By far, my most professional attempt at my paper weaving projects, this orange and grey newspaper woven cup and saucer is my personal favourite. 

The tubes were actually part of my previous project - a coffee themed oval container. I loved the colour combination, so decided to make another project using the same. 

A lot of planning went into this set - from the way to start off and the method to interchange the colours, the reverse rope pattern in the centre, the edging of the saucer and also the cup - everything was planned. And I must say I am quite happy with the way it turned out. Specifically, I love the cross-pattern of the bottom and the beauty of the edging for both saucer and cup. 

To add durability to the handle, I ended up threading a wire through the 2 main anchoring tubes. So once I varnished it, the handle became incredibly strong. And overall, the cup can hold quite a bit of weight. 

I believe I have waxed eloquent about the project!! I do realise that the height is not even and this is my biggest problem. I am yet to figure out a way to maintain consistency, but I believe I will get there 😊

In recent days, I have been experimenting with newspaper weaving. So what exactly is newspaper weaving? In this art, we roll up newspaper strips into tubes, paint the tubes using acrylic colours and then weave the tubes into various shapes.

Easy to write, very difficult to do - at least for me! I have been trying out various methods of rolling, painting and weaving the tubes. Have been fairly successful, but if I browse the net for what others have done, I can see exactly how amateurish my attempts look!

But in recent attempts, the output has been pretty good, if I do say so myself! My latest attempt at weaving is this cup and saucer combination, made from lavender and brown tubes. Tutorials abound on the net, both written and video tutes and I have used them as much as possible to finally complete this product. And I must confess, I am quite proud of how it has turned out :)

The saucer measures about 7 inches in diameter, the cup (which is attached to the saucer) has a 5-inch base and measures about 6 inches in height. The toughest part was making the handle, I just couldn't figure out how people got such close loops!! Finally, practise paid off and I managed to shape the handle well.

At the end, I coated the entire thing in a mix of fevicol and water and allowed it to dry overnight. And now I have a good, very sturdy (you would be surprised to see how sturdy newspaper tubes turn out to be!) and pretty cup and saucer set, made entirely from newspaper!

An excellent way to recycle, I think :)