Happy New Year, dear readers! I hope this new year is a blessing to all of you.

So I wanted to start off the new year on the blog, with a beautiful project. I was working on a complex origami, which wasn't turning out to be much of a success! So I ended up putting it aside, incomplete for now, and instead started working on an easier (but more time consuming!) project, namely a paper rose wreath.

This rose wreath is made entirely from paper (the pages of an old book, to be precise). I have been working on this wreath for the past week, a few hours each week. And though it was a back-breaking and time-consuming work, I am delighted with the end result! And now it hangs proudly in my work room and I keep admiring it every few mins!! I know, vanity indeed!!

The purpose of the rose wreath was two-fold. One, I wanted a project for New Year and two, I wanted to try out a recent purchase of mine - the EK Success Circle Scissors. It arrived a few days back and ever since, I have wanted to do something with circles. And these roses start off as circles, so it was a perfect way to start using my scissors. And I must say, I am absolutely fascinated with the scissors! I needed to cut about 250 circles (that is how many roses there are in the wreath) and with the circle scissors, this was a piece of cake - all done in less than an hour :)

Of course, making the roses was the major work. It took me about 8-10 hours to complete. The base can be a foam wreath base. But I had made my own wreath - cardboard cut in shape, lined with bunched up newspaper then layered with tissues that are held down with a mix of glue and water. Allow to dry over night and you have a rock solid wreath base. Glue on roses, add a ribbon - red for a little colour. And voila, your wreath is ready!

I am now thinking of making a Valentine day's wreath, using red roses. What do you think, dear readers?

Model Details:

Model: Paper Rosette Wreath 

Origin: Traditional

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Circle

Paper Size: 3 inches in diameter

Model Size: Wreath diameter - 12 inches

No of Units: ~ 250 

Tutorial: Youtube

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.

When we were kids, we used to make these bracelets and use them as Friendship bracelets. Unfortunately we didn't have access to colourful paper, so we used to make do with paper torn out of our notebooks (very naughty I know!), or paper from comic digests or magazines that we managed to get hold of.

So anyway, after many, many years, now my daughter wanted me to make something for her friends. There are 3 of them in her gang and these 3 are very close, even though they are all of 4 years old! So when she wanted me to make something for her friends, I thought of these bracelets :) I needed to really wrack my brains to get going, I had more or less forgotten how to make them! But I finally managed to do that. And made some really colourful bracelets for her friends, in their favourite colours too!! I am not their favourite mom-of-friend! :D

Since I needed to put in a lot of effort to recollect the instructions for making the bracelet, I figured it made sense to make a tutorial, so that later on if my daughter wanted to make them, she could give it a go. So, stick around.. A tutorial coming your way soon!! :) And my first too..

Model Details:

Model: Paper Bracelets

Origin: Traditional

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate