Origami Mommy

Tutorial - Jeweled shrink curls

I have a new, quick tutorial that is great for children. Like so many of the crafts we do, my sons taught me this one. They learned it at school. I'm not really sure what to call these but children see lots of possibility in them - they're just little treasures.  I'm going to call them "jeweled shrink curls" for lack of a more inspiring term.

They're made from plastic bottles - all you need is a plastic bottle, scissors, permanent markers, foil, and a toaster oven. 

 

Cut pieces out of the plastic bottle at random and give them to your children.

 

Have them scribble away and draw whatever they want on the plastic.

Then put the plastic pieces on a piece of foil and pop in a toaster oven. Watch them carefully. If the oven is preheated, they will start to curl up in about 30 seconds! Maybe even sooner - so keep an eye on them. Children love watching them transform.

Take them out and let them cool. Your children can play with them, string them like beads, or simply collect them like little jewels. I like this project because it is so fast and easy, yet really satisfying. 

tiny pincushion tutorial

The children and I have been working on a lot of projects - mostly sewing, beading, and some papercraft - so I'll post about that next week. In the meantime here is a brief tutorial for a tiny pincushion made with a bottle cap as the base. You can whip these up in about 2 minutes! Very addictive to make.

You'll need a bottle cap, a small amount of fabric and a piece of ribbon wide enough to cover the side of the bottle cap, a bit of batting, and some thread and glue.

Cut your fabric into a circle somewhat bigger than the bottle cap, as in the photo above. (How big you make it depends on how big you want the pincushion to be - but this is a forgiving project and you don't have to be very precise.)

Glue the ribbon around the bottle cap. While it dries, start a running stitch around the perimeter of the fabric circle. Kind of like you're making a fabric yo-yo.

When you're done, gather it in, and fill with some batting. 

Next, gather in all the way so you close it up, tie it with a knot, and then glue it upside down inside the bottle cap. Quick and easy! 

I like that the cap prevents your pins and needles from going through all the way to the other side and poking you by accident - a problem I've had with my other handmade pincushion. I also love how tiny these are. You can glue a fabric or felt circle on the bottom if you like. If you don't have ribbon, you can use bias tape or make your own bias tape out of contrasting fabric. I did that for some of the pincushions in the photo below. You can also use felt, maybe even cut with pinking shears, instead of ribbon. I think I'll have to try that!

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.

Recycled milk carton truck tutorial

I mentioned in an earlier post that one of the highlights of our children's Japanese kindergarten was the annual "play store" (omiseyasan gokko) where the oldest children would create beautiful handmade toys, origami sweets and vegetables, jewelry, sushi, and other such things for the younger ones. One of the things our boys learned to make there were trucks and vehicles like these, with real working wheels.

These are very easy to make from recyclables. 

Assemble your materials first:

You'll need straws, bamboo skewers, water bottle caps, and milk or juice cartons.

Tools you will need are a paper or box cutter (for adult use only!), scissors and tape and decorative paper, and glue.

The first step, putting holes in the bottle cap wheels, is for adults only, and if you have impatient little ones, it might be best for you to do this before making the trucks. In fact, if you prepare a whole bunch of these in advance you can set up a little vehicle factory. Your children could also get to work decorating their cartons while you do this part.

Take the box cutter (or a small knife) and make a small hole in the center of each bottle cap. I found that the easiest way to do this was to place the bottle cap on a folded washcloth on a table, place just the tip of the box cutter in the center, and press down while twisting the bottle cap around (by turning the washcloth, thus avoiding having to touch the bottle cap with your fingers and getting too close to that blade!). Definitely do put the bottle cap on some sort of surface to provide traction while cutting.

Next, cut your straws to size - just a bit bigger than the width of the carton.

Start assembling the wheels and axles. First, stick the end of a skewer into one of the holes. Add a dab of glue if you'd like. 

You can actually stick the skewer in the bottle cap the other way which might be easier for kids because it's more stable and less frustrating. 

Next, add the straws.

Once the straw is in place, trim the skewer down with scissors (another adult-only job), and stick the skewer through another bottle cap.

Now you can tape these onto the bottom of a carton and your vehicle is done, aside from decoration, which is what your children will have the most fun with. 

If your children want to make a dump truck or cut out windows and/or doors, they should do that before you put the wheels on. Making a dump truck is very easy - you just cut out part of the side and bottom of the milk carton and then stick it back in the other way, attaching with tape. It really works! Fire engines were popular in our house too as were buses and passenger cars.

Once you have the wheels and axles down pat you can stick them onto anything, really, like water bottles or small boxes. If you want to make trains, connect the train cars with the bit of straw you cut off the axles (this is especially great if you use bendy straws).  

Here are some photos from Japanese children's craft books for more ideas! I especially love the corrugated cardboard around the wheels in the last photo. 

Tutorial - Pretty Little Fabric Flowers

Here's a tutorial (my first sewing tutorial!) for a fabric flower with yo-yo centers. They're so pretty as hair ornaments, accessories for a bag or dress, or even a bracelet for a little girl.

These are a great way to use up tiny scraps of fabric.

I tried making a PDF file of the pattern, but couldn't figure out how make it to scale. So I took a photo instead of what you're going to need. You need to cut out 2 circles for the yo-yos and then 2 pairs of 6 petals each - 12 in all. 

I used a Clover yo-yo maker which is 6 cms wide. I wanted each petal to be 1/6th of the flower - so each one was roughly 3.5 cms wide at the bottom straight edge. The yo-yo maker is marked in thirds so it was easy to measure out a sixth of the circumference. You can trace any circle and just adjust accordingly if you don't have a yo-yo maker.

To make the petal template I measured and drew the bottom edge on a piece of paper, folded it in half, and then drew half a petal onto one half of the bottom edge so that when I cut and unfolded it the two sides would be even. 

Here is a sample pattern (with measurements in inches). 

Make your yo-yos - if you don't know how, there are a lot of great tutorials on the web for that, including this one: Heather Bailey's Yo-yo Tutorial

Next, I placed each petal pair together, right sides facing in, and sewed along every edge except the bottom. Then I trimmed the raw edges with pinking shears.

Next, turn each petal inside out, and then make a quick running stitch along the bottom of each petal (not all the way to the edges) so that you can pull the ends to gather it, as shown in some of the petals below. (Backstitch one end of the running stitch so that you don't pull all the threads out when gathering, as happened to me a few times!) Remember to adjust your machine before doing this so that the running stitches are nice and long. I think that you could do this part by hand as well, or even skip it if you are good at gathering while pinning the petals on (which is the next step). 

Next, pin two or three of the petals onto the back of one of the yo-yos, keeping them gathered at the bottom. Here's what it should look like:

They will overlap slightly. Sew each one down through one layer of the yo-yo (don't sew through the other side!). Keep adding petals until they are all on, and then trim your dangling thread ends.

Next, turn the flower over and sew on the other yo-yo. Again, be careful to sew through only one layer of the yo-yo as you do so. If you want, place a hair elastic on the flower before you sew so that you can use it as a hair ornament or a little bracelet. That's it - you're done!

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.

Felt shapes and an exciting shopping trip

(Hi all and welcome - I'm so glad you're here. if you're visiting from the Crafty Crow be sure to check out this post for a little, bento-related giveaway)

I love working with felt -  it is so easy for the novice sewer like me and it's suitable for handsewing, which is easier to do in a house with constant distractions. I have a few Japanese craft books about making homemade toys for children and I fell in love with this project - an utterly adorable little geometric shape set made of felt. 

My boys loved this sort of thing when they were little - all the pieces (usually wood or plastic in commercial sets) come in triangles, squares, and circles, and you can make endless patterns and pictures with them.

What I saw in the book was made with primary colors, which I think looked fantastic. In the colorway I chose here, organic, natural shapes might work better than severe geometric lines - I can even envision basic shapes like trees (with little apples to put on them), simple houses, cars, animals, people. 

Now, this wasn't handsewn and it was incredibly tedious to keep changing thread on my sewing machine (and to sew those tight little circles), but I think the end result is a lot of fun. It goes in a little cloth bag and makes an ideal travel toy. Here's my quick tutorial - all the pieces are made of double pieces of felt sewn together. Trace squares, triangles, and circles onto paper first and then cut two layers of felt for each piece. For variety some of them can be different colors on each side - just choose a thread which looks good with both. After sewing, do a final trim with scissors.

On another note, I had so much fun the other day. I went to a huge Japanese craft store called Yuzawaya. It's quite far from me, so I rarely get to go these days - no more than once or twice a year. It was such an exciting day for me.  

I've been wanting to build up a fabric stash for so long. I have so many projects burning away in my head and I can't even begin until I have a few more scraps and pieces here. Plus the boys are always coming home from school telling me they need an extra handkerchief (required), lunch mat (also required), little bag, etc. I'm still not happy with my stash - I love Japanese fabric and feel lucky to have such sheer variety here but I am longing for more vibrant patterns by my favorite designers who are hard to find here. But the longing is eased somewhat. One thing which helped was that I was able to pick up a bunch of fat quarters as well as a bias tape maker. As soon as I got home I started experimenting: 

I'm really looking forward to being able to trim things now! One of the first things I tried doing was making a skirt for Mia out of linen and putting on a newly trimmed pocket pocket, but she wouldn't try it on so I could hem it. I'm afraid she might not be a linen girl....Or it may be that she was disappointed that it wasn't pink.

I'm hoping it will help if I add some of these 

but I think she would really prefer a riot of color, the brighter and pinker, the better.

I don't know if she's going to be happy with the material I picked in this pile below to make her a little dress. It's a very light fabric but definitely lacks the vibrant punch she seems to love - it's a dark navy with teal colored flowers. The purple floral and solid fabrics are also for a dress for her, and the brown mushroom and blue dotted quilted materials will become book bags for each of the children.

I also picked up a bunch of plain linen and linen-cotton blend fabric. I love the soft colors. I have a few secret projects planned with this, mostly gifts so I can't say more right now!

Then, I found myself on another floor which I had totally forgotten about. The seventh floor of Yuzawaya in Kichijoji is chock full of beads as well as zakka kits. Amazing! I got so excited. There were a bunch of zakka kits on sale and I picked up a few, including this little kit for a water bottle holder

There were many other kits there too - for placemats, coasters, even fabric slippers. I already started one kit, though the embroidery and button and strap are not on there yet. This is for a cup bag which is, again, another required item at Japanese school (preschool, not elementary). You bring your own little cup to school for lunch. 

and then I picked up a bunch of little bits of trim. 

This is also the kind of place where you can pick up small bits of cotton fabric bundles like this, which is so fun to dream about.

There were so many other goodies- I picked up an embroidery hoop as well as some beading tools I'd been needing and some packs of beads, like the ones below. No matter what craft you do, there's something there - for needle felting, basket making, flower making, metalwork or leathercraft,  mizuhiki, lots and lots of washi (Japanese paper), knitting and crocheting, etc.

There! Now don't you feel like you went to Yuzawaya with me? minus the sore arms (no shopping carts!) and legs...

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. 

Tissue paper flower tutorial

One of my favorite things about living in Japan is the fact that my children have learned so many beautiful crafts at school on a daily basis. Their Japanese kindergarten, which each of them attended until age 7, was completely play-based and all the children burst out of school every day with recycled shopping bags filled to the brim with playthings they made. Our job as parents was to regularly provide the school with clean, empty recyclables (milk cartons, plastic bottles, shopping bags, miscellaneous boxes and ribbons and papers), and to find a place for all these treasures once they came home. The best thing about making your own playthings is that your child learns to see treasure in trash and found materials, and gains confidence that he can always make something for himself to play with. Daily crafting gives fine motor skills a real boost, too.

My younger son Daniel graduated from Japanese kindergarten this past spring. Graduates are sent off at a beautiful ceremony and party. Parents work in secret for weeks beforehand making all sorts of handmade paper creations to adorn the party room.  My favorite decorations were the garlands of tissue paper flowers like the ones shown above. These are a simple yet beautiful craft which both boys learned to do during their kindergarten years. These are quick and easy for little hands to make.  My children love making these celebratory garlands for us to use at home for anniversaries or birthdays or just-because days. They're also beautiful on top of a wrapped gift in lieu of ribbon.

Here's how you get started.

Take a few sheets of tissue paper (5-10 sheets). Contrasting or complementary colors are nice. Lay them out flat on a table in front of you, stacked on top of one another.

Begin to fold them from one end, accordian-style, like a fan (very important). 

When you've folded all the way to the end, fasten a rubber band or tie a piece of string to secure in the middle.

Lay it down on the table and begin fanning the ends out on both sides, as shown below.

Now start to gently separate the papers from one another and fluff them up towards the center one layer at a time.

You're done! Try this with different colors or different sized pieces of paper. The bigger the paper, the more sheets you'll need to fill out the flower. One neat variation would be to trim the ends of the folded paper with craft scissors to make little zigzags or wavy edges after you fasten it in the middle (but before spreading out the edges). 

Let me know how your children enjoy this project!

Origami Cube tutorial

I've been making a lot of these lately. 

They're pretty addictive because they're like little puzzles. I'm never quite sure until the end if all the pieces will fit together, yet miraculously enough, they do. It's very satisfying. Kids love these cubes - both creating them and playing with them. They're lightweight and great for stacking or creating designs with. 

You'll start with 6 pieces of square shaped paper. I used standard origami paper about 15 x 15 cms or 6 x 6 inches, but you can use any size, as long as it's square. 

One tip: when doing origami, fold as precisely as possible and press down on the creases and folds to make them nice and sharp. That's particularly important with this cube. (I'll be doing other tutorials for simpler origami designs to do with younger children that are more forgiving). 

Fold it in half to create a crease, then open again.

Now, fold each side down to the crease and press down hard.

Now you have a rectangle. Turn the paper over (very important; you want the open fold to be on the bottom) and fold each corner towards the center so that you create a trapezoid. First one corner to the middle of the opposite side 

then the other corner in the opposite direction.

Next you will fold the corners of the trapezoid to the center on the opposite side so that you form a square. Make sure to press down on the creases hard. 

Now release those corners. Repeat the above steps for each piece of paper until you have 6 pieces that look like this. 

Now comes the fun part - assembly. Take two pieces and insert a triangle from one paper into the opening on the square of another paper. 

Then insert a second triangle into the other side of the same opening.  Each opening in each square accommodates two triangles from other adjoining squares. Keep inserting triangles into squares until all the sides are connected and a cube is formed. 

Here's an example of the same cube in different colors, and what it might look like once you've fitted three together. They will be loose but will stabilize as you add more panels.

adding a fourth panel

tucking in the last few triangles..

You're done!