A good experience - a woven box in red and white, made from recycled newspaper! I love using a combination of red and white, this is one of my favourite colour duo and looks bright and lively ❤

This box was woven using the same design as my previous one, except for a change in colours. And of course, the decoupage paper that I used was also different. 

The box is fairly big - 8 inches in diameter and 10 inches in height - and has a cardboard base. I think that adds strength to the box. Like in my previous box, I have used 2 types of weaving. The bottom one ensures the bright red stands out and the top white is the best background for the decoupage. 

The lid is made on the same lines as the base. Absolutely adore the little woven knob. The rest of the weaving was the regular, 2-strand weaves. 

So, how do you like it??

Here's to a blessed new year 2021! Well, the year has had a good start for me and I was able to work on my first order for this year - a box made from newspaper tubes with a touch of decoupage. 

I am very happy to see the results of all the practice I have had during these past few months! Quite delighted with how pleasing and utilitarian this box turned out to be! 

The box is 8 inches in diameter and 10 inches in height. In this instance too, the client just specified that she wanted a big box with decoupage. So that meant, I got to choose the colours and the design!! Yay!!

 

I went for the peach/white combination from my last box as I absolutely love this decoupage tissue. I love how pleasing these roses are! The base was made from a cardboard and I started by gluing the sticks to the base. 

I used 2 patterns for the sides. The first was a 3-weave pattern as I wanted to accentuate the white. This was followed by a peach section, since I wanted the decoupage to stand out here. 

The lid also started with a cardboard base with decoupage on it. Quite happy with the way the decoupage turned out! In love with these little woven knobs! They are so adorable!!

Finally, I finished off with some round felt protectors, since the colour is quite light and I didn't want the box to turn dirty very quickly! 

So, here's to a year of newspaper weaving and plenty of orders 😄😄

Happy New Year 2021!

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

Magazine art is an interesting way of recycling old magazines, which are in abundance at our house. So, after making all those pen holders last month, I decided to try about something else this time.

So here is my first attempt at decoupaging with magazine paper! And here's how I went about it.

First of all, I wanted a good, solid box. So, while a good cardboard box would have been good enough, I wanted something sturdier. That means, I decided to use an old wooden box for this attempt.

I sanded down the box and then coated it with a layer of white acrylic paint. Once the paint dried, it was time to decoupage! I mixed a portion of white glue with 2 portions of water and set this aside. I chose the most colourful pages and cut them into multiple pieces.

Then it was just a matter of applying the glue-water mixture, sticking a piece of magazine paper and reapplying another layer of glue-water mixture. I continued till the whole box was covered with the magazine paper. I decoupaged the inside of the box as well. And the lid too.

I allowed the box to dry down over-night. Then I covered the whole box with a layer of the same glue-water mixture. Again it dried over-night.

Finally my decoupaged box was ready for use. Now my only question is whether to use it as a decoupaged box or do something with magazine rolls.. Well, I'll just have to wait and see how I decide to go about it 😃

A round storage box measuring 6 inches tall and 9.5 inches across is my latest foray into the art of newspaper weaving. For this container, I did not paint the tubes, but rather used the regular newspaper tubes with print, to weave the box. Once everything, including the lid, was completed, I painted everything with white acrylic paint. While I was able to get a good, white container, I must say it is much less tedious to paint the tubes before weaving! Painting the nooks and crannies of the completed object is really really tiresome.

Finally, to add some colour, I included some decoupage using decoupage napkins and I must say I love the effect.

The lid has a little bow on top, though it turned out a little too small. But it works as an effective handle.

As soon as the work was done and everything dried up and hardened, Little Miss came right along and picked up the container and declared that it was hers as she had absolutely nothing to store her things! 😄 So that was that. Apparently if I needed one for myself, I better make another one, this one was not available..

When it comes to newspaper weaving, I tend to colour the tubes before I start weaving. But for a change, I attempted a weave with the newspaper print still visible. I saw an apple container while surfing the net and decided to have a go at it. And this was the result.

The start of the apple container and lid was done using black newspaper tubes. And the rest was made of regular newspaper tubes - no colour. As much as possible, I went for plain print without any pictures and other colours.

I love the way the stalk came out. Wetting the tubes before winding it works wonders and prevents cracking. The leaf also came out great. While the container was nothing unusual, the lid was done differently. To give an apple-like shape, after winding the stalk, there is a dip and then the lid is formed. Well, the dip came out well, but the lid turned out to be slightly skewed.

I added a little decoupage to the container. And that too turned out great I think.

I thought it came out great for a first attempt, but clearly there is still work to be done.