Origami Mommy

Paper dolls

Part 3 of my Creative Toy Play series is actually about paper, but this hectic week - just barely started - tells me I am not going to get to a full post until later in the week. Here's a little teaser. I saw these adorable illustrations on Flickr by Second Sister, who has a delightful blog, Suaviloquy, and saw a blog post by Valorie of Chocolate Covered Polka Dots, who made her paper dolls on magnet paper. Amazingly simple! 

Just print them out on magnet paper and then color them in. Provide a cookie sheet so the magnets will stick. Oh, such fun. After M had played with them for awhile I started doodling and made her a couple of extra dresses, just to her specifications. (The color she requested? Pink, of course). 

I've been doing a lot of sketching and having so much fun with it. We have a few Japanese illustration books, which I love and am using as a guide to help refresh my rusty doodling skills. I used to draw and sketch all the time when I was younger - I'd forgotten how meditative it is. I'm excited to make more paper dolls, as well as other things. I have a million projects I want to do now, and not enough time!

Do you have any childhood hobbies that you've rediscovered as an adult? 

Flowery greeting card tutorial

We have a few weddings coming up, and I was prowling the web for handmade wedding congratulation card tutorials, but didn't come up with anything that particularly appealed to me. I've made cards using origami flowers before, but wanted to incorporate some sort of fabric or yarn in these cards if I could. So I came up with my own.

This is so simple to make, it hardly warrants a tutorial, but if you are interested, here's the step-by-step.

First, either purchase crocheted flowers (they are usually sold with scrapbooking supplies), or make your own. It takes about a minute or two to make them and they can be used in so many ways so it's really worth teaching yourself how to make them. A few weeks ago I posted a link to a great tutorial for crocheted flowers. Here's the link again. I made my flowers out of cotton yarn, and used a small crochet needle, so the flowers would be tight and defined.

Gather your materials - crocheted flowers, craft paper in various colors including green, craft scissors (to cut wavy or scalloped edges), blank cards, and glue.

Use the craft scissors to cut a piece of paper to use as the background.

Then cut small leaf shapes out of your green paper. 

Arrange on your background paper, and glue everything down. I find it nice for the leaves to be laid down in a somewhat random manner, and for a bit of the leaf to stick out beyond the background - but it's all up to you, of course.

That's it - a simple, but heartfelt, handmade greeting card!

Finding the time to craft

How do you all find the time to craft or indulge in other personal pursuits? That's been my challenge for the last few weeks since summer vacation started. The children are pretty used to doing their own crafts alongside me, but of course I am much more distracted than usual. I'm trying to keep my projects to small, manageable and simple things right now - dreams of dresses and other such things are put off till the fall. 

I started getting really excited about beading because I finally got a small kit of tools. I'd never realized before how accessible and easy professional-looking bead projects are to make if you just have a wire cutter, pliers, and the right little components. It is very quick, too. While I was doing it the boys were digging through all the beads themselves and looking for all sorts of treasure - they've always loved beads and beading but I never expected them to get excited about beads for "real" jewelry. 

This is one that I got started on - since it's a "floating" style necklace it is very fast; the only tricky part is making sure the beads are spaced equally apart.

While I worked on that, the boys were making their own things. B loves anything with gold in it. Daniel is into crystals.

Then I moved on to tiny sewing projects. I loved these tissue holders because they take 10 minutes, max, to make. 

They're both made of Japanese fabric. I want to get more of the polka dotted one by Lecien - I realize I don't have enough plainer fabric to use as lining when I make bags and pouches.

Speaking of which this is a bag I made yesterday. I made it very quickly because I just had to try a tote bag to see how it's done. You know? I wanted to get it out of my system. I was excited to try out the french seams mentioned on this tutorial at Sew, Mama, Sew. However, I learned that if the material I use is too heavy, it won't work well. Both the fabric and the lining were fairly thick and it was hard to make the corners as sharp as I'd like, plus I now have to handsew the top sides down because they wouldn't go through my machine.

Here's a closeup of the strap and lining. The strap is described in the Sew, Mama, Sew tutorial and I really like it. 

While I made that, the boys were seriously busy making a fleet of paper airplanes, because B had discovered a trick to make them fly far and fast. So I was sewing while paper airplanes were flying around my head! Kind of a typical moment in my life actually.

I finally finished my first needlework, about a week ago, using a Wee Wonderfuls pattern, and was waiting for some inspiring idea to come to mind about what to do with it. Frame it? put it in a hoop on the wall? Finally I decided to make a pillow out of it. Here it is and the blue is what I think I'll use for the back of the pillow. I am going to wait to finish it until I get a pillow form so I know how big to make it.

If you do needlework, what's your favorite way of showcasing it when you're done? I will add embroidery to little baby items (once I get or make little baby items!) but what do you do with larger projects? 

I also made a few baskets lately - again, to figure out how they're made. I am really happy with how this basket turned out. It's quite small and I think I will make a couple of these as gifts.

It gave me a chance to practice boxing the corners in. I also tried this basket, but it was larger, and ended up a little floppy, and handles this thin were hard. Mia loves carrying it around though. I also made the baby blocks inside but wasn't as pleased with them - it's hard to get them right with just batting, not foam blocks, which I'd rather not use. So I think I'm done making baby blocks!

One last basket photo - this one turned out okay. It was the first one I made. These handles were better, though too thick. One of these days I'll get them right! Though it shaves a lot of time off this project not to put any handles on at all.

If you want to make a basket of your own, the tutorial I used for basic reference is here.

Finally, the boys have been playing around with paper lately. We have a tiny little paper maker - just postcard sized - which Daniel really likes. I wish there were a way to make the pulp without using a blender - if anyone knows, please tell me! The original kit came with some pieces of dried pulp that kids could shake in a bottle with some water and marbles (to help agitate them). Maybe I could make a big batch in the blender and then divide it up and dry it. I think Daniel would make paper more often if it didn't involve having to ask an adult to blend the pulp first.

And a final paper project - both boys enjoyed this - just watercolor paints and salt. Here's a beautiful blog, Kleas, with a link. It's a very easy project - you should give it a try!

Tutorial: A bouquet of paper hyacinths

Daniel came home from school a few weeks ago clutching a little bouquet of flowers he proudly presented to me. They were super-easy to make, as he showed me, and you can make a lot of creative decisions to make this project your own - size, color, type of paper, etc. I tried lengthening the flowery part and they came out looking like hyacinths (or some other similar type flower - I'm not really good with flower names, so if you can help me out here please do!)

I love the possibilities here - made with construction paper, they have more structure and shape; made with tissue paper, they are airier and lighter. You can see examples of both in the first photo of this post. I'll demonstrate below with origami paper, but I love the look of tissue paper flowers too.

Begin with two pieces of paper, one for your flower and one for the stem. Any size, as long as it's roughly square.

Start rolling up the stem paper as tightly as you can into a little paper roll. Secure with tape. I cut my stems in half to get two stems out of one piece of paper, but you can leave it as is, of course.

Take your piece for the flower and fold it in half, then fold in half again, or else fold into thirds. Really, you can fold any way you like, as long as you have some closed-fold sides to cut into later.

Daniel folded his like the picture above, but to get the hyacinth look, I found it was helpful to fold like the picture below - into thirds, slightly uneven, with two closed folded edges on the same side. 

Begin cutting through those closed folds at intervals, but not all the way to the other side, just like the photo below. Keep on cutting till you reach the end.

Now, attach one end to your stem with some tape, and then begin rolling, moving ever so slightly down the stem as you do so. Secure the end with tape.

If you use tissue paper the petals will fall gracefully; depending on the thickness of the construction paper you use you might want to tease out some of the petal layers. Other than that, you're done. Make a whole bunch and put them together in a small vase by a window - so pretty!

This last photo is of the bouquet Daniel brought to me - I love how child-friendly and quick this project is.

Sushi play food tutorial

One of my favorite memories from my boys' kindergarten years in Japan was an event held every year. The oldest children in the school would work for weeks preparing all sorts of items for a huge play store. They'd make toys, fruit and vegetables, sushi, sweets and ice cream, jewelry and bags, all from recyclables. Some of the materials they used included newspaper, milk cartons, water bottles, straws, shopping bags, gift wrap, plastic wrap, cardboard, toilet paper rolls, etc. Meanwhile, the younger children in the school would make their own little shopping bags, wallets, and money, and then the store would open, the young ones would troop in, and the older ones would proudly "sell" their gorgeous little creations. This always led to weeks of exciting follow-up play in our own home. 

Making handmade items for house play or store play seems to be really popular here.  Adult make things like felt sweets.  Children make their own versions from paper and recyclables. The sushi shown here is quite easy for children to do.

First of all you will need a few of these or some other similar styrofoam packing. Here,  this is used to wrap fruit in in the grocery store. To be honest, I'm not sure if they even use this back home - if not, you can easily substitute with styrofoam peanuts, shredded paper, or even small amounts of wadded up paper towels or tissue.

Make a small cylinder using the stuffing of your choice, then wrap it with black construction paper and tape. Cut to the length you want your sushi to be. That's all there is to it! Add on bits of red maguro (tuna), green cucumber, or yellow pickles with glue and then line them up in a little container (such as take-out sushi containers). You can cut the green "grass" that comes inside take-out sushi, and then use a wadded up small piece of green construction paper as wasabi and pink paper as pickled ginger.

Children get a real kick out of play food, especially if they make it themselves. I'll be posting more tutorials for other play store items in the next few weeks.

Tiny Origami Basket tutorial

I encountered this little basket in a couple of children's origami books, so it should be easy for adults and children alike.

Start with a square piece of paper and fold it in half from corner to corner. If you are using origami paper, the color on the inside of these first few folds will end up on the outside of the basket. (The paper below is dark pink and pale pink and the basket will end up being light pink). 

Unfold, and then fold again from the other corner to the other corner and unfold again. You are doing this to create creases.

Now fold from side to side in both directions and unfold again. Your square piece of paper will now have creases crisscrossing it from corner to corner and side to side. 

This next part is tricky so I've provided a few photos. Fold it back in half again from side to side, grasp the two sides in your hands, and sort of squeeze them together so that it all comes together as shown below.

You'll end up with this square.

Put it down on the table with the open edges and corner at the top, make it nice and flat, and then take the top corner of the top layer and fold it down towards the bottom corner. 

Press down on the crease.

Next, as though you were turning the pages of a book, take the right corner of the top layer and bring it over to meet the left corner.

Repeat the steps you just did above - take the top corner of the upper layer and fold it down to the bottom corner again, and then "turn the page" - take the right corner of the upper layer and fold it over to the left.

Smooth out the paper and press down on creases after each step. The folds you just did should now be on the inside. Both sides of your square should look like the photo below. 

Now, take the right corner of your top layer and fold it about two-thirds of the way towards the left. 

Repeat this step for the left hand side, overlapping the two sides, and then tape down to secure.

Turn over and repeat again on the back side - fold each side in towards the other so they overlap and then tape in place.

It's best to use the smallest piece of tape you can.

Next fold the bottom corner up and press on it to make a crease, then let go.

Now, gently grasp the basket on both sides and open it up. The last crease you just made helps form the bottom of the basket. 

Use your fingers as needed to help sharpen the creases and give the basket some shape, especially around the bottom and the sides. Tape the bottom in place.

Now take the two handles and secure them together at the top with a little bit of tape.

You're done! Use a craft punch and contrasting paper to decorate as you like, or leave it as is. Little ones love these baskets for carrying tiny toys, acorns, pebbles, and other treasures. 

Baskets, boxes, and bowls

I thought it would be fun to share a few simple origami projects and ask - is there anything you'd like to see more of? I'm already preparing a tutorial for the baskets below for next week:

These are from a Japanese book on children's origami I have and are pretty straightforward.

These star boxes are popular among children and are quite easy:

if you tuck the ends under and secure them, they make pretty cool looking bowls:

Origami for the home is my new favorite thing - here's another kind of bowl:

and yet another which you may already know how to do - I know I learned this as a child growing up in the U.S.  It's one of those little things children make and write on to tell fortunes. Using pretty paper and turning it upside down makes a huge difference, doesn't it?

Are you wondering what those little balls are? Those are snacks for babies and children - they melt in your mouth and are considered safe for little ones.  They're plain, but a bit sweet. The flowers are just little plum-flavored rice crackers.

I've also finally mastered tiny boxes, which are so much fun! There are lots of variations of those; here are 2 of my favorites. These here are very simple, classic boxes with a lid (I know they're a bit crooked!)

and this one is sort of similar to the origami cube I showed you a few days ago:

What I like about origami is that once you master a few basic folds and get a few projects under your belt, you begin to develop an intuitive sense for how other projects should go. You may even begin to develop the ability to create new projects of your own, although that hasn't quite happened to me yet. I love the feeling of doing multiple folds that seem to be going nowhere and then suddenly seeing it all fall into place at the end. I think that children learn a lot from experiencing that sort of magic.

Let me know what you'd like to learn how to do!

Recent random projects

Yesterday Daniel came home from school and proudly showed me this:

Such a happy dancing boy! I so love the joy that bursts out of children's art. This was made from a piece of recycled cardboard, around which he wrapped a piece of used, crumpled foil which he had smoothed out. On top he put a piece of substantial plastic wrap (the kind that might be used to wrap flowers or produce), taped all in place, and then made his drawing with permanent marker.  I like the way these layers, and especially the foil, give his piece texture. 

While he was making more of those, I made a few of these:

These paper stars are so, so easy and addictive. 

I find I'm doing more papercrafts these days because I really crave the meditative zone I fall into. Like origami, these stars satisfy because they are logical and geometrical but charming and beautiful. It also helps that I can complete a batch quickly as opposed to my never-ending, languishing fabric and yarn projects. The boys like to simply make and collect these stars but Mia loves to steal them and feed them to her dollies.

Mia's latest crafting endeavors mostly consist of drawing on random bits of important papers she finds lying around the house, along with the occasional wall or piece of furniture. For her the whole world is a canvas. She's also learned how to use our craft punches, and I keep discovering random piles like this in secret little corners: 

which kind of makes up for the just-as-random but less delightful scribbles on the walls. 

Our great, big, almost-9-year-old Benjamin is serious about his work as an artist, and works slowly and methodically. He's been putting touch-ups on this mountain scene for awhile. 

What I like is how he has pulled many Japanese countryside scenes out of his memory even though we are stuck living in a city. I like to think that maybe our infrequent trips to the Japanese mountains have managed to leave imprints on his heart, and that makes me feel a little bit less sad about our Tokyo urban surroundings.

Speaking of heart, DH and I celebrated our 11th year anniversary recently. The children secretly prepared confetti and showered us with a burst of color. 

Cutting was as much fun as tossing. A sweet end to a sweet day.