. These are my finished attempts:

Paper feathers 5