Happy New Year, dear readers! 😊

I haven't been the most regular blogger these past few months, but I have been quite busy, making paper products, rather than working on origami! I make paper bags and pillow boxes and of late, this has been quite popular on my Facebook Page. So I have been inundated with orders to make these bags and boxes.

In addition to this, I have also been working on my origami jewelry. My favourite and most time-consuming one has been these leaf earrings. Each cluster is made up of 15 leaves, each leaf measuring 0.5 inch in length. Folding these leaves was an amazing lesson in patience! I worked completely with tweezers and tooth picks, for a total of 3.5 hours, to make these earrings. The earrings measure about 2.5 inches in length and are super-light.

Another personal favourite is the leaf earring. I love that these earrings can be made in a wide range of colours - washi and chiyogami paper is the best since it has the best print for these earrings. These earrings are delightfully unique and are sure to be conversation starters!

In addition to origami jewelry, I have been making quite a few paper bags, from handmade paper and scrapbooking paper. These bags measure 6*4 inches in size and are very colourful to look at. Every time I make these bags, I have to force myself to give them to my clients! With Valentine's Day just round the corner, I am now making valentine-themed bags, which look absolutely adorable :) More pictures on my Facebook Page. 

And finally, pillow boxes are also in demand. Right now, I am working on an order to make 50 boxes. Making such large quantities of handmade goods is tiring, which I am learning to my dismay! But these boxes are perfect for small gifts like jewelry, and add a beautiful touch of elegance, even to the simplest gifts. So I think I will get a whole lot more orders and I better find out more efficient ways of making them!

Finally, I am trying to understand Google+ pages. I have now created a page for Paper N Pearlz. I am yet to understand the repercussions of claiming a custom URL, though I do understand that Google can make it chargeable in the future. If you are on Google+, please do +1 Paper N Pearlz. I have also added a Google+ badge at the top of the page and hopefully that should make the process easier 😊

And with that I come to the end of my first post for this new year :)

I enjoy making paper bags from a variety of paper. Handmade bags make great gift bags, especially when the paper used is handmade paper. I find that scrapbooking paper results in some very beautiful bags, such as the 2 green bags in the pic. The one with polka dots was a big hit, when I had used it to gift a friend. The other green one, with mangoes, I have kept it aside to use later on. The bright red and green one is, of course, for Christmas and is made from handmade paper. The green patterns have a velvety feel to it, which made it difficult to glue but pretty to look at.

The cream and blue bags were made from some very beautiful handmade paper with gold and silver designs on them. I love the richness that they add to the bags. A couple of satin handles, and the gift bag is ready for use! These bags are small in size (about 6 inches by 4 inches) and are ideal for gifting jewellery. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any more of this paper, so it is just 2 bags with this gorgeous paper!

The next pair of bags is also from handmade paper, but much thicker paper. The paper came with some beautiful self design and a slight shimmer. The bags were pretty difficult to fold due to the thickness. But once completed, they were very sturdy. The bag was so sturdy that I could have skipped the eyelets and directly threaded the handles into the punched holes! The only reason I went ahead with the eyelets was for uniformity. All my bags have eyelets and these were no exception :)

The next set were bigger bags (~ 8 inches by 6 inches), made from a variety of handmade paper. Here I experimented with the handles, using satin ribbons, rope-like wires, beautiful lavender-coloured organdy ribbon. Very pleased with this set too :)

Finally, I had some lovely polka dot gift wrappers that I converted into paper bags! The paper wasn't very thick though, so I will be able to use them only for the lightest of gifts, but still they are so beautifully attractive and I will be careful about who I gift them to!

Valentine's Day is coming up and this time, I thought I would try out some handmade gift bags to go with the Valentine Day's gifts.

I tend to hoard paper pack in various themes. These are essentially 160 gsm thick paper with print that is coordinated under specific themes. Though they are not usually used for origami, they are great for making paper bags!

So I broke out the Valentine Day themed pack and ended up making these bags which are about 6 * 4 inches in size.