Origami - What I Learned on the Internet Today

I have a habit of being easily distracted.  Especially when I'm procrastinating!

Today's adventure began when I needed to look up a grammar question which took me to Quora [as easily a time-sink as YouTube] which took me to this:

Can Origami be used for something else?

which led to The Modern Science of Origami.

Too cool!

Red Bear's Teacher-Daughter might be inspired by this, I'm feeling tickles on the edges of my comprehension, in the olden days of complete brain function I could have had some fun with this.

Corner Heart Punch

Good morning. I have had a little post it note with some information to make a post on the counter for a couple of weeks now and have finally sat down to do it. Funny how life gets in the way of the to-do list.

In any case... I had filled a little box of corner heart punches at Zoo's place before moving East, years ago. I have never used them and as the theme of this year is to use things I have had forever, it was high time to delve in. All the punches were on scrap pieces of paper of varying sizes and colours.

I first used the larger pieces that had a punch in each of the four corners. I used mainly Dollarama 6"x6" paper pads that I have had for years and not used. The two pads I used were the Rainbow Scrapbook and the Flower Scrapbook pads. I hope Zoo will add the name of the company who made the punch. I like how the hearts are not quite cut out and so I could add another layer of paper under the top of each heart to add dimension. The cards are bright and yet not too overpowering. I tend to not use patterned paper but this was a good use of the bolder patterns I had been avoiding. 

Having used up the larger pieces it was time to move onto the more narrow bits that only had two heart punched per piece. I used Zoo's Spellbinder's Curved Border's dies to make one edge more decorative. I was originally going to have a piece of the card slide in and out of the heart punch paper but then decided to just use a big flower instead. I added a coordinating colour under each corner punch to add interest and a small stamp in between. The big flowers are from using a friends dies and Big Shot years ago. I believe the biggest flower is from StampinUp and the smaller ones are from my McGill Petite Petals Punch and my Martha Stewart's Floral Anywhere Punch. A good use of paper I would not normally use

I have more punched corners remaining but ran out of time. I will get to them in the years to come.   Happy November!

Red Bear : )

Using strips of scrap paper

Hello, yet again. I am never on the computer to work and then three blog posts in two days. Zoo will fall off her chair! It is a very grey weekend here and my life is in a weird holding pattern and for some reason doing these posts is a nice break, so here goes another one.

Zoo sent me a link to use up some paper scraps, knowing that I don’t throw anything away and was running out of room in my scrap paper box.

The link was      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv2EL8jZhZ8    and showed how to glue/tape thin scraps of paper onto printer paper and then die cutting out an image or saying to make cards. My scrap paper box was full, so I gave it a try.

I first used up just a few pieces of paper out of my pink scrap box and here is the result. I didn’t measure the width of the strips I cut, but just winged it with my cutter. I liked the slight variances in the widths of the strips. I don’t have a huge selection of dies that cut out sayings and shapes that are not for tags, so I chose my Fredward Bear Die Cut  - by Memory Box Inc.

 It was a little blah with just the bear cut out, so dug out my punch-anywhere flower punch by EK Success Brands and punched out the background. I saved the little flowers, etc., that came from the punch in case I wanted to use them. Much better!!

The two finished cards turned out so cute that I spent an hour or two cutting strips out of more scrap paper and making more blanks to use. Believe me though… a little paper goes a long way! 

 I had an idea to use different edging patterns to cut out waves, etc., from the striped paper. It produced a neat effect without too much difficulty. By tracing the pattern onto the back of the striped paper, it was just a matter of cutting along the lines and placing them in order to be glued onto a plain coloured background paper. I chose black card stock as my background to show off the stripes. I then used my Big Shot to cut out shapes. Like usual, the negative part cut out can be used on the inside of the card or for another card.

 

I also free-handed a dinosaur to cut out.

This was a fun use of scrap paper. I have started saving thin strips of scrap paper in an envelope to make it easier next time.

Take care! Red Bear : )

Using up scraps

Good morning and Happy 2016.

For a couple of months now I have been trying to use up some of the paper I have made or painted over the years and also to use scraps of paper and odds and sods from around my craft room. I always discover things I forgot I had when hunting for something in my craft room and it is my goal to use these things more often in future.

With that in mind, I found two tiny baggies containing little squares and four sided stars. I can’t for the life of me remember what project the squares are left over from but the little pointed bits are left overs from using a friend’s die cut plate. It was a stained glass type of die and because I never throw anything away, I saved the tiny bits in a baggy and forgot about them for a couple of years.

I haven’t used my embossing powders for a while (some of which are over 20 years old) and wanted to compare my old Bridal by Personal Stamp Exchange and my new Iridescent Ice by Stampin’Up!. The pink and purple one is Bridal and the blue/green one is Iridescent Ice. I prefer the Bridal one for this project but there is tinsel like sparkles on the Iridescent Ice one that in batter light is cool.

In making the card I wanted to use a stamp to cover all the squares and then to pull them apart and place them on a darker background. I had to think for a moment to find a way to keep all the little squares together while stamping, heat embossing and then keep them in order so I could transfer them to the darker paper.  I used my ZiG Memory System 2 way glue dotted all over a scrap piece of paper, let it dry (with the help of my heat gun, as I am not a patient person while crafting) and then placed the squares on in the pattern I wanted. It worked like a charm!!

The two stamps I used are my favourite background stamps, both by Stampin’Up!  I prefer the floral one as it had more surface area to emboss but they both worked well.

I used brads the colour of the background paper to bring depth to the card and it finished it off nicely. Now I just have to do the insides of the cards and then start all over with the remaining squares and pointy bits to use them all up so they don’t go back a drawer for a couple more years.

I hope everyone has an awesome 2016 and that you and yours are happy, healthy and near loved ones!

Take care and have fun,

Red Bear : )