Paper Crafts

I love paper. Love love love it. I have sheets of chiyogami and washi paper hanging on my studio walls and stacks of it in my dad's old flat file. Never can find the project that is special enough to use it on, so it continues to wait patiently...

In the meantime, I have now found a site where I can print out chiyogami sheets to use on my every day projects. Check it out:

Canon Creative Park is just that - like a huge amusement park for paper fiends like me. There's the printable Chiyogami sheets, fun origami projects, even these amazing 3D decoupage projects

There's so much there that I haven't explored even a tenth of it. Go find a good rainy day project!

Friday Egg

NO COLORS FOR YOU!

Today is a black and white egg. It is based on an interesting website called Zentangle that a friend turned me on to.  It is basically a shortcut to the zen of creation and is a very clever idea.  Starting with a basic doodle on a small piece of paper that they call a "tile" that looks like this:

you simply fill in each space with a different repetitive pattern.  It is only done with black pen on white paper so you don't have to worry about color or shading - everything is black and white!  Here is what the finished tile might look like:

One interesting project they have is a larger doodle drawn over a series of nine tiles. If you have a group, each person takes one tile and draws patterns and then after all are done, you combine them to become one collaborative work or art.  Here's what it looks like before you start:

and here is one finished:

I really like this idea because it makes creation accessible to literally anyone.  I have done a few "tiles" but then decided to take the same idea and do it on an egg.

Here we go!

One with scale object:

In this one, you can see that I made my signature a part of the design.  I'm so sneaky.

Doodling can be productive!  Try it on your own or go check out Zentangle!

Have a wonderful weekend.