Origami

Day 9 - Origami

Here's the thing....I offered to run a card stall for a Ladies Night at my child's primary school tonight before I had decided to start the 40days project.  It's 5.15pm. Having just got home after setting up the hall I need to return by 6.30pm and I have to fit the project and get some food in between time!

So today's project has to be quick!

I'm making origami bunny rabbits.  I've done a bit of origami before, this is supposed to be one of the easier ones.

I'm starting with squares of paper but I'm not just going to brown or white.  I'll follow the instructions and hopefully blog again in twenty minutes with photos of completed bunnies! 

Here are the folds that we made - in twenty minutes, speed crafting - apparently it's based on the design for a water bomb!

At this point we 'blew them up'.

Here are the finished bunnies - we've given them pom pom tails as well.

Teabag Folding

Day 5 - Tea bag Folding

Yesterday I took my first batch of crafts to church and managed to sell most of the extra I had made.  In fact I have had requests for more of the headbands, another quilled card and another sun catcher!

Today I decided to try another craft that I haven't done before - tea bag folding.  Tea bag folding involves making mini origami shapes from patterned papers and then glueing them together into a circular form (yes, they don't actually use tea bags - the name comes from the women who invented it who was drinking a cup of tea at the same time as trying to come up with a design for a card). 

I started by downloading a selection of free tea bag tile sheets, trying to pick them with an Easter feel. There are several online sites that will allow free downloads, one I used is:

Masikatiwebdesign

I found this quite handy as you don't always have to download full A4 sheets and it gives you the chance to experiment with different sized tiles.

I cut individual tiles from chosen sheets of paper and then followed instructions to fold each square into the desired shape.  each rosette needed eight folded shapes.  I found this project a lot harder than I thought I would.  Some papers are better to use for different kinds of folds - which is why it is a good idea to be able to experiment!

Here is a selection of the tea bag folds I made.

It's difficult to make sure papers with definite designs on them such as the ducks are always folded the same way, otherwise you lose parts of the pictures or they don't all face the same direction.

I simply finished the cards by mounting the tea bag folds onto backing paper and adding Happy Easter.

I'm quite pleased with the finished cards!