Spring explosion and April recap

Exactly a month ago, we had the last snowfall this spring (I very much assume) after a very, very cold and snowy March. And then everything just exploded! We have had a historically summery April, and have had lots of fun, and been very busy.

But wow, is everything splendid, right now....

These first two images are exactly one month apart: the first snowdrops from our garden - and a glorious cherry tree I passed somewhere, yesterday.

The month went by in such a rush, starting with Easter, of course. 

We did a lot of those things we always enjoy: had several days off, went to lunch-parties and sent out a lot of Easter Fools Letters, or Riddle Letters, and even got a few. The fabulous green egg-shaped vintage vase below, was a prize for a such a letter, given to me, by my dear midcentury-modern aficionado friend. Lucky me!

We even went to Berlin for a couple of very eventful days!

We went to Berlin for two very specific reasons (if you ask me): First we did a little run in the sun (it was seriously hot) - and to celebrate that, we had my very special favorite Shiso Burger with fresh, minty apple-lemonade and lots of fries.

In Berlin it felt like actual summer, and had only done so for a few days when we arrived. But the evenings were already warm, and everywhere people were out and about....

Later on we celebrated the race just a little bit more at the cosy Mikkeller Bar in Torstrasse.  

And I have to show you the view from the hotel roof terrace (and sorry for that extremely poor cropping of the TV tower)!

The legs are feeling rested now, and we spend most of our time trying to get our garden + small summer residence in some kind of working order. On a personal, professional level, I am very busy looking for new jobs and projects at the moment, and blogging is going into summer slow mode. 

My son gets in the last word (as usual) in this what-ever-became-of-the-last-many-weeks post. He is presently very interested in mixing sticky and oddly non-related substances together, in order to make play slime - which is the thing, right now. At least hereabouts....

Good thing they can do it outside, now. It does get kind of messy, I can tell you.

Pleated Easter Eggs

Pleating is not origami, but another great way to manipulate paper into strong three dimensional objects, and this year's Easter DIY project, is fun to try, if you have never tried pleating before. 

There is only one horizontal pleating line in this design - and I have made it super easy for you, because all the necessary lines are clearly marked on the design.

I made six different designs for these Easter egg like little lanterns, and I have made some variations to them, by pleating along different lines, and turning them some of them - so some are egg like, others more hot air balloon like, if you see what I mean. 

Download the pattern sheets:  Design 1  /  Design 2  /  Design 3

I also made you a little tutorial, with some photos showing the process and a few bits of advice. Pleating is hard to explain, it has to be tried and experienced - and then it becomes easy!

Download my How-to-Pleat-Easter-Eggs tutorial:  Page 1  /  Page 2

I went a bit color crazy - I long for spring and warmth and sun - and these are a bit more circus and carnival than traditional Easter decorations, but perhaps you feel the same?

Have a colorful Easter, and happy folding and pleating!

Origami Cherry Blossoms

This year Easter and hanami (Japanese for the season of blossoming cherry trees) coincide. So my paper-diy-project Easter egg gift for you, is a very pretty origami cherry blossom. These are quite large, and would look great as table decorations.

There are countless ways of folding a sakura with five petals, but I did a little research, and I think this one is both pretty, easy to make - and it has all the right characteristics of the cherry blossom, like the star shape and that lovely little dent each petal has. Find the tutorial and my special paper, after the images.

These are modular origami, you need to fold each petal individually, and then assemble them. Once you get the hang of it, you may experiment with the dent (the extra fold in the petal, that gives it shape), you can fold that in many ways - and you could also make flowers with much more than five petals, using the same principle.

You'll need glue for these, otherwise they are all over the place!

See tutorial page 1  /  page 2

I made two slightly different designs, and two sizes : about 12 cm. and 8 cm. - or you could scale the design and make miniature versions of them, they are not complicated to fold. Download and print the special paper, that has two flowers of each size and design, right here: Get the PDF

2021: I have a new location for my downloads, please go here:
Large A  /  Large B  /  Small A + B

Happy folding, happy Easter, happy Hanami or perhaps just spring!

Happy Easter - and see you in a while!

Easter and spring is here, and it is simply wonderful.

In a little while I'll be taking off to Berlin with my family for some restful days, and I just can't wait!

I have an awful lot on my hands at the moment, and will be putting the sort-of-weekly blog posts on hold for the summer. I might do the occasional recap, but otherwise I'll be back sometime in Autumn - because I do have lots and lots of ideas for paper designs, for wonderful things I feel like writing about and stuff to get curious about.

Have a fabulous Spring and Summer, and if you stopped by this blog for DIY's and inspiration, be sure to use the special page that links to all my posts with origami projects, free printables and so on - you will find it right here - or get inspired by my Pinterest boards.
 

Cherry Blossom Viewing in Copenhagen

It has been an unusually warm and sunny week in Copenhagen, and everybody seems to have been struck by mild spring craziness. Cherry Blossom Viewing was the thing this whole past week, and much like in Japan, the most perfect cherry trees made the TV evening news. Hereabouts, the cherry blossom alley in Bispebjerg Kirkegård  (the park and cemetery near the impressive Grundtvigs Church), was the most popular site for an improvised hanami.

I took these pictures a few days ago, and today we will be checking out the Copenhagen Sakura Festival at Langelinie, even though the weather looks a bit dodgy. They have a lot of activities the whole weekend, and it is a really fun place to visit, I did last year!

Instagram and facebook were bursting with pink flowers as well, most popular hashtags were apparently #sakuraweekcph and #bispebjergkirkegaard - I checked out the first tag a couple of days ago, and this is what it looked like....

Pink, pink, pink. One of my favorite colors. And spring is indeed here.

Leah Jackson - another new Instagram find

Spring feels possible and though days are a bit gloomy around here, I insist on looking at the world through my rainbow colored glasses. Color to me is like vitamins - I mean that very literally - and that's that. I get my daily fix here and there, as I mentioned the other day.

Here is another new Instagram treasure of mine: Australian ceramicist Leah Jackson. She is into that whole Memphis style speckle / dot / confetti patterning I love so much, and which makes such a big comeback these days.

Her website is here - and here at Mr Kitly, you can buy her pretty handmade ceramics.

She does it her way, and it is impossible not to get a bit spring crazy about it all. It is like candy, Easter eggs and the first flowers of the season. Enjoy!

Spring equinox and appropriate footwear

It is spring equinox today (have you seen Google today? So pretty!), and the last time I wrote about astronomical issues such as this, I got things mixed up a bit - so today I will let Wikipedia do the talking, and just express my deep satisfaction about the longer and perhaps even sunnier days ahead of us.

Since I got acquainted with the absolutely fabuleux Louis Philippe, I have had such a jelly sandal flashback. I used to love them in the eighties and nineties, and have had them in many colors. As a young design student, I was a summer intern in a very high-tech-mad-professor like company (they worked with fibre optics and that sort of thing), and I was in one of my jelly-wearing phases. Now, in this company, they had a special kind of linoleum floors in the corridors, and my jellies made this high squeaky sound when I went about my business, and all the tech guys thought I was the most exotic and hilarious intern ever. They even nicknamed my footwear 'dejskraberne'  which is quite funny in danish, but translates poorly. A 'dejskraber' is the kind of rubber spatula you use to get the last of the cake batter out of the bowl!

Imagine my spring delirium and joy when I browsed a bit about the other day....! Now the only thing is which ones to choose, because easter chicken yellow is definitely the color I am feeling, jellywise.

I found both pairs right here: Asos