How to make modular origami vase

One more time about modular origami vase. This time I prepared step by step instruction, hope it will be helpful. If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me! Here we go. 

A few month ago I made one very tall vase, which wasn't very useful so I took it apart and made a new one, for my so called Christmas tree :) 

To make a origami vase first you need loads of triangular pieces, modules. How to fold them you can find here.

How many of them to fold? It depends on how big your vase going to be, I made a really big one and I used 1800 pieces. Don't worry you can make a smaller one, but you have to have in mind, that if you want your vase had a shape, you will need at least 300 of pieces.

Colors are absolutely your choice! I used colors, but its ok to start from one colored vase.

When you have your pieces ready we'll start connecting them. As you know the pieces has two flaps/legs and two pockets. You begin with connecting 3 units as you can see in a picture.

You keep connecting the units until you are ready to make the circle. Just be careful - the top of triangles makes sort of two rows. Try to keep it this way. 

Here is my circle. I used 100 pieces (50 first row and 50 second one). You can use 20 +20, 30 +30 or so. If you will have less than 20 on your base, after it might be difficult to get the shape you want. 

Don't worry if at the beginning circle is falling apart a little bit - this is the most difficult part, after when you make more rows it will be much more resistible.So keep going. 

When you put units be sure you use one leg of one triangle and one of the another. It reminds knitting a bit :) 

After you made 5 more rows the circle must be firm enough so you can turn it over. And now, if you have different color units you can start making ornaments. The way I do it - it's all improvisation: I put red units every 14 bits. When I make other row I put 2 red ones, then 3... and so on. And then the same backwards: 8, 7, 6 .... So I get diamond shaped ornaments. 

NB! the amount of units on every row is the same! It naturally gets into the shape of egg. The is no trick, jut u need to know when to stop and make the top of the vase. 

Here is my result. I would be interested to know how you did. Don't be shy to try and send me a pic!
If you have any questions - leave me a message!

Lizard pillows

Inspired by gorgeous our home pet George (see pic. on the left) I decided to dedicate a few cushions for this amazing creature. At first, here are some pctures with the result and then a 'how to' bit.

One of two pillow cases is made crocheting line by line. Its like making a net, small squares and filling up some of little squares makes a picture you want. The scheme is the same as cross stitching. 

The secret is, that to make your own original scheme is much more simple than you think, especially if you are using only one color strings. Here is what I did: 

I drew a lizard on a piece of squared paper with the pencil and then I filled the picture with tiny crosses and erased the pencil to get get the view more clear. That's it! I did the same for both pillows: croched and stitched one. 

Extraordinary picture frame

Helo there, I'm still here! Here is one more easy craft for kids. Probably from now on I'll be posting more adult crafts as my situation has changed and at the moment I don't work with kids. But still some ideas left, so here we go! 

Here is my Tekila's photo framed in extraordinary frame we made with kids during last summer. All you need is : some colored tissue paper, carton (old box is perfect), glue and a stick or a straw.

Cut the shape of the frame - its just a rectangle (it might also be a square - as you wish ) with  cutted rectangle in the middle. (This one might be dificult to do for the kids the slves. Strong adult hand requiered).

Bit by bit put some glue on a carton and start sticking bits of colored tissue paper (you cut paper to small pieces, not neciserely very even). The trick is that for sticking we use a staw: put straw in the middle of the paper, wrap it a bit and stick. Only the center of the piece of tissue paper is glued, all sides are sort of sticking out. Which is good. Try to put paper as close to each other as posible, so carton could be seen. 

Good luck!!!!

Crazy peg faces

As they say in Cyprus: "Long time no see" :)  But it doesn't mean we were on holiday. Many new ideas for crafts just waiting to be written. Let me start from very simple craft for kids we made today.

 

I got some old pegs to throw away what I, of course, didn't do. Instead we came up with this craft idea to stick some crazy faces made from color card.

Simple and really fun. All you need is some color paper and glue and - as always - imagination! We made a whole family. You can use these fun pegs to separate your glass in a crowded birthday party or to put it on a flowerpot so your cactus wouldn't feel lonely :)

Kanzashi flowers

It's sure been a while. But finally here it is - all the tricks I've learned making a kanzashi flowers.

First of all you need to find some fabric for making a flower. Also later you going to use needles, matching color strong string, some beads and chucks or anything you want your flower on. One more thing we going to use for making our life easier - simple gelatin. Yes that's right. You can find some no flavour gelatin in any shop I believe.

I used gelatin to make fabric more like paper. And in worked like magic. I read before that for the same purpose starch was being used but to tell you the truth I was a bit afraid that it might leave some white spots on my black fabric. So here is step by step instruction.

•  Gelatin you melt in some warm water (read an instruction on the package and use just a bit less water then it says). Take your fabric (I cut some old clothes, as long as material is nice you can do the same.) put it into gelatin water and nicely place it on a table. You have to do this really carefully as you want fabric to dry really flat. You might have to wait 6 hours or even more.

•  After fabric is dry it's feels like a proper paper so it's really easy to cut it into squares. I used some dry soap to draw the lines so I could cut as straight as possible.

• After you have the squares you start making the petals. How big they are, how many petals you going to use and other things absolutely belong on you. Just try to make some flowers and find your own way. Here you can see simple photo instruction how to fold the petal. The rest - experimenting!!!!!

I don't use glue at all for making these. I stitch the petals, sew them together, put bread on the centre and also stitch it on a safety pin in order to make a brooch. NB!!! All the time use a thimble in order to avoid accidents. Even if you think it's easy to thread the needle into petal remember you have quite a few layers of fabric and it might be not easy at all. Safety first! 

Simple stamps

I saw this idea in internet and decided to try it in kiddies club. As some boys don't have enough patience for making more difficult crafts, but still they were anxious to make some postcards for their relatives at home. We tried to make it as simple as possible and it worked just perfect!

I made a few simple stamps by rolling a piece of carton box in a different size rolls. Just a bit of paint and postcards are ready! Just need to write down all the wishes on the other side of the postcard after the paint dries :) 

 

Tissue flowers. Step by step.

We still using anything and everything what we can find in a hotel for our arts and crafts. So a few days with two really diligent girls we made this big bouquet of tissue flowers. Vase is mosaic from small pieces of colour carton. For making flowers we used simple white tissues and some green  crepe paper for leafs.

Its really simple to make there flowers and variety of flowers you can make by using the same tissue is incredible!

All you need to do is:  

• Fold the tissue and staple in few places. Then draw a shape of flower leaving staple in the centre of the flower. Cut the flower shape. 

• Lift every layer of tissue one by one and press a bit to centre.     

• After you finish lifting up the layers turn the flower up side down  and put just a bit of paint. Mix the paint with some water as tissue absorbs the water together with paint and you have slight colour in the middle of the bloom. Also if you want it more colourful you can do the same from the other side. Just be careful not to rumple it.

Use your imagination! You can make loads of different blooms by using simple tissue. It depend on you how big your flowers will be, me personally prefer micro :) Here is slightly pink sakura twig picture I made:

Stitched origami boxes. Step by step.

Finally I can present you all collection of my paper stitching experiments. I have to confess that it's not always really easy when you want everything for free :) What I mean is that it was quite difficult to find patterns for paper stitching, but after long searching on internet here is stitched picture of ballerinas and a few origami boxes. I varnished them a few times to make them more resistant. 

This technique is not difficult at all although it depends on picture but in a future I plan make a few simple patterns suitable for kids. After a few tries when you understand how it works you can make your own pictures and stitch anything you want. But for the first try is good to make a simple thing.

Here is step by step instruction: 

Take a square of carton and make all folding lines as you make an origami box just don't put it together yet. We need a folding lines to see where to put varnish. At the beginning I put varnish only on the top of the box as it might be hard to fold it if you varnish it all. I varnish it several times to make it shiny. Have in mind that paper covered with varnish might change a colour a bit. 

After the varnish is dry take printed pattern (you can find a few free patterns here and I found some photocopies in these Picasa albums) try to put in on the centre of the box (square) and make a holes. I used a simple needle for that, just put a thimble not to hurt yourself as the card is pretty hard with a few coats of varnish on it. Also put something on a table under the card - I used just a peace of carton box. 

After you make holes - stitch them. Normally together with pattern you get stitching instruction where to start and which direction to go. After you do that put your origami box together, varnish whole of it a few times and you have a unique box for candies, jewellery or anything you can think of. I made one for my dear friend for the St.Valentine day to make her life more sweet I put some candies into the box. The picture is really banal, I know, but isn't everything a bit trite on that day?