Toying with paper

The two craft materials I collect and love the most are yarn and paper. But really, paper is my first love. I was that weird kid (still am) who liked going into office supply stores and just looking around.

Then I grew up and discovered the wonderful world of origami, and began a real paper obsession. I’ve got piles of every kind of washi imaginable from my trips to Japan; I have a delicious collection of Korean hanji; amongst it all are papers from Southeast Asia, Europe, and the good, old U.S. of A.

Just a peek at what I made tonight – I’ve jumped on the origami pin bandwagon. My pin origami figures use small paper, 6 cm square, which can result in figures about the size of a coin.

1) goldfish – about 2 cm across, 2) tiny turtle, 3) kimono

Simple figures are best with small paper. All those folds tend to distort the figure a bit, so minimal is nice.

For the stick pin, I made one of my all-time favorite figures, a goldfish, from washi I picked up in Kyoto. I’m running low on the small stuff, so will definitely stock up when I am in Tokyo this winter.

1) paper craze, 2) I might wear this tomorrow, 3) tiny paper

I really love stick pins. I’ve been wanting one for a long time, with a cobalt blue flower of some sort, so I guess I will just have to make one.

I’ve also included seasonally-appropriate photos of a squirrel and a fox I made earlier this year. The squirrel is about 6 cm in height. I’ll share more of my itsy-bitsy origami, as well as a few of my all-time favorite paper crafts (including a mosaic), in a future post.