Archive for the ‘Paper Crafts’ Category
Regardless of how you do your scrapbooking – traditionally or digitally – Christmas is a great time to make a record of your holiday gatherings and events. Just snap pictures of any interesting or unusual moments that catch your attention. Later you can sort your photos as you see fit and decide on a theme (or multiple themes) for your pages.
When it comes to scrapbooking themes, there are a vast assortment of them available to celebrate the Christmas season. With a little research, you can find quite an abundance of ideas and free digital scrapbooking themes on the internet to get you started.
When it comes right down to it, you may find that scrapbooking requires a lot of time, space, and dedication. One of the first things a beginner scrapbooker may learn is that it can take quite a bit ot time to finish an album. The next thing a newbie must consider is the amount of supplies (albums, paper, stickers, glue, tape, rubber stamps and pads, scissors, pens and markers) needed to finish an attractive scrapbook, and along with that, the space needed to store these items.
The perfect solution to these problems ( if they are problems to you) is digital scrapbooking. Do not feel intimidated if you are a little lacking in computer skills. Digital scrapbooking is easy to learn, and you’re sure to find that designing pages and creating albums will run much more smoothly for you.
Can you remember a time before computers? Or perhaps you recall a time when computers were in existence, but only a few large companies had them (and they were monstrous in size). I can remember at one time someone said, “Someday there will be computers in every home.” I just could not imagine that day ever arriving. BUT here we are; we not only have one computer in our homes – many of us have several.
That being said – with the arrival of computers, we now have a whole new world opened up to us. Among the amazing new opportunities available online is digital scrapbooking. Digital scrapbooking allows us to accomplish pretty much everything electronically that we would otherwise do manually, making the process much easier. It makes one wonder what further developments are in store for us?
Scrapbooking is such great fun, a hobby with great rewards. It involves making a visual memory (in album form) of the activities and experiences of one’s life while interacting with family and friends. It is a permanent way to keep cherished memories alive and also to pass them on to future generations.
Most of us enjoy looking through photo albums, but photos alone do not give us the complete story. Creative scrapbookers can take a photo (or several photos), add a bit of journaling, and a few other embellishments, and tell us a complete story of a special event on a page or two.
Origami is just another word for the art of paper folding in such a way as to represent an object. Origami paper can be any paper that will hold a crease or a fold, although some papers are preferred over others. Origami paper is sold in squares varying in size. It is generally white on one side and colored on the other (sometimes patterned).
Washi paper, made from fibers of the bark of the gampi tree, is stronger than ordinary paper made from wood pulp. This paper is available on the commercial market, but is expensive. Foil-backed paper, a sheet of thin foil glued to a sheet of thin paper, is sometimes used in origami. The foil paper is available in a multitude of colors. Likewise, one can make tissue foil by gluing a piece of aluminum foil to the front and back sides of a piece of tissue paper.
Kami appears to be the most popular paper for origami. It is the easiest to find and the cheapest to buy (other than plain white copy paper.) As a rule, it is printed on one side only with a solid color or pattern. Also, as we’ve mentioned before, paper money is a popular medium for origami.
The best way to get started in origami is by following some easy origami diagrams. Once those folds and creases are learned, that is the time to move on to more advanced ones.
As a child, many of us learned to fold a sheet of paper into a pinwheel or perhaps a box, an envelope, a hat, a boat, or an airplane. (Remember writing a note on a piece of paper, folding it into an airplane, and sending it flying across the school classroom?) These were all simple items to make. By mastering the techniques we used for these projects, we are then in a position to learn new folds and methods and move on to more complicated designs.
Origami is an interesting craft. I’ve often watched someone take a plain, ordinary piece of paper, crease and fold it back and forth and eventually manipulate it into an art form. How fascinating!
Those of you who have mastered this craft know that you must follow a few origami folding instructions. There are several basic folds and techniques to learn. Once these are learned, the process should become much easier.
No doubt most of us at one time or another in our life have created an origami project. I can remember, as a child, folding the corners of a sheet of paper to the center of the paper itself, sticking a pin through the center where the ends of the points overlapped, and attaching it to a stick. Taking it outside in the wind and watching it turn and whirl was great fun. The result, a pinwheel, was just one example of origami for kids to make.
The sailboats, airplanes, hats, and other items we made, though slightly more complicated, were all simple projects using origami. Once a child has mastered these skills, he can easily progress to more advanced paper folding designs.
Money origami is simply the art of origami (paper folding) using paper money. While the thought of using a small $1 or $5 bill may appear to be rather limiting, the objects created are often quite impressive. Some time ago I received an email with photos of several items created from money. Whoever created these was really talented, as the results were extraordinary. Most if not all of them had used the designs in the money in such a way as to be features of the item they created.
What would make a person think of using money for this purpose? Perhaps he or she had a long wait somewhere – at the airport, in a restaurant or doctor’s office, and just pulled out a bill and started playing with it. Seems like a good way to pass the time!
If you are into paper quilling or just getting started, you more than likely realize the importance of having proper paper quilling patterns. A project that is not carefully planned can have disastrous results.
Rolling the thin strips of paper and pinching them into various forms or shapes is just part of the process. It is necessary to combine these shapes into designs that are pleasing to the eyes. This just may be the hardest part of this craft. However, once that is accomplished, we can be assured that our projects will turn out beautifully.