Paper Folding (by sarah)
Origami and me... I am still in a paper folding craze.
So for Christmas I got a flower folding kit but realised that I wasn't really good enough for the flowers and did not want to waste the nice paper. So I started cutting up bits of old books to fold and ordered 1000 little origami scares.
As I'd attempted the flowers I began to remember paper folds I'd done as a child, things for the playground in infants and juniors 🙂 And hats my nans and great aunts and uncles would fold to entertain me from newspapers.
We used to make little fortune telling paper puzzles that would turn inside out and boxes and bags where always useful.
I remember discovering the word origami when my brother got an epic book with a red T-rex on the front (it might have been a dragon but I wanted to fold dinosaurs!). So when he got board of it me and dad would spend hours folding. Paper is kind of the medium we made things in anyway, I remember making dinosaurs and seascapes and houses out of papier mache and folded cereal box cardboard. Dad would make elaborate hats out of sugar paper from the docks where he worked when I was little and I still remember me and my brother both winning the different categories for our paper easter bonnets.
Mum showed me you could curl it to make fringes and waves and bows out of paper, then there was the quilling which I would make pictures out of. There was a lot of paper about when I was little as there was office waste which got brought home.
My brother's book had some paper with it but he used that (and rightly so it was his!) me and dad would cut old copy paper and magazines and things into squares and then his penknife wasn't about I found you could make paper rip if you keep folding it first one way and then the other and run your nails along the crease repeatedly.
One of my nans showed me how to make paper beads and I made loads and attempted to sell the jewellery I'd made out of them - I was 5 yrs old - amazingly all the old ladies in and around "the corner" of our streets bought the damn things! Rolled up paper on scraps of wool with felt tip flowers and spots on.
The other nan showed me how to make paper straws which are amazingly useful including being used to weave straw dollies, baskets and used in general as construction materials.
Paper... I've made alot with paper from my poetry dragons to treasure chests to vases of flowers.
But back to paper folding, I never managed to make my dinosaur, it was modular and a big fold and I found most of the paper we had was just too thick when folded small.
Roll on university where friends would make little jumping frogs and penguins and things and give them to me. They showed me how to make them and one even tried to drag me along to her origami club... but university was not a great paper folding time for me.
I was loosing the use of my hand, they were turning to rubber with RSI, reactive arthritis and general joint inflammation. Then there was crutches thrown into the mix which kill your hands. I didn't realise this was happening until the end of my 3rd year (actually my 4th year at uni), when I loss the use of them completely for about 2 weeks just before my exams!
My roommate at the time had tried to show me how to fold these most AMAZING modular spheres but my hands would have none of it 🙁 I still have two of the little spheres we use them as Christmas decorations - paper balls folded well over a decade ago. I have no idea where my room mate is now I should have told her how much I loved her origami.
During Jean's pregnancy my hands swelled and again it took some time to get the use back but the first thing I did when we started running the Cubs and Scouts was design what was to become the poetry dragon but again the concept came from a Christmas play I'd done in junior school about dragons in the moon and sun. I was the bum of the dragon, we made little models - when we were learning the story - my model is different in that I took the square concertina fold we used for Christmas decorations to make the long wiggly body rather than cloth and then I drew a dragon head and tail which you could fold and cut and stick and fix to the body and I did not have budget for sticks so used drinking straws.
I have ended up taking these dragons into schools, run poetry workshops with them, made them big and small, they've been to music festivals and even for various chinese new year celebrations.
I adapted it to dragon boats using over lapping circles - they are not origami I think because they use scissors and sticky and my floating lanterns used paper clips.
More it like origami is an added tool to my paper repitoir to go with the papier mache and stamps and punches.
It is however something I am considering a new skill, I've never before applied myself to origami. I got a voucher for Christmas so I ordered some funky paper and a few more books - I do not have my brothers books instead I have two falling to pieces paper backs from the 70's which I've inherited from various elderly relatives. They pretty much contain stuff I just needed a little reminder of or rediculously complicated projects! So I also ordered two books one is Easy Origami and the other was dragons... yes I know but I could not resist 🙂
Of course I also ordered some more felting needles.
Interestingly I am having lots of ideas and inspiration with the origami not sure if it's because I am having all the rests and naps the nurologist suggested or weather this is just normal with origami. I spent today designing two workshops for festivals etc... and making bits for when I take my books and zines to shows. Thinking about it the making of the zines is paper craft too.
As I fold shapes say the hearts at the beginning of the post I think... this could be the top of a dress, or if we stop the folding at this point you could turn it into a fox and if we squeeze it like this and drew some whiskers it would be a mouse...
Turns out they also fit as page corners!
I made Alaric a load of cufflinks for advent, he is currently making himself a cufflink holder out of metal but it is going to take a while so I folded him a temporary cufflink holder.
The hearts are for Mary's birthday, I have also worked out a couple of the flowers from the kit which she wants for her party too 🙂 and it's a little tricky but I found a tutorial for 3D diamonds which I will attempt (It's My Little Pony themed and we are also making lots of hama bead decorations too!).
She wants some nice boxes for sweets and things to sit in too so some of the funky paper I got is very pink and pretty for this purpose - I improvised these boxes on the base of a basket.
Annoyingly the funky paper all arrived before the books I've ordered and then today the dragon book arrived but not the easy origami! Still the internet has helped, I've started up a pinterest board call Folding Space.
So year origami - I'm loving it, finding people on twitter and youtube and blogs and things too 🙂
Art and Craft | sarah | 
Wed 4th Jan 2017 11:13 pm
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