This year, there were two versions of the New Year’s Card; both variations on the same pun. The simple one had three animals cut out and a print of the new year’s wish in an animal paw font. Then I added a random assortment of stars from my stash (several old Christmas card ‘chads’). The first image was taken on a red background to show the stamped out fauna. The card itself is white linnen paper.
The second one used a cutting and embossing machine that I got myself in the lead up to Christmas. I’m not entirely sure how much I will be using it, but I have now purchased enough cutters to last a while (one would hope). This one is a round ‘tree scape’ cut from marble paper, and two or so different animals cut from either discarded marble paper or black paper. This is all glued onto some white linnen cardstock and cut into the shape of a drop. The hole is made with a snowflake punch, and the slogan was printed on some Christmas card stock and then had a raindrop punched in. They are attached using the strings of an old graduation tassel. I like these and the machine a lot, but after 25, I was sort of done. And I needed some more for work; hence the simple version above.
In any case, I wish you all a faunatastic 2024!
May you experience joy, stay (or become) healthy and continue to be hopefully creative!
Self striping zebra yarn boleros, no raccoons in sight.
My first shipment of wholesale yarn included a kilo of Superwash Zebra DK, a 100% merino wool that has black and white yarn. I was massively interested in seeing how that would knit up, so I started a project in June 2022. I cast on the bolero Aurea by Berroco Design Team and planned to incorporate the eyelet details of the Center Street by CJOriginals on the back. When I look back on the project and what the Aurea pattern says, I did not follow the instructions. I didn’t make separate pieces for the back and fronts and instead knit those all in one piece. Once the main body was done, I put it in a corner and only looked at it again in May 2023.
At that time, I decided to start knitting the arms. Again not wanting to deal with seaming, I tried to do top down set-in sleeves. I’m fairly certain that I didn’t make the sleeve cap large enough, so that’s something to keep in mind for next time. But the sleeves are there and that’s all that really counts. I then started on the neck edge, which was frogged a few times before I was happy with it. It needed a lot more stitches than I initially thought.
I do really like this yarn, it’s so soft and the way it stripes is really interesting. I do find it funny that there is less of a raccoon arm effect, where the stripes on the arms are much wider than those on the body. I guess the knitting in the round of the sleeve and the much longer knitting back and forth in the body almost cancel each other out. I haven’t yet entirely figured out how to wear it, because it does gape a little. I think I’m going to find some sort of pin to keep the fronts together and see how I like it then. For now, I’m happy with it because it is cute and warm.
As with every year, I wanted to send some cards to celebrate the new year. It’s been a bit of a draining time with lots of stuff to do around work and personal life so inspiration was slow to flow. At some point I resorted to Pinteresting just to see if there could be some idea available. I found something that I liked in this pin. It’s the year turned sideways to create a Christmas tree and some well wishes below. I figured I could use my extensive word-art skills to achieve something like that.
I decided that I wanted to make the trunk of the tree out of other well wishes and that it of course needed an exclamation mark in the year. So I put those in and then tried just about every font in the Word catalogue, before settling on Rage Italic – not sure the name is very Christmassy, but ey. I chose healthy and happy because they fit in well with the angle of the first 2. And of course because everyone deserves health and happiness. The trunk needed to be brown and the year green, for optimal tree effect. A light coloured circle was put around it so I could cut them to shape on the off-white linnen paper. Once that was done, I punched a star hole at the top of the tree. Et voilà : card.
A cute little polygon rabbit that was super easy to put together.
I recently rediscovered the Canon Creative Park Paper Craft pages with the help of a friend of mine. These are mostly fairly simple paper crafts that you can download for free. There are many different things available, from more bendy models to the regular polygon types but also post cards, moving toys and other art. I also found a set of stacking animals that is absolutely great and I am planning to make at some point.
I looked for a bunny that I thought a colleague would really like, and managed to find a polygon rabbit. So I printed it out and left it in the corner for a few weeks. Spurred on by the plan to have lunch, I decided to get going and actually cut and stick the creature together the night before. While the instructions were slightly different to other paper crafts I’ve done – no numbers but coloured dots – it went very smoothly.
The end result is a pretty sweet, two-toned standing rabbit. What I appreciate a lot about this specific pattern is that it instructs you to cut a hole in the bottom piece. This makes it so much easier to stick the last few bits together as you can just get your fingers in. The paper I used was 160 grams, but not the suggested Canon photo paper. This worked just fine, though. I look forward to making more of the Canon patterns as they have so many lovely ones available.
While browsing though Pinterest a little while back, I found a paper calendar in the shape of a 12-sided die (d12). The one I found originally had weeks starting on a Sunday, which my brain can’t cope with, so I searched some more and found a calendar that started on Monday (here). I printed it out on craft cardstock, cut and scored on the relevant lines and glued it together. It now lives on my desk as an easy way to look up what day something is. I thought that would be that with dice shaped things for a while, but it turned out that it wasn’t.
The dungeon master of the Pathfinder campaign – a table top role playing game – I play in had his birthday recently. I wanted to think of a nice gift but he already has everything / my imagination was limited. So to harken back to our evenings filled with adventure, I decided to make d20 (20-sided die) pouch. I’d found a pattern from 2009 by Evil Mad Scientist (here) and got to work. I cut the 40 pieces almost entirely out of scraps and then had to add numbers to the faces. I did that by printing numbers on paper (font GoodDog Plain) and then cutting them out and painting in the holes. This worked quite well. Some interfacing was fused on and then the sewing started. There were so many mistakes, the interfacing was wrong, the sewing was inaccurate, the zipper was too close… I finished the outside and part of the lining and then gave up. It’s in the clothing scraps bin now and if I ever feel the need to make something like it, I will aim not to rush. However, this was not the end of the dice projects.
Because I then thought “wait, I can also make a d12!” It has less pieces, I can use the hexagon paper piecing that I’ve done before and I can sew it by hand to be more accurate. So I set out to do that. The original d20 pattern that I used, also listed a d12 pattern (here). I rejigged some of the pieces, found the fabric I wanted to use and chose a different fusible for stiffening. The same templates were used for the numbers, but I decided to add some ‘fun’ and made the 1 face out of a mouse fabric and the 12 face out of stars. The 12 face is the one that opens, but I only figured out a solution to keep the bag from losing dice everywhere after I’d already completed the outside and the lining. The closure was tackled by adding in a sleeve that can tighten down. The 12 face can then be buttoned on top and that should prevent accidental dice spills.
All in all, I had some fun with impromptu projects that I had not anticipated. I still have some other things that I need to finish (dinosaur coat v2, black sweater and graduation project) or start (graduation project if I can’t figure out finishing the original graduation project). So I’m not sure I should have made time for these, but well, sometimes when inspiration strikes, you need to follow its lead, right?
Making a gigantic paper penguin that defied size expectations.
After the dinosaur, I felt like playing around with some more papercraft. The pattern I chose was the Penguin (standing) by Methakura. There were three penguins available and I chose the standing one for no apparent reason. Looking back, that dancing one or the belly glider are very cute too. This papercraft requires thicker paper (200 gr/m2) in three colours: black, white and pink. I have accumulated black, white and ‘kraft paper colour’, but no pink. Therefore, I decided to print a large, vaguely orange (I hate pink) rectangle and print the pattern on the back of that. This worked out fine. I was pleasantly surprised that I could even sort of read the black lines on the black paper, magic I tell you.
Putting it together went perfectly well until the last 3 steps, but that’s what usually happens in papercraft, the end is the hardest. What did surprise me halfway through, is how epically large this thing is. For some unknown reason, I was convinced it was only going to be like 10 cm high for most of the construction. Even though the front says it’s 29 cm high and it required 7 pages and the pieces I was cutting out were over 10 cm by themselves. Somehow that denial was going strong for too big a part of the process. The one change I made was to not add the eyes, I’m not sure where to put them exactly and therefore I’m leaving him blind. I do think he’s cool and I want to find him a nice new home. That size though..
While scrolling aimlessly through Facebook the other day, someone posted an image of a dinosaur cookie jar on ‘Dinovember Community’. Apart from the gold, that shape of dinosaur was extremely appealing to me. Since the original seems to be composed of geometric shapes, it reminded me a lot of papercraft objects. I made a papercraft Idefix before and it was an interesting experience and with another week of holidays, I had the time for a new papercraft project. So I proceeded to google for any (free) papercraft dinosaurs. There are definitely a lot around, but I settled on one from Polyfish that required an account on some Korean site (google translate for the win), as it reminded me of the cookie jar.
Since there were no instructions, I didn’t know if the pattern needed to be printed on regular printer paper or cardstock. So I decided to try both and started with cardstock. When I tried to glue it together though, it didn’t really fit as it was too thick, so I settled on regular printer paper. The pattern has numbers that I assumed indicate in which order to stick them together. The difficulty of using regular printer paper is that those numbers are still quite visible even on the wrong side of the paper. However, that didn’t stop me from starting on the project.
It started from the top of the head and sort of worked its way down. Then at some point the first foot got attached, then the second one, then continued with the body. It was all fine up to until number 230-ish, as I could still reach inside before that time. However, those last 30-odd steps were very difficult to reach, so the pins and wooden skewers came out to play. I really enjoyed most of it though, it’s meditative in a nice way. It also took just about my entire Sunday, but I didn’t mind that at all either because it resulted in a super cute paper dinosaur. I just kept laughing at the thing as it slowly but surely came together. I love it so. Now to find a place for it to live…
Making others do the dirty work of designing the holiday card!
When the year has been somewhat challenging and normal procedures don’t always apply, I do still try to keep some traditions alive. While I didn’t start my card production until it was already December *shock* *horror*, I did manage to finish them. Since my personal creativity was a little stumped, I relied heavily on my printer and everyone else inspiration.
Blank canvasWishing you a creative 2022!Perhaps fireworks would look good?
I had found some holographic paper, where there was a holographic design beneath a layer of black. You would use a pen to scratch out your own design. I decided it was perfect and set out to create an ornament type shape. Printed it on the white back and cut them out with scissors. I used my trusty star punch to make a hole for hanging and added a wooden stick with a star glued to the top as the scratch pen. I wrote personal messages with a red pen (to distinguish from the instructions) and put them in the mailboxes, pigeonholes or on desks.
Since they have been distributed, I’ve received some very cute pictures of people taking the pen to hand and making their own designs. I recommend this as a strategy to make others do the creative work. So hereby to you all:
This year was not the easiest. Working from home since March, while living alone and with some struggles in the family, did not make this the nicest year ever. I still wanted to make cards to celebrate the new year. However, the sadness of 2020 also meant that I didn’t get any inspiration until it was already November. Then I rediscovered an image on Pinterest of someone who made a snowman out of buttons. That sparked the inspiration. Then I needed a wish – because happy holidays is just not me. Because Christmas might not be everyone’s cup of tea, I focused on 2021. Based on the looks of the snowman, I came up with a fairly terrible pun and got to work.
I bought a themed 30x15cm paper block and picked those sheets that were more winter-y. I designed the slogan for the cards in word and chose a font from the internet: Anke Font. Then I made the mistake of cutting the paper to size (7.5x15cm) and attempting to get it through my printer. Lets just say that my printer and I were not friends, much yelling ensued. For a second batch, I just copied the slogan 4 times onto a larger word file and it printed it in one go and did the cutting afterwards. So much smoother, learn from my mistakes! I grabbed all the white buttons I bought on a Sunday when trying to get the buttons for the combinations and set to sorting. Each card would have a two-hole button for head, and a larger 4 hole button for a tummy. Stuck those to the bottom right corner (generally), and used a thin permanent marker to give my snow people a top hat (hence the pun) and two little stick arms. Folded the top corner with the slogan over and punched a star or a snowflake in it.
May you enjoy your holidays if you have/celebrate them and that the coming year brings much joy, happiness and good health.
A little bit of glue, paper and ink; quite a lot of time and a free pattern. Out the other end comes a cute Idefix figurine!
Recently, a colleague of mine moved on to a new job opportunity. Sad to see him go, I figured he might just enjoy a departure gift. As he used to have a large collection of Asterix and Obelisk figurines in his office, I thought something in that category would work best. So I googled and googled for a paper statue of one of the characters and eventually found a free pattern for a paper Idefix (the little dog) on paperwar.blogspot.com.
So I downloaded and installed the special viewer that it needed (google translate Japanese and all), printed it out on cardstock and got to work. I finished the tip of the nose and found that the cardstock was too thick, it wouldn’t work. So I printed it out again on regular printer paper. After most of the day folding over tiny bits, gluing other tiny bits together and referencing the original about 3 million times, I had myself a finished Idefix! I got a clear plastic food container from the shop, added a bow to the top and called it a day.
I probably shouldn’t have started with a medium difficulty project, as there are some seams that are definitely wonky. But hey, I managed to get through it! For something that was just glue and regular paper, the thing was remarkably sturdy in that it could stand up by itself without any difficulty. I don’t think it would survive a trip in my bag without a protective casing though. Anyway, the colleague seemed quite pleased with it, so at least I had a double win. New craft for me, joy for the other person. I might just download another model in the future…
Hopefully Creative 