Mini summer project IV: Paper crane/Mini Sommerprojekt IV: Papierkranich

I finally made them!



Still on holiday - that's the excuse for having been so lazy blogging lately - I'm just popping in to share my joy with you for finally having managed to do some of those Japanese origami cranes!

Strung on a string, with a bead below for a stopper, I'm sure they'll make a lovely window decoration!

For those of you still struggling, here's a tutorial I found!

(German summary: Oh, ich hab's geschafft! So lange wollte ich schon einen japanischen Papierkranich falten können ...)

DIY Washi Tape/Selbstgemachtes, buntes Klebeband

Sometimes there is such an easy solution to a new 'need' ...

After having seen the Japanese washi tape in various oversea online-shops, I wanted some of that colourful tape myself too - but as so often, the shipping costs are exorbitant.

So how could I make a similar tape myself?

When visiting a construction/DIY market lately, I realized I might use a double-sided sticky tape (the thin, cheap one, is just perfect for this purpose). And it works! You can use it either for paper - wrapping paper, newspaper, mulberry-, decoupage-, photos - whatever paper you like - or for light to medium weight fabric, or bits of trims and ribbons ...

Lay out your paper or ironed fabric backside up on the table, unroll a bit of the double-sided tape and gently press it down, avoiding wrinkles, unrolling more of the tape as you go. Cut it off in a manageable length.

Now you can either use a roller cutter or craft knife and a metal ruler to cut the tape lengthwise in the strip dimensions you prefer - or you could keep the width of the double-sided tape and just cut off short strips from there whenever needed.

A toilet tissue roll and a paper clip will keep your fancy tape organized.

(On the second photo, the two larger rolls to the left are actually self-adhesive wall paper borders which I found at a bargain - but they work as tape as well!)

(German summary: Eine einfache Art, buntes Klebeband selber zu machen, ist, dünnes, doppelseitiges Klebeband mit Stoff/Stoffbänder oder Papier jeglicher Art zu verbinden - dann entweder der Länge nach in dünnere Streifen schneiden und auf Papierrollen aufwickeln - oder bei Bedarf Stücke von dem breiten Klebeband abschneiden.)

*** I'm off for a week now - winter holidays at school - going to Sweden to see my family! ***

Recycling stationery/Papierwaren, recycled

At this time of year, I find pleasure in recycling all kinds of paper that falls into my hands while cleaning up and sorting out.



My daughter's beautiful dolphin calendar and another one, with angels, will get new lives as gift bags and matching greeting cards - and some of the Christmas cards look almost even better when decorated with punched stars, sewn sequins and beads, then glued to black or white card stock.



A pile of one-side-printed work sheets from school is chopped up and held together with a buldog paper clip to serve as a note pad - and old envelopes will be closed lengthwise and serve as seed bags later on this year.



Reading Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord's lovely blog and homepage and following her YouTube-tutorials on recycling one-side-printed paper into small books of all sorts, we will have plenty of pages to fill with thoughts, words and drawings throughout the year!

Maybe this will be the year where we all will put even more efforts in sustainability and recycling - it's important and it's inspiring: please read more on this matter at the blog 'A sustainable life', written by Elizabeth, Jude, Julochka and Rayfamily.

(German summary: Es gibt unzählige Möglichkeiten, einseitig bedrucktes Papier zu recyclen - eine davon ist, kleine Bücher daraus zu machen, wie es Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord in ihrem Blog und auf YouTube anschaulich erklärt! Notizblöcke, kleine Sackerl und Billets sind andere Optionen.

Vielleicht wird dies' das Jahr, wo wir alle nach mehr Wiederverwertung und Nachhaltigkeit streben werden ... mehr dazu auch auf diesem Blog.)

Recycled Paper Butterflies/Schmetterlinge aus Altpapier

And now to something completely different (I think they say that in the Monthy Python show):



I like recycling, re-using, remaking, and in the small village library, where I work a couple of hours a week, I sometimes find a pile of books which are out of date and have to be sorted out.

When I was in Sweden lately, I saw a butterfly paper garland in a shop, made out of scraps of Indian handmade paper, sewn together on a sewing machine.

So now I'm using this idea for my purpose, cutting pages out of the old library books, combining them with some b/w pages out of a brochure - and fortunately having a butterfly stencil in my stash and a red stencil pad, combining these too, for colour.

They look great hanging in the library window now during summer time!

I can also imagine this could be a nice idea to use for hearts or flowers as well ... and a single butterfly in coloured (recycled) paper would be nice on a greeting card, too ...

If you like to try it out yourself, just draw the outlines of a butterfly (or other motive) on a sturdy paper or light cardboard, cut it out, put it on a pile of about 5 bookpages if you're cutting with a craft knife - normal scissors would take about 3 pages at the same time and you will have to hold the template fixed on top of it with your fingers.

For the smaller butterflies inbetween, you can make a butterfly stamping stencil yourself by cutting it out from a big pencil eraser, maybe using it with a coloured stamp pad.

I sew the paper butterflies double, but they look great one by one as well. It could be a good idea to use an old needle, which you only use for paper sewing, in your sewing machine, as it gets rather dull to sew properly in fabric afterwards.

Leave a long thread for hanging before sewing the first pair of butterflies - then let the machine sew 'empty' (this produces a nice thread chain) before you sew the next pair together. A variegated thread looks nice, but is not crucial.

Adding a bead or other kind of weight at the bottom keeps your garland hanging right.

(German summary: Aus alten Buch- und Prospektseiten habe ich große und kleine Schmetterlinge ausgeschnitten - mehrere auf einmal mit dem Stanleymesser oder mit einer kräftigen Schere - und mit der Nähmaschine zusammengenäht. Wenn man zwischen den Schmetterlingen mit der Maschine "ins Leere" näht, bekommt man einen schönen Kettfaden dazwischen. Es ist ratsam, eine alte Nähmaschinennadel extra für's Papiernähen zu nehmen, mit dem man nachher keine Stoffe mehr näht - das Papier läßt mit der Zeit die Nadeln stumpf werden.)

Recycling for Christmas

Recycling is important to me; I think a lot about it and try to live as close to my ideals as I can in my daily life.

For my art work, it's a frame in which I can challenge myself - whether I work with embellishing and fibers, or fabric scraps and quilts, vintage beads, mosaics, plastic, or paper - I'm using recycled materials and stuff from my collected stash.

Every year, I write about 40-50 Christmas cards - I want them to be pretty and personal, and it's also important to me to use recycled materials. This year, I'm gluing and sewing used gift wrapping, odd ribbons, old book-pages and exotic newspaper together for the card itself, decorating it with an embellished heart, a button, a bead, stamping the inside with stamps I once bought or made myself from pencil rubbers ...

Here are some tags I made out of paper scraps - the two at the right are laminated (I put the scraps very close to eachother and try to use as little of the foil as possible):

I'm also doing some advent calenders each year: This one is for a friend of mine, it's a drawing pad with 12 sturdy pages, and I made a collage out of magazine pictures on both sides of each page, so that she can turn it around for the 13th to 24th of December: