Merry Christmas, dear readers! Hope this season brings you much joy and peace, despite the problems that still persist with the virus! 

Here are my latest favourite projects - Leaf trays made from newspaper tubes, using red and green tubes to add a little Christmas vibe to it! 

And check out these pretty Christmas baubles - yet another eco-friendly project. Though not by me! This is done by a group called PeopleKraft. Do check out their Insta page for more of their work. These baubles are made from scrap fabric, left over from various other projects. I thought it was an innovative way of reusing such material and so, ordered a couple of these baubles for my Christmas tree! 

Once again, a Merry Christmas!

Its that time of the year! A time of joy and cheer! And on my blog, this is the time to create some Christmas themed newspaper weaving crafts! So this year, I decided to go ahead and redo the leaf tray from my previous post! Using Christmas colours of red and green - naturally! 

 And let me say, I am absolutely delighted with the way this tray has turned out! I used random red/green tubes, and I love the effect produced by this random mix. The handle was also attached differently. I like this method better. 

Overall, a nice bit of work to end this year! 

Model Details:

Model: Leaf Tray

Difficulty Level: Complex

Tutorial (making newspaper tubes): Youtube

 

 

A little experiment for making a small, leaf-shaped tray, in time for Christmas! This little tray has been on my to-do list for quite some time now, especially since I have already made a couple of leaf trays using the coiling technique of weaving.  

Since I had already coloured some tubes green and red, in anticipation of some Christmas themed newspaper weaving projects, I decided to use a few of them to try out this little leaf tray. Well, it turned out not to so little after all - measuring around 10-inches at the maximum length!

 

While I quite liked the leaf stalk that I added, I think I need to figure out a better way, or rather,  a more aesthetically pleasing way of adding it! 

Other than that, I am in love with this tray and I think I will do one more using Christmas colours! What say??

Model Details:

Model: Leaf Tray

Difficulty Level: Complex

Tutorial (making newspaper tubes): Youtube

This time of coronavirus has meant that I have received very few orders for my newspaper weaves during this year. But well, there is always a silver lining - I was able to work on my weaves, experiment with colours, try out new weaving techniques... 

Let me assure you, trying to achieve a certain level of mastery in anything is difficult. While perfection is impossible to achieve - practice definitely does not make perfect, but it sure does make one better - striving towards that perfection, for me, is key to success. As far as my weaving goes, this means a lot of hours, plenty of effort and boat loads of experiments! 

So time of quarantine has been that opportunity for me to better my work. I have done a ton of reading (a lot of sites in other languages, so thank you, Google Translate!!), a whole bunch of research, hours of video-watching, many, many experiments with colours, techniques, designs and rolling so many newspaper tubes that I can probably do it blind-folded now! 

And the result? Now I can say that my work has definitely improved. In the next few months I will be able to show that on my blog too. And hopefully, I would love to share some of my learning and if you are interested in paper weaving, I am sure that would benefit you.

Coming to this big box - this is one of the biggest projects I have had the pleasure to work on. The client wanted something to store toys in, something in pleasing pastel colours and something with a lid. She also wanted decoupage. That was all the requirements. And what a pleasure it has been! 

I worked based on the patterns on the decoupage tissue - roses in pale peach. So my chosen colours were peach and white. This project involved a loooot of tube-rolling!! 😅😅 I started with a cardboard base, with decoupage done on that cardboard. The weaving was pretty straight-forward - the lower half was an experiment in random combinations of peach and white and the upper half was completely done in white. I absolutely loved the lid, with its little peach knob! Initially I had thought of adding a wooden know, but am quite happy I went with this paper knob instead. 

Decoupage is quite interesting, but I think this will also take a back seat to the actual weaving. I love the way it accentuates the beauty of the box though. 

Overall, a wonderful project and a pleased client 👍😀

 

After the lovely origami that I folded last month, I decided that I wanted to do something in newspaper weaving that is a little big - big enough to contain a fair amount of stuff, rather than the usual, small pieces that I do. 

 

So that is what I did! This box, made of olive green and corn yellow, is the first of these boxes that I decided to weave. The idea was derived from some decoupage tissue, presented to me by my daughter, Little Miss. I am not sure decoupage will look good on small, woven works. Anyway, I have to try it out! But for now, this is what I did. 

The base of the box was cardboard, since I wasn't too keen on weaving such a big bottom! The box measures 8 inches in diameter and the cardboard is 6 inches in diameter. From that, I started my weaving.

Once I started weaving the sides, I wanted to try out some new techniques of weaving. Unfortunately, I don't know of the names! But I guess the pictures provide enough information! 😆

 Once the weaving was done, it was decoupage time. Frankly speaking, I am not too happy with the way this decoupage turned out! I think the bees and the flowers merge a little too much with the weaving! But, all is not lost! I will try this same technique again with a different decoupage paper and hopefully that will come out well!

Model Details:

Model: Leaf Tray

Difficulty Level: Complex

Tutorial (making newspaper tubes): Youtube

 Hmm.. My attempt at making a little woven pumpkin pot! Is that a yay or a nay?? 

Can't say I am very impressed with this 😁 I think the top of the pumpkin should flatten down a lot more. Don't you think so? And I think the lid should be entirely of orange with no green in it. Well, live and learn, folks!! 

Model Details:

Model: Pumpkin Pot

Difficulty Level: Complex

Tutorial (making newspaper tubes): Youtube

 

After folding the long-pending origami whale in my last post, I worked on another of my pending origami - this one is Armin Täubner's origami dragon. 

This very cute dragon (cute and dragon in the same sentence?? Talk about an oxymoron! 😆😅) is folded from a 15-cm square and will take about 20 minutes to complete! It starts with a fish base and builds up on that. The final shaping adds a lot of beauty to this model and I am quite delighted with the way it has turned out! 

Model Details:

Model: Dragon

Creator: Armin Täubner

Book: Kreativ Workshop Origami
 
Author: Armin Täubner
 
Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 6 inch square

Model Size: ~ 4 inches across

Tutorial: Youtube