pop-up birds

There seem to be a lot of paper craft enthusiasts out there, so I thought I'd start the week with a tutorial showing you how to make a very simple pop-up card. The key with paper engineering  is that even the simplest pop-up technique is still effective because, let's face it, everybody enjoys something springing out at them from a seemingly flat surface.

Frankie Magazine (yet again) supplied me with the raw material for a set of cards - this time, a group of pretty birds on perches to cut out and use as ready made pop-ups.

To make the card, take an A4 piece of  lightweight card and fold in half lengthways. This will give you a card with a width of 10.5cm. Your pop-up element cannot measure more than half the width, otherwise it will extend beyond the edge of the card, ruining the pop-up surprise.

Cut two even lines on the folded edge of the card about 1 cm apart and up to 5cm in length. This will be the support hinge for your pop-up element, so work out where you want to place it on the card. The perches for the birds measure 3cm, so I placed my hinge 3cm from the bottom of the card.

Fold the tab back to form the score line and then press it back down, open the card, gently poke the tab through and close the card, pressing down on it. When you reopen the card you will see that you have your pop-up hinge.

Open the card out, fold the top half of the A4 card backwards to conceal the pop up element. This will make the card appear as if it is a regular two-dimensional card from the outside.

Working with the card opened out flat, position your image along the hinge and place a narrow piece of double-sided tape on the left hand side of the hinge, taking care not to tape past the fold. Stick the image down and gently pull the tab forward and close the card.

And there you have your pop-up bird, standing proudly off the page.

Use your own creative flair to decorate the front of the card.

I made silhouettes of the cut-out birds and traced around them in coloured pencil on watercolour paper to make a set of envelopes to go with the cards.

I hope you enjoy your first foray into the world of paper engineering.

It's very addictive, I can tell you!

rags

I'm always looking for interesting ways to use up fabric scraps. You can read a couple of previous posts on the subject here and here. Recently I bought a stylish book of simple knitting patterns compiled by Erika Knight (London: Quadrille, 2010). Among the selection of patterns for scarves, hats, pillows and throws in the book, I spotted a pattern for a rag bag made from fabric scraps knitted together.  Ever since I bought a beautiful rag rug by Auckland textile artist Alison Milne about ten years ago, I've been keen to have a go at making one myself, so I've made a start using Erika Knight's instructions as a guide.

In the illustration above you'll see instructions about how to cut a piece of scrap fabric in such a way as to generate a single length of yarn. After doing so with a piece of lightweight printed cotton, I cast on 12 stitches onto 12mm needles and started knitting my first rag rug strip in simple stocking stitch.

Knitting loosely, the piece grows quickly, which is always satisfying. I can see it's going to be a fun project to chip away at in the evenings after a tiring day of teaching. I plan to leave a length of fabric yarn at the end of each completed strip to use to sew all the pieces together when I have enough to make a rug.

Useful Tip: Put a towel over your clothes when you are knitting rag rug strips. You tend to get covered in frayed fibres from the yarn.

tea cup cards

This is how the completed tea-cup cards turned out.

I'm posting them off this week as invitations to the next meeting of our Writers' Group in early June. In addition to workshopping our latest stories, drinking tea from pretty china cups accompanied by assorted home-baked goodies has become an important part of our meetings. That's why I've included a little pop-up surprise inside each card:

The floating cup is achieved using a very simple pop-up technique. Here's a view from above to show you how it's done.

All the best for the coming week.

frankie cut-outs

Mother's Day came around and I realised that my handmade card stock had run out, and my envelopes full of cut-outs from kids' books and magazines were completely empty. Frankie Magazine is always a great source for collage elements, so over breakfast yesterday, I cut out an assortment of cute illustrations from a few recent issues Frankie.

Here's the Mother's Day card I made for Jack's lovely Mum - a cute pair of teacups on a decorative Japanese paper background with a little extra visual interest created by having the cup handles over-hanging the edge of the card.

The process of cutting out the figures resulted in a variety of silhouettes, which look quite lovely grouped together.

 I can see a lot of design potential in these overlapping silhouettes that I'm definitely going to explore further.

Before I knew it, strange things started to happen. This is often the way with paper crafts. A little girl in a yellow coat stood in a teaspoon.

 

 Can you spot which cups are paper and which are china?

That was fun! 

Now I just need to stick them onto cards.

Have a lovely week.

birds and beads

I spent a fab weekend in Taupo catching up with a group of my favourite old school friends. Out and about in town, I bought a couple of wee treats. This cheerful little ceramic bird came from a mosaic and ceramics gallery in Acacia Bay, as did this lovely string of chunky ceramic beads.

red white and blue

I've been opting for a pared down approach to gift wrapping lately.

red bird

white paper

blue shape

tasty colours

 Chocolate and Butterscotch

Green Tea and Aubergine

Aubergine and Strawberry Shortcake

Felt making makes me hungry