window stars

The view on my backyard in the winter is dominated by my neighbor's house.

Add the mud, moss, flat gray sky, and dormancy of everything

and you've got  B O R I N G.

It's time for some wintertime window candy.

These window stars are sometimes called Waldorf stars (after the Waldorf schools - known for their great educational toys integrating art and learning - and I'm guessing this began as an art activity for the kids)

The patterns I used came from the following links:

http://arwenart.com/tutorials/windowstars/

and

http://www.deschdanja.ch/kreativ-blog/74-zauberhafte-fensterterne

I used regular tissue paper cut into 3X3 squares or 3X6 rectangles (depending on the pattern)

although some people prefer to pay an arm and a leg for a waxed tissue paper from the Netherlands (search for "kite paper" or waldorf star paper)

origami love

 another "ever since I was a kid" thing

do have a lot of those?

something you have always loved?

folding a flat square of paper and turning it into a bird is a particular kind of miracle

(teabag paper soaked in beeswax, then folded, then reheated to meld the wax even further)

*

"meld" - that word always makes me think of Spock

:)

in the classroom

I spent some joyful moments last night as I prepared for today's lesson:

cutting 1,568 rectangles of tissue paper

and practicing my folds

and many more joyful moments were spent this afternoon

as I and 28 children made tissue paper stars together

joy in the classroom

it was nice

for some of the boys, the folding was tricky

they feel as if they are all thumbs

we started calling them ninja stars

and the folding became martial arts minus any fighting

there was great success!

I said, "a Jedi folder, you are, young man"

and the smile was contagious

simple joys and small successes 

it was nice

they all brought their stars home

- as did I -

and these they are:

(the how to: http://arwenart.com/tutorials/windowstars/)

DIY folded box

I thought I could show you how I made the box that holds the hydrangea blossoms in last week's post

it's just a basic origami box

(and you may already know how to make this)

start with 2 squares of paper

cut one of them 1/4 inch smaller than the other

(I used book pages and cut them to 5 inches and 4 and a quarter inches square)

fold and unfold your paper squares diagonally, horizontally, and vertically

fold opposite corners to the center

fold to the center again

unfold and do the same with the remaining two corners

like so

unfold

fold two opposite corners to the center

turn lengthwise

take one end and fold like this

here's a close up

fold that corner all the way in to form a wall of the box

do the same with the opposite corner

like this

now you have a basic box

go around to each edge and crease it nicely

repeat on the other square of paper

one will be the box bottom

one will be the lid

I like to add a square of paper on the interior of the boxes to strengthen them and hide the folded in tabs

use a couple of dots of glue to hold it in place

this is how it looks from the bottom

go ahead and decorate the top if you'd like to

I just continued with the cut up greeting card I had used on the inside of the box

the larger the paper, the larger the box

scrapbook paper or watercolor paper works nicely for larger boxes

thin paper like book pages or origami paper work best for a smaller box

printed fabric

I played around a little with one of my hand carved stampsI really like creating a repeating pattern with it


and then I thought it would look great on fabricI used some flour sack towels I had picked up a few months agothey're big - and the loose weave soaks up the paint readilyI used an unevenly mixed orange and yellow combo of acrylic paintwithout mixing the two colors perfectly, I got a nice variation of color


then was the question, "what to make with it?"








the Japanese crane .... bird of happiness .... and symbol of peace

as seen in WA

cranes folded out of tea bag paper

(Japan Relief)

as another person on Etsy said so well:

"I don't have much, but I still have my hands"