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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
Craft Notebooks Origami Paper

Handmade Christmas stock – mini book necklaces & gift tags

With just less than a month to go until Christmas, things are getting busy in The Craft Fantastic workshop! Ok, it’s just me in my living room. Still, I have been quite busy planning and making things for the festive season. Over in my Folksy shop you’ll find some lovely handmade gifts and original tags to help you wrap them. Check out these miniature notebook necklaces – the perfect stocking filler for book lovers:

Mini book necklaces

 

There’s also a few sets of my origami gift tags, all hand folded from lovely paper:

Candy cane origami tags

Origami tree gift tag

I’m also free to take commissions on any of my origami gift tag designs, past and present, including all these designs from last year:

Christmas origami tags

Plus the silver printed snowflake designs:

Snowflake print gift tags

 

They’re all 4 for £2 and you can mix and match as you’d like – postage will be £1 for one or two sets, £1.50 for anything more than that.

Categories
Craft Origami Paper

Christmas paper crafts!

Football on TV last night (yawn) so I spent some time trying out different paper and origami crafts for the festive season! Some folded paper stars and Christmas trees, done from sheet music – both very simple, I’ll post tutorials soon. Also started on a lovely delicate paper flower but have run out of paper!

Christmas origami trees and star

Categories
Craft Origami Paper

Simple Origami Sunday

Not quite as far along with these as I’d like! The start of this year’s handmade Christmas gift tag stock – at the moment it’s just a little origami forest.

Categories
Craft Inspiration Origami Paper

Weekly inspiration- Paper Kawaii

I’ve been doing a lot of origami recently and having pretty much exhausted my current instruction books, am feeling a bit unsatisfied. Don’t get me wrong, I still love folding paper, I just feel like I’ve been stuck in an origami rut; I’m confident doing my existing models (my craft space is full of paper cranes, butterflies and flowers!), but now it’s time to improve.

Paper Kawaii is an amazing resource for anyone interested in origami – at any level. There’s a fantastic array of models to make, from beginner to advanced, all with clear instructions and/or video tutorials. The site is beautifully designed and easy to navigate to boot!

It’s my mum’s birthday soon and I’ll be boxing her up some handmade chocolates in a beautiful box (attempt to be made this evening!):

Origami candy box tutorial from Paper Kawaii
Origami candy box tutorial from Paper Kawaii

Check out the tutorial here. Happy folding x

 

Categories
Craft Origami

Festive paper mobiles- stars and wreaths

This weekend I have mostly been making lots of these little guys:
Froebel star
In order to make these:
Star wreath
Pretty, huh? These German paper stars, called Froebel stars, are made using four strips of paper. They look as if they might be quite complicated but once you get the basic steps down they’re easy. I found the perfect tutorial here – very clear step by step instructions.

With a Christmas craft fair coming up in November (details soon) I’ve been deciding what things I’ll be making for it- focusing on mobiles and hanging decorations this week. As well as the paper star wreaths above, I have these origami hanging decorations:
Origami hanging decks
Star mobile
Plus lots of little origami lucky stars, which I love!
Lucky stars

Categories
Craft Origami Paper

Simple Origami Sunday

These little origami hanging people remind me so much of the hanging monkeys my grandma had! I don’t remember there ever being a barrel.. I was quite content just linking monkeys…

Categories
Craft Origami

Simple origami Sunday

Muaaaargh! And other dinosaur type noises.

Categories
Craft Origami

Need a little gift box? Make one!

Having had a look in a few shops for little gift boxes to put my handmade chocolates in, I found myself disenchanted with the ones on offer. So of course I decided to make my own!

There are quite a few simple boxes that can be made out of paper/thin card; I opted for this box of triangles. I chose one without a lid, so the chocolates can be on display, looking fancy.

This one really is very simple and also very effective- just a bit different from your average cuboid!

You’ll need three squares of paper/thin card, all the same size. I know this is obvious, but do think about the size of box you need! I used 3″x3″ squares. It turned out too small; I forgot I had 8 chocolates to fit in. 6″x6″ was perfect.

Firstly, fold your first piece of paper in half from corner to corner, creasing firmly with a bone folder/thumb nail/scissor handles/similar.

Next up, fold the two corners in to the centre point. Crease firmly and unfold.

Lastly, fold up the middle point, crease firmly, unfold. You should be left with a triangle with three fold marks, like this:

Repeat with the other two squares, so you have three the same. Then slot them all together…

…and then join them up. At this stage, it should become obvious how it all fits together and the bottom forms.

Ta da!

The perfect way to present my chocolates.

Merry Christmas!

Categories
Craft Origami

Origami candy cane- gift tags

I’ve been busy busy folding and sticking this week.

These origami candy canes are simple to do and I think they look great. You start with a sheet of 2-colour origami paper, blank side up. Fold, crease and uncrease corner to corner, both ways, so you end up with this:

I’m afraid I’m using my old camera; aside from it not being very good, I keep putting it on the wrong settings!

Step 2. Fold the bottom corner up to a little way below the top point, like this:

Next, turn the paper over and fold up from the bottom… like this!

 

Then all you have to do is fold the top bit twice to make the hooky bit at the end:

 

Press the creases reeeeally well, so it sits as flat as possible.

Yippee! Finished.