n o d d y b o o m

make: origami balloon tutorial

I meant to post this before we left on Tuesday, but in the scramble to pack and get out the door (not to mention the more-than-a-few blogging snags I ran across while trying to upload the 30-some-odd photos I needed for this- egads) it simply wasn't possible. 

So now, rather than showing you photos of our lovely two-day road trip and the photo of the creepy hotel we stayed in along the way and of the lush Aspen surroundings we're immersed in currently (I promise I'll post those soon), I instead offer you this origami balloon tutorial that I had meant to post as a sort of *gift* prior to leaving.  I get such a kick out of making these things and I hope you will too (in any case, it sure is a great thing to do while you're procrastinating cleaning and packing and stuff like that.  Plus it makes great use of all the "practice" drawings the kids leave lying around the house -  or junk mail or bills or whatever - I'd love to get my hands on one of those Japanese phone books and use that).  Anyhoo...

Cut a *practice drawing* into a 6 inch by 6 inch square (or you could just use traditional square origami paper - actually, any size square will do, it doesn't have to be 6 inch by 6 inch, that's just what I started with, myself).

There.

Now, take your square and fold it in half (I sometimes like to use my bone folder to help with those creases just because I have one and I have one and I admire it so much, but you can certainly just use your finger).

Open the paper back up and fold in in half the opposite direction.

Open the paper back up into a square and fold it diagonally like so...

Then, open the paper back up again and fold it diagonally the opposite direction.  Now leave it folded like this facing up, as if you're staring at a mountain or pyramid.

This is kind of hard to see below, but take the bottom right point and fold it up to the top point.  Do you see how I've done that below?

Let me move my hand so you can see it better.

There.  See that?  Now do the same with the other side and you'll have a square shape.

Now, I've completely blown it on photographing this step, but you basically unfold the whole thing so that it's a large 6 x 6 square again - with all those lovely folds that you just made on it - and then you fold in the sides of the square toward themselves (they will fold in fairly easily because of all the folds that you made in the paper) so that you end up with this triangular-ish shape below, see?  I hope you can see.

Then just flatten the triangle down.

You're doing great! 

Next, take that top right point and fold it down toward the center point (we're making a square shape kind of  like we did before).

Do the same to the left side.

 

Good!  Now flip it over and do the exact same thing on the opposite side and you'll have that square shape I was talking about earlier.

 

Now... take the side (point) of the square and fold it in toward that center line.

Repeat on the opposite side (as you see below) and then flip the whole thing over and repeat on the opposite side.

 

Almost there!  Now, I think I photographed this better the second time around, but anyway, you take those top two points and fold them down toward the center of the shape (see there above my fingers?).

 

Then, you fold them down again and tuck them into the little pockets there.  You do this on both sides.

 

See (below), here the left side has been done and the right side is folded down and waiting to be tucked into its little pocket, like so.

 

And here it is getting tucked into its pocket.  See?

This is what it should look like when everything's all tucked in!

  

Now, let's do the other side.  Flip it over and we'll begin.  Take the top point on the left side and fold it down toward the center.

 Here's another angle so you can see what I'm talking about (see, better photos this time around, eh?).

There!

Now do the same to the right side.

 

Good!

 

Now we're going to fold those again down toward their "pockets".  I'll just show you the left side, but do it on both sides on your own.  (See, in this photo - below - the right side has already been done and the left side is waiting to be folded and tucked into its pocket).

 

Now, fold that left side down...

 

There's the pocket I'm talking about...

 

There is the fold, about to be tucked in...

 

Almost tucked...

In!  So nice. 

Done with folding.  Good job!  Now, find the hole on one end and blow.  Harder.

 

You did it!  Wasn't that fun? 

 

Now go make more and have a very, very nice day!

organized collection

Collection of rocks from the beach. 

We are still very much in a "tidying" mode around here.  Still getting ready for our trip (we leave in three days).  Very much enjoying summer and all it has to offer.  I hope you are too.  ;)

afternoon delight

Well, I don't know about you, but I came twice. 

(Uh...sorry,  husbands of my friends who occasionally read my blog, to get x-rated, and about wool, but sometimes these things do happen.  These kinds of books are porn all porn to me).  Oops, typed in "porn" twice.  Ahem.

I'm very inspired now.  We leave for Colorado in less than a week for a two week jaunt and I will definitely be bringing a bag of wool and some needles with me.

Cheers, everyone!

a bit cleaner here

Marley has been asking for a desk in her room for a year and I haven't been able to find one that I like or that was affordable, so I've given her mine.  We're both happy.  She's happy to have her own "office/studio" and I'm happy to have a bit more room.  There are, naturally, inevitable piles that need to be sorted through (from all the things I used to have in and on that desk), so I'm making due in my own creative space, weaving through all the *stuff* and making those hard decisions about what I truly do and do not need.

photo trade

 

My submission for The Photo Trade :: Into the Light.

Looking forward to a weekend of beaches and nurseries, organizing, browsing through my new pile of Japanese magazines, drinking iced tea, playing with the kids, eating yummy food and enjoying family and friends.

Hope you have a nice weekend too.

things to do :: moss

Found a new home for my moss.

There are still loads of things I want to do with my garden and with bringing plants indoors, but there never seems to be enough time to do everything I want to do, (including the things I want to do with my garden and with bringing plants indoors - I've never been brilliant at that indoor plant thing, but I have high hopes), but anyway, I was happy to get even this far on this particular day.  The plant seems so happy in there, at the moment, which makes me happy every time I look at it.  I am inspired to be creative with more plants in more containers and to be more open-minded about what goes in what.  It doesn't really take that long to do this sort of thing and it can all be set out the night prior, ready to go the next morning, so the kids can join in.  It's all about planning and organizing and thinking ahead, isn't it?  Sometimes, anyway.  Sometimes not.  This moss in the teacup was actually a whim that took two whole minutes once I'd thought of what I wanted to do (and it was born of pure necessity - the poor thing was sitting in its store bought container on my windowsill since March and I just couldn't bear it anymore).

web-browsing

these recipe cards

this printable paper toy theatre

this espresso machine

japanese pattern help

kind of unique black and white striped sheets  remind me of this clever black and white striped fabric, plus I love, love, love her other fabric and that site she mentions where you can design your own fabric.  Very cool.

salt water sandals

Okay.  One two bites of chocolate and I'm off to bed with a vampire book.  I'm inspired because I, just the other night, mustered up the courage to watch I Am Legend (I had held off forever because everyone told me it was the scariest movie they'd ever seen, etc.) but it was sooo brilliant and Will Smith is brilliant.  Definitely one of my favorite actors at the moment.  I watched it on a small t.v. with all the lights on, so it wasn't terribly unbearable (plus I looked down at my crocheting, if I thought a scene was going to be particularly scary) but it was just brilliant, the whole way through.  Truly.  And not gory.  Not overdone.  With such great sets and oh just everything about it was really great.  Anyway, now I'm reading the book the movie was based on.

Pleasant dreams!

happy father's day...

school's out for the summer

There has been a lot of running around these past few days and we still have quite a busy weekend ahead of us, but at least summer has officially landed, ie: no more school.  I am pleased as punch, coming off a particularly busy/challenging week.  There is already a chorus of happy children's voices singing in the house and I have loads of plans for resting and relaxing and gardening and reading and hiking and going to the beach and doing absolutely nothing, etc.  I'm burying the alarm clock in the front yard tomorrow.

Tonight I plan to watch the next twenty minutes of this u-tube video, "How it feels to have a stroke".  I realize that sounds like a strange thing to be watching this first night of summer (it's not really the first night of summer, I'm just calling it that because school ended for us today, which means summer in my mind), but it really is interesting and gets into how the brain works and seriously, just give it a go.  I can't even begin to get into it here.  It's too complicated for me to try to explain, but it makes a lot of sense when you watch it.  I don't watch u-tube that often, but there are quite a few gems floating around.  This seems to be one of them.

Besides, I've finished watching all the episodes of Lost Season 3 and Season 4 doesn't come out on DVD until December and as far as I know, there's nothing else on.  Well...  there probably is, but my knowledge of what is and what is not on t.v. is limited because usually when I turn it on it's just commercials, which annoy me and so I just turn it back off again.  I'm more of a book-reader.

Oh, but - one more gem, for everyone who needs a good laugh, watch this.  There's nothing like a happy baby to get those euphoric brain waves vibrating and, oh my goodness, I've never seen a baby laugh like this.  Pretty hilarious.

amidst the busy-ness, i did this

This recipe didn't work, but never mind (completely uncooked in the middle after sitting a half hour longer than requested in the oven, in case you were wondering, and not incredibly tasty).  I still love this book so much, despite the failed bread, that I've decided not to hold a grudge against it and figure that it was probably my screw up anyway (leave it to me to try to bake in the middle of the last week of school with three plays, two recitals and two all-school-eurythmy performances, not to mention a puppet show, Griffin's celebration, Chris's birthday, French lessons, Cello lessons, ballet class and ice skating.)  I might try the recipe again sometime, when I'm more calm, but I might not because the other apple cake recipe from Apples For Jam is just so darn foolproof and delicious, why change?  Indeed.  But I am attempting this no-knead bread recipe (without the lemon - I have no zest, at the moment) because, really, how can I fail?  You hardly touch it.  It practically makes itself!  I have the dough brewing as we speak. 

But really, I'm writing to say that I'm very excited because I have indeed been accepted into the Photo Trade swap for June!  I wasn't sure if I was, because I hadn't heard anything and wondered if my email had gotten lost or sent to spam or forgotten, but it wasn't, happily, and now I'm scrambling to get prints of the photo I took so I can mail it to my recipient on time.  I'm trying three different online printing services.  I'll let you know which I prefer (I'm very picky about the paper my photos get printed on).  I'll post the photo after I've sent it (I have to check the rules on that one, but I think they're pretty lenient).

Two more days of school!

the fruit whale, continued...

I managed to snag a photo of that whale-ish fruit bowl this morning:

Ta-dah!!! 

It's the best I could do. 

I nixed the "spout" idea, because no matter how I placed them on top of the whale's head(?), they just looked like ears or weird eyebrows or extra fins or something.  They didn't want to look like a spout, but never mind.  We didn't need them.  Griffin was pleased and that's all that matters.  I was just thrilled that I made it all the way to school (driving with this thing on my lap) without spilling the entire contents all over my pants and sweater and car (that part of the adventure could have used a wee bit more planning - where do you put a watermelon bowl full of fruit in the car without it rolling around, anyway?). 

Thank you Gods of watermelon travel.  You were with me this morning, it seems.  Thank you.