Have a Heart on Advent 1st

Let's kick December off (well, almost) with one of the very first designs I made for this blog: The Countdown Heart from 2011, from the original Advent Calendar format, where I posted a new heart every single day in December (all of them woven hearts, as these are a traditional and very old Danish Christmas decoration). I was on maternity leave and had more time for blogging back then!
You can read a bit about weaving hearts here. I also made a simple one page tutorial.

Here's the original post from 2011, with the design to download as well, of course. 

But I wanted to post an origami heart as well, and I found that these (seen on the dark background in the photos), originally made for Valentine's in 2017, are great for Christmas as well. They can be used as gift tags, mini Christmas cards or made into a really cool garland (see photo - they have a natural slit on one side, that you use for the ribbon) - and if you punch a hole for a bit of string, you could decorate your tree with them. 

They are super easy to make, and a fun origami design - note: made not from a square paper, but from a rectangular one. Which is why I did a whole series of measured papers, ready to cut and fold, in a lot of funky red / pink / coral patterns. 

You will find the original post here, with free tutorial + pattern paper to download. 

This is what the Countdown Heart looks like (below), before you weave it - and if you have never woven a Christmas heart before, now would be the perfect time to start!

You will find loads of more or less crazy heart designs, and some nice ones too, on my list here, especially from 2011.

 

You should definitely heart someone

Tomorrow it's Valentine's Day, and I think we should absolutely spread some love around.

The world needs it.

Last year I showed you how to make Japanese folding letters for Valentine, menko and tato, and made you a hidden heart origami letter. This year I thought these might be fun....

They take five minutes to fold, and are made from a regular A4 sheet, so you don't even need to worry about square origami paper! I made you a PDF with a lot of red/pink patterns, and scaled the A4 dimensions a bit, to work around those unprinted edges all printed sheets must have. Just grab your scissors and cut away that edge.

Here's a tutorial: A4 origami hearts       And here's a PDF of 12 pretty designs to use, if you like

2021: I have a new location for my downloads, please go here for the tutorial: page 1  /  page 2
I have made a Flickr folder with the 12 design sheets, feel free to download: it's right HERE

Write a nice message to someone you think needs a bit of love, and fold it like this. Or use them for parties, wedding invitations or Christmas ornaments. I made a whole bundle, as you can see, and they ended up as a garland. They are actually very well suited for garlands, the construction has a natural  slit to pull the string through, you'll see for yourself when you try.

Wanna see my garland? 

A cosy origami project for a dark afternoon

I find origami a little bit addictive. I can forget about it for months and then I sort of fall off the wagon again. And then I sometimes can't stop. It's not that I ever do very complicated origami, I dont have patience for that. I usually like to do one type at a time, and then I just can't seem to stop....! As you know, I like making my own paper designs. Not that I don't love traditional origami paper, but sometimes the colors overwhelm me. So I make sheets of more tone-in-tone patterns, many of which you can see here on the Pinterest board of my paper projects - with links to follow, of course.

Here is a little thing I made, which I decided I liked best in my own black/white graphic patterns.

The cheap LED string lights you can buy everywhere this time of year are great for paper projects, because the bulbs don't get hot. So I dressed up this one, in one of my favorite little origami-designs: small perfect square cubes, or as they are sometimes called; origami balloons. 

I put together a little tutorial, if you don't know how to make them. They are very, very easy!

They are so well suited for the purpose, because they have a natural opening, that the little LED bulb easily slides into. A super smart thing is to wrap a small rubber band around the bulb before inserting it, this will keep the paper cube quite firmly in place. I used some of those mini rubber bands kids make bracelets from: loom bands. They worked perfectly.

I like my version in the black/white patterns. And I also made them from smaller squares than the most common size origami paper, because I wanted the cubes quite small. And If you want to give it a go, I made these squares into a PDF. Just print a bundle, cut them and get going. Use thin, cheap paper (80 gr. is nice for origami) and a ruler and a sharp knife when you make your paper squares. 

They are lovely to make, almost meditative. It took me about two hours to make the fifty ones I used for this string of cosy November lights.

A sort of relaxed prequel to actual Christmas decorations, I think!

Download the 12 x 12 cm. black/white origami squares right here.

2021: I have a new location for my downloads, please go here:
Design 1  /  Design 2  /  Design 3

A teeny tiny crafting party for the young ones

We usually have a kind of party where we invite quite a lot of people over for Christmas paper crafting and general munching and beer / hot tea drinking, and it is usually one of my favorite kinds of Christmas get together, but somehow we forgot about it this year. When both my husband and my sister were going to their big office parties today, I decided to make a mini party for the remaining family. 

I sort of curated some projects for the two five year olds, with a pack of plastic straws and a lot of paper scraps. Since you can be certain that you can always get these two boys to put stuff on a string, I decided to make it simple for them. I punched a gazillion little flowers and cut the straws in bits, before the boys even got here. 

I absolutely insist on activities like these once in a while, even though LEGO and iPads are more appealing at five o'clock on a Friday afternoon. They stuck with it though, the little darlings. And my nephew even wore a tie. How cool is that?

They made glittery garlands and hanging trees. So pretty.

Easy Little Paper Wheels

Here in Denmark, Fröbel Stars are a very popular Christmas ornament, and I love making them, especially since the pre-cut strips now come in so many colors and patterns. I used to cut strips myself, to be able to make stars in crazy colors (strips used to come in white, silver and gold only), but no more. I have also painted them and decorated them in different ways.

I didn't start making these slightly complicated stars before I was all grown up, I never had the patience for them as a kid, and they are not for beginners. You can try them yourself, and you could get started with this tutorial! You can find several videos on YouTube, as well.

But back to the pre-cut strips, so widely available here in Denmark. I wanted to come up with a little simple ornament to make from these, so easy that my son (aged 5) could make them - and ended up with these rather cute little wheelie type things.

You make them from exactly two star strips, and a fun thing is that you can play around with how you hang them, as you can see above - either string them as beads, put a ribbon through the hole, or punch a hole for a thinner string in one of the folds.  

They derive from a very traditional ornament: Musetrapper in Danish or 'mouse ladders', or even 'cats ladders'. They are one of the the simplest types of garland you can make - if you need an explanation there is a fine tutorial here. 

To make the little wheelies, you make one small 'mouse ladder' from only two star strips, and trim the ends with glue. When that is dry, you press together the two square ends with a little more glue, to make the wheel. Voilà.

I made these with the different store bought strips I had, and here are their measurements if you need to cut some yourself: 25 x 860 mm., 15 x 500 mm. (the most common kind) and some 10 x 500 mm. for the tiny red ones (a bit to long for a good wheel, so trim these a bit). These super handy strips can be bought in all kinds of online DIY material shops, and are a must if you like to make Fröbel stars, and now wheels! Google for 'stjernestrimler'. They are inexpensive and will save you looots of time measuring and cutting - plus they have print on both sides, which is what you want for both stars and these types of folded things.

Musetrapper will often be the first kind of Christmas finery children in Denmark make. Along with the classic and universal paper ring garland. Here is a page from one of my old Christmas books:

What you often do, is have the children make lots and lots of the shorter bits, and then your kindergarten group or class will put them together to form a very long one, to hang across the entire classroom, or something like that (The photo above is from Gl. Estrup Herregård, from an attempt to make Denmarks longest 'mouse ladder').

This last image (from the Danish blog Reklamejam) is interesting. It is from last years Christmas season in Berlin, and taken in the &Other Stories shop (a favourite of mine, by the way), where these enourmous paper garlands were a part of the Christmas theme. They look very intriguing, like a kind of 'mouse ladders' but somehow... hexagonal? If anybody knows what they are, please let me know!

The only useful thing I did today....

Was this hobbit sized garland to go with the hearts.

And here my son and his friend Edith are going at it with the punching thingies.
They also consumed large amounts of æbleskiver, sugar and jam.

Candy Garland

It may sound like the stage name of some burlesque showgirl, but is actually a quite fun little project
for a sunday afternoon (and to those who prefer burlesque showdancing this sunday afternoon -  I feel convinced that other blogs cover this topic quite extensively).

There seems to be a certain 3D aspect to all the things I have posted this year, and these little
peppermint candies are no exception. They are very easy to make, and of course they don't
necessarily need to go on a garland, but could be hung individually. I used this very long needle
I have, to string them. It is called a 'dolls needle' in danish, since apparently you need very
long needles for doll making. I have never made a doll in my life, but use this looooong needle for
all sorts of things, so get yourself one of those, if you are a crafty kind of person. Very handy.

Get the peppermint candy PDF thingy right here

2021: I have a new location for my downloads, please go here (A) and here (B)  

A piece of work - the heart garland

I am going to leave you with a bit of work for the weekend - the heart garland!

You have to do quite a bit of cutting here, but I give you al full alphabet, and trust that it will keep
you occupied tomorrow as well - and then I'll be posting a new project again on sunday.

You simply cut the letters, fold them and glue them carefully onto any kind of nice looking string or
twine, for example something like this.

The rest is up to you. A nice little garland for the door, saying 'Welcome' or 'F*** off' - or a very
loooong one for the tree or the mantlepiece with the full lyrics of 'Come All Ye Faithful'. Or...?

Download the fabulous garland here!

2021: I have a new location for my downloads, please go here:
page 1  /  page 2  /  page 3  /  page 4