Merry Christmas 2019, dear blog readers! 

It feels like the year had just begun and we are already at the end and looking forward to a new decade! Time does fly, doesn't it? 

Anyway, in the Christmas tradition, I decided to do something in the traditional colours of green and red. I had rolled a number of newspaper tubes some time back and had been wondering on the project to work on. So I decided to go ahead with the new style of weaving that I have been trying out these days. In case you, dear reader, haven't had an opportunity to see what I have been up to, do check out this blue leaf tray that I had done a few months back. Also check out the previous box and lid, done using the same red/green tubes. 

This style of newspaper weaving, called coiling or root-weaving, is tedious but results in really cool newspaper products that are absolutely eye-catching! The weave is without any form, so it is with some trial and error that I manage to do this style of free-form weaving. 

This bowl or rather, tray is about 7.5 inches in diameter and made entirely from newspaper tubes, coloured red and green. As with my previous blue tray attempt, here too, I attempted to paint both plain tubes and tubes with print still visible. Since the colours were both dark ones, I was able to obliterate most of the print after painting the tubes twice. With a single coat of paint, the colour is not very rich and the print is clearly visible. But with a second coat, the colour also becomes richer and most of the font are pretty much invisible! And what little is visible, is hardly seen in this style of weaving anyway! So that was a good discovery for me.

In total, to make this bowl, I have used a total of 50 plain green tubes, 25 green tubes with print visible, 100 plain red tubes and 30 red tubes with print visible. And as expected, with this style of dense weaving, the end product is very robust and strong. A coat of polyurethene and I have an absolutely amazing product!

So what do you think?

Model Details:

Model: Coiled Christmas Bowl

Difficulty Level: Complex

Tutorial (making newspaper tubes): Youtube

Tutorial (coiling or root-weaving technique): Youtube

I have rolled up tubes for a Christmas project but before that, decided to try out a little box with lid using the red/green combination. I have tried this method before, when I made a blue tray, but since it's been a long time since I did that, this box and lid is kind of a refresher course for me 😀

I liked the way this box came out. I added a little ring to the lid so that it is easy to open the box. The overall size is about 4 inches in diameter and about 3 inches in height.

The problem I faced was making a little indent for the lid so that it doesn't slide off easily. I am still to  figure out how to weave the lid. For this box, all I did was stick a couple of tubes to form the indent.

For this box, instead of using white tubes, I used tubes with print, painted red and green. In the close up shot, a little bit of the print is still visible, but of course, this cannot be avoided. I think the only colour which will completely obliterate the print is black.

Model Details:

Model: Coiled Box with lid

Difficulty Level: Complex

Tutorial (making newspaper tubes): Youtube

Tutorial (coiling or root-weaving technique): Youtube