I just came across something very exciting I can’t wait to share with you. On her marvelous blog Craft & Creativity Helena showcases those beautiful little paper owls.

You can download the templates free for personal use from the website 3eyedbear. (Another splendid site that went straight into my bookmark folder.) Wouldn’t this make an exciting little crafty project for the weekend ahead?

All images © Helena, Craft & Creativity

Hard to believe that this is ‘just’ paper, isn’t it?

Love the posture of the foxes.

I’m feeling very honoured. This typewriter is the first of my paper models which I put up for sale and it has been sold! I’m so excited, thank you to the lovely buyer in the US. In case you would like to make your very own typewriter, here are the details of how I made it:

1. Sketch out the basic shape on foam board and pin or glue together. It is worth investing some time and research into getting the shape right, as this is the key to a realistic-looking typewriter.

2. Add a piece of foam board for the keyboard. Cover the outside of your typewriter in a light shade of paper and cover the inside where the keyboard is going to sit in a dark shade of paper, which will give the keyboard more visual depth. After some experimentation, I settled on pale blue and brown paper.

3. Cut a piece of round balsa wood as long as your typewriter is wide and cover it with paper.
Cut two round pieces of foam board. They need to be slightly bigger than the diameter of your round piece of balsa wood. Cover all sides of your foam board circles with paper. Push a short pin through the center of each circle and into the ends of the balsa wood. You have now finished the cylindrical platen / typewriter roller.

4. Cut out a rectangular piece of paper, roll it around the balsa wood platen / roller and glue it into place. If you like, you can add a line of printed text onto the paper, to make it look more authentic.

5. For the base of the keyboard cut four small pieces of foam board. All of them should have the same width, but each should be slightly higher than the previous one (1.5mm higher in my case). The lowest piece of foam board should have the same height as the front of your typewriter. The highest piece should be as high as the back of your keyboard field (where the brown paper finishes). A pair of tweezers will come in handy here.

6. To add the letters for the keyboard, it is the easiest if you use a graphic computer program, such as Adobe Illustrator, Freehand or Coral Draw. Layout the keys as they would appear on an old-fashioned typewriter. Print off your keyboard. To give the keys more depth, glue your print onto mount board. Now you just need to cut this to create the keys for your keyboard.
I found that for the scale I was working at (my finished model is 7 cm wide) it looked neater to cut the keyboard in strips only, rather than trying to cut out and arrange each key separately. Glue each strip onto its foam board base and add a spacebar key on the front.

7. Nearly done! Just add a little bit more colour in the form of some buttons, a label and the paper holder on top. Use tweezers to ensure precision.

Viola, there you go! You made a typewriter!

Things were a bit quiet from my side as Mr P had some time off work and was looking marvelously after baby J. This gave me the opportunity to plunge into home improvement / DIY mode, get the dungarees out (literally speaking) and swing my paintbrush.

So I’m happy to report that our little shoe bench / cupboard finally got all the layers of paint it deserves. I have some spiffy plans for it to star as backdrop in some product shoots I have scheduled for the year ahead, but more of it later.

images above © warnerbros

While I was busy painting I listened to our best of 80′s CD’s which never fail to make me laugh, especially now where I understand the lyrics. (When I was younger my English wasn’t this good, but I’m not sure I missed out on too much in this respect). Anyway, this reminded me of the hilarious music video PoP! Goes My Heart from the film Music and Lyrics. I watched the video a million times and it never fails to make my laugh. It’s just the best parody of 80′s music videos.

So if you don’t know it, or just fancy a laugh, have a look here. And as a little bonus for reading all the way to the end of this post, I’d like to treat you to the picture below. Also a highlight of the 80′s (gosh I in my mind I still see a very similar picture, stuck onto the doors of my sisters wardrobe in our shared bedroom.)

image © easydaycharters.com

Have a great time wherever you celebrate.

I hope you find some time to rest and be merry.

All the best from London, Jacqueline.
(p.s. That’s the splendid window display in my local taxidermy shop – is there anything more British?)

I just wanted to say a BIG thank you to all the lovely people who have been buying my new paper jewellery in my etsy shop. I feel very honoured to know that some little caravans have traveled as far as America and Australia and hope that all those of you who will receive them a Christmas present will like them too.

Thank you also to all those of you who have added my paper jewellery to their favourites or treasure list at etsy! I’m really happy about your warm feedback, which makes me a bit more confident to approach some shops next year. I hope you enjoy your jewellery!

Can you believe that the window above is a large scale paper cut? I would have loved to see it in real, wouldn’t you? This breathtaking work is by Peter Callesen, who I first came across while researching my degree dissertation (Paper as Three-Dimensional Material in Graphic Design). Years later I’m still amazed by his conceptual thoughts and paper engineering skills. He does a variety of artwork, but his paper sculptures are my favourite.

A4 papercut: Distant Wish, 2006

I love the fact that he turns an ordinary sheet of paper into something extraordinary, through seemingly just a few cuts.

I bought 30 cm / 13.75 inches of red wool felt. Wool felt is a little bit more expensive than ordinary felt, but looks much more stylish. Felt also has the great advantage that it does not need hemming, so it is quick and easy to work with.
In addition I got two 10 x 10 cm (4 x4 inches) patches of ordinary green felt in two different shades.

From this material I made a pixie hat, some baby booties and a fabric garland. She has been wearing the hat ever since I made it (as it is winter here). I’m planning to ‘reverse’ the booties into Christmas decoration for future years, and to use an image of the garland as a Christmas cake topper and for gift tags. This tutorial covers the pixie hat and the booties only. The garland tutorial is still to come.

Simple yet stylish pixie hat in 6 easy steps:

1. Begin by measuring your child’s head from forehead to neck (b in the picture above). The second measurement you need is the head circumference. If you have a wriggly little one it may be easier to measure them from ear to ear and add approx. 5 cm /2 inches to 7.5 cm / 3 inches for the back of the head.

2. Sketch out the shape of a pixie hat, using your measurements. My baby’s head is 34 cm/13.4 inches from ear to ear and 29 cm/11.4 inches from forehead to neck. So I made sure that in my sketch a (see picture above) was half the width of her head circumference (34 cm from ear to ear + 5cm for the back of the head =  39 cm divided by 2 = 19.5 cm, so a was 19.5 cm). b was roughly the size from forehead to neck (29 cm). You do not need to worry too much about the size just yet, as you can adjust it in the quick test hat that is made first.

3. Get a spare piece of fabric (I used an old tea towel) for the test cap. Cut 2 pieces of fabric around an inch bigger than your sketch (just to be on the safe side) and sew them together as indicated by the dotted lines in the picture above.

4. Get your participant to try it on (you may need to help!) and see how it fits. Use pins to adjust the size if necessary.

5. Once you are happy with the shape of your test hat, use it as a stencil and cut around it using your felt (or other material that you have chosen). For young children it is easier if the fastening is not located directly underneath their chin (as it is tricky to access). So make sure you cut one of the fabric strips which hangs down from the side of your hat longer than the other, so that it will pass underneath the chin and the hat can be fastened on the side of baby’s head (see pink dotted line in picture below).

6. Sew the cap together. Try it on your participant to see if you need to adjust anything. I also added a little tuck on both sides of the cap at approximately eye level to make it fit a bit more snugly. Sew on a button on the side (as indicated in the photo above) and cut a button hole in the end of the other (longer) fastening strip. Stand back and admire your work!

Congratulations! You have already finished the key part of the costume. How about a celebratory cup of tea? Go on, spoil yourself!

Cute booties for little ones

1. Start by measuring the length of your baby’s feet and sketch out a basic shoe shape on paper (see above). If your child already owns some booties, it may be handy to use them as guidance. Cut the shoe shape 4 times plus two long strips of fabric (mine were 6cm wide and approx. 30 cm long).

2. Sew each strip of fabric between 2 shoe shapes, so that you get two booties (see above). I worked in felt straight away but if you prefer you can also make a sample from a spare piece of fabric first. Cut two small leaves from your green felt and sew one on each shoe. Add some bells if you like.

3. Seam the front sides of the booties to give them more shape. Cut small slits around the opening, approximately 1 cm from the top of the shoe, and thread through a piece of ribbon or string.

Ta dah! Stand back and admire your handywork! Tell everyone you meet that you made the costume YOURSELF.

All images © Fideli Sundqvist

Found at my favourite paper blog upon a fold. And have I promised too much? Great work, isn’t it?

Images © Hannah Fettig

Well, I always hoped that I wouldn’t do this to my kid… Guess what? Yes, my daughter too is ‘mama’s pride’ in wooly cardies, booties, and now also her first Christmas ‘costume’.
Not sure how it is in your part of the world, but in good old Germany parents would not dare to dress up their kids at Christmas (we have other specially designated days for this).

So when we were invited for a recent fancy-dress Christmas bash, I thought a pudding costume – though fitting – may send out the wrong message, if looked back on in teenage times.
So I got out my little sewing machine, and created a little improvised pixie costume. Once finished, I realised that subconsciously I must have taken inspiration from the splendid hat shown above and below by Hadley Fierlinger. Wonderful pictures, aren’t they?

Pixie images © Hadley Fierlinger

To save time, I created J’s pixie hut and booties in felt which worked marvelously well. And in case you are still short of a Christmas costume for your little one I will share the details with you later this week.