Thing-a-day.com

For a friend. She drew me something that was really nice, so I thought I should return the favor. I’m not gonna attempt to explain further than that.

Learned how to fold a note into a heart today. I might use it as stationery, or something.

Well, it’s the end. I’ve made enough things for 27 days, I think, which isn’t really bad considering my work ethic issues. I can’t wait to participate next year. Maybe I’ll actually do something for all 28 days! But of course, next year my homework load will be worse. We shall see…

 It was awesome creating with you guys. See you next year!

today i attempted to complete the origami stag model that i tried/failed to make the other day:

it’s kind of a sad stag, i know… i got further this time, but there are still some very wrong portions, and by the end, i was just mushing things all together which you can see if you look closely… i’m pretty sure it is all wrong. but it’s late, so i decided that’s going to have to be my attempted thing for today. maybe i’ll try to see if i can get an origami expert to help me correct my mistakes later…

That’s right! You get two days for the price of one today! I had too much fun last night (yakitori dinner, Press Your Luck & the American Gladiators season finale) to post so here now is the very simple ring I made out of some leftover buttons:

And also the pendants I worked on tonight:

I used pink sakura printed origami paper for one and a drawing from an Adrian Tomine notebook for the other. Tomine is one of my favorite comic artists so I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. In the next few days I’ll probably put more layers of acrylic sealer on them to make sure they can last me a long time.

Posting two things at once, because I fell behind again…

I made a string of paper cranes to hang in my craft room, after I realised it was kind of ridiculous that whenever I got out my origami paper there were pieces I didn’t use because they were the ones I liked best so I was ’saving’ them! So I made my favourite papers into the simplest of origami, and strung them on a red thread where I’ll see them every day.

The bottom one is made from paper with cranes printed on it. I love that:)

And while I was going through my papers, I found instructions that had come with one packet for what I thought was a card with a crane on it, so for today’s thing I made one of those:

It was fun to make, although it’s not technically origami, because although it is made from one sheet, you have to cut the paper. And now I’m not sure what to do with it, because it’s not a card, or an envelope, it’s just sort of a…packet. With a crane on the front.

I have this huge collection of random change from multiple countries in the change tray at the door. (It’s from me and my mate’s frequent travel overseas.) It was always getting mixed up with my local change. So:

It’s a pretty simple fold from Makoto Yamaguchi’s Joyful Life with Origami (ISBN 4-7916-0085-1, sorry for the German link, only one I could find). I made these from oversized (~27cm square) plain paper and they are still fairly sturdy. The folded dimension is about 5.5-6cm square/cubed.

Each colour represents a different country: Argentina (light blue), Brasil (yellow), Singapore (green, ran out of red paper), Hong Kong (pink, ditto), Malaysia (purple - why not?)

I have too much US and Canadian change to use one of these unless I were to use a 1m-wide piece of paper

I folded an origami balloon today at work. Actually I made two. The first was too small and I couldn’t get it to work right. The second was a bit better. I didn’t have square paper, I had to make my own. I took a picture of the second one, but I can’t upload it yet, so I will add it later. This thing was also known as a water bomb when I was younger - I guess it can hold water for 20 or 30 seconds…

not entirely new for me, but I’m low on time today.  I’m getting better with making boxes.  It only took me a few minutes to make the boxes, and the felt hearts were easy to cut out.  Least I did combine paper with felt!  Ideally, I would like to have a hand sewn heart inside, but not enough time.

after my failed attempts to make an origami model yesterday, i decided to try again, but picked a much simpler model:

i got the instructions from here. you’re supposed to use a new dollar bill, but i didn’t have one, so mine is a little bit wrinkled. i made it in the waiting room of a doctor’s office because, sadly, i’m still sick today.

 I’m still experimenting with origami.  It’s something I always mean to try, and just didn’t until my first box yesterday.  Today I made another origami box, this time the theme was sand and I added some typical beach items on the top to dress it up a bit, make it more interesting.  Inside I decided it would be a good place to store our sentimental beach finds some shells and driftwood pieces.  Origami is easier than I thought it would be and enjoyable.  Tomorrow, I stretch from my comfort zone and do something a bit more complicated.

My sister challenged me to make origami cranes today. So, I did. And, looking for a challenge, I made larger ones than usual. But, of course, Nothing is perfect. I went right back to the tiny cranes I love so much. Here are seven cranes, and a penny - shown for size comparison, but i’d readily give it to you for your thoughts.

With Valentine’s Day coming up I was looking for an alternative to buying a card and found these origami hearts. I made two!

I’ve also been making good progress on my sock knitting using my new made stitch markers.

I made an origami box today using this grass paper I found.  The daisy isn’t something I made today though or ever.  It’s an old craft item I’ve had hanging around, and thought it might make a cute accent.  More photos on flickr.

Another piece of origami - I have never tried this model before and it took a little bit of getting my head around it.  I just could not get the final locking fold to make sense - it said to tuck the flap into the gap and I couldn’t find a gap.  So, I started over with a completely new model and, even though the model was smaller, I was able to ’see’ it this time — it needed a sink fold that was obvious to the the model creator — ta da!

So, now I have a pair.  Now that I see how this model plays with topography, I will definitely make another one in the future that is more the right size — these were limited by the paper I had in my desk…

sorry about the camera phone fuzz - unfortunately it does not have macro…

Today it’s all about origami stars. I used an Anthropologie catalog and tried to choose the images that would give the most contrast in color or texture.cross-posted to lekkercraft.

Thing 5 is a little origami book, made by following instructions from this origami site. It’s about 2 inches square, and I haven’t written anything in it yet. There are instructions at instructables.com for a nicer looking one I might try next - I could use actual origami paper for that, this one was made from the wrapping paper from a department store called New Yaohan, which came wrapped around some glasses I bought.

Today I learned to make some origami animals (instructions from the 2008 Origami A Day calendar), which is a new skill for me. Fun and pretty easy once I figured out how to interpret the pictograph instructions…

A simple origami box with a four part divider.  It has been a while since I tried origami so had to go with something simple.  Maybe later in the month I will have brought some skills back to try something more adventuresome -  maybe something to go into the sections?

Hello, what’s inside?

More boxes!

When I was a kid, my family hosted a Japanese exchange student, who made me a series of nested origami boxes that I kept for years. She was able to make them down to a tiny enough size that I could fit a rice grain in the smallest box!

I couldn’t accurately make any smaller than the size seen here, which would fit a quarter coin.

 I had some trouble with my first post, so I’ve been putting it off for the last few days. Here’s what I’ve been working on in the meantime: a bead necklace, a hand bound journal, and five little paper cranes.

cootie-catcher. i made these as a kid, and then a couple months ago while hanging out at a bar with a couple friends, we started to make things out of fliers on the table. they made airplanes and i made cootie-catchers. it took a bit, but i did it from memory. i made a bunch of tiny ones.
this time around, i had to look up instructions for the last part. oh well. i made it from a readymade magazine subscription card. the colorful side ended up inside. photos are really blue because the light i used is LED.