Paper Folding (by sarah)

Origami and me... I am still in a paper folding craze.

So for Christmas I got a flower folding kit but realised that I wasn't really good enough for the flowers and did not want to waste the nice paper. So I started cutting up bits of old books to fold and ordered 1000 little origami scares.

As I'd attempted the flowers I began to remember paper folds I'd done as a child, things for the playground in infants and juniors 🙂 And hats my nans and great aunts and uncles would fold to entertain me from newspapers.

We used to make little fortune telling paper puzzles that would turn inside out and boxes and bags where always useful.

I remember discovering the word origami when my brother got an epic book with a red T-rex on the front (it might have been a dragon but I wanted to fold dinosaurs!). So when he got board of it me and dad would spend hours folding. Paper is kind of the medium we made things in anyway, I remember making dinosaurs and seascapes and houses out of papier mache and folded cereal box cardboard. Dad would make elaborate hats out of sugar paper from the docks where he worked when I was little and I still remember me and my brother both winning the different categories for our paper easter bonnets.

Mum showed me you could curl it to make fringes and waves and bows out of paper, then there was the quilling which I would make pictures out of. There was a lot of paper about when I was little as there was office waste which got brought home.

My brother's book had some paper with it but he used that (and rightly so it was his!) me and dad would cut old copy paper and magazines and things into squares and then his penknife wasn't about I found you could make paper rip if you keep folding it first one way and then the other and run your nails along the crease repeatedly.

One of my nans showed me how to make paper beads and I made loads and attempted to sell the jewellery I'd made out of them - I was 5 yrs old - amazingly all the old ladies in and around "the corner" of our streets bought the damn things! Rolled up paper on scraps of wool with felt tip flowers and spots on.

The other nan showed me how to make paper straws which are amazingly useful including being used to weave straw dollies, baskets and used in general as construction materials.

Paper... I've made alot with paper from my poetry dragons to treasure chests to vases of flowers.

But back to paper folding, I never managed to make my dinosaur, it was modular and a big fold and I found most of the paper we had was just too thick when folded small.

Roll on university where friends would make little jumping frogs and penguins and things and give them to me. They showed me how to make them and one even tried to drag me along to her origami club... but university was not a great paper folding time for me.

I was loosing the use of my hand, they were turning to rubber with RSI, reactive arthritis and general joint inflammation. Then there was crutches thrown into the mix which kill your hands. I didn't realise this was happening until the end of my 3rd year (actually my 4th year at uni), when I loss the use of them completely for about 2 weeks just before my exams!

My roommate at the time had tried to show me how to fold these most AMAZING modular spheres but my hands would have none of it 🙁 I still have two of the little spheres we use them as Christmas decorations - paper balls folded well over a decade ago. I have no idea where my room mate is now I should have told her how much I loved her origami.

During Jean's pregnancy my hands swelled and again it took some time to get the use back but the first thing I did when we started running the Cubs and Scouts was design what was to become the poetry dragon but again the concept came from a Christmas play I'd done in junior school about dragons in the moon and sun. I was the bum of the dragon, we made little models - when we were learning the story - my model is different in that I took the square concertina fold we used for Christmas decorations to make the long wiggly body rather than cloth and then I drew a dragon head and tail which you could fold and cut and stick and fix to the body and I did not have budget for sticks so used drinking straws.

I have ended up taking these dragons into schools, run poetry workshops with them, made them big and small, they've been to music festivals and even for various chinese new year celebrations.

I adapted it to dragon boats using over lapping circles - they are not origami I think because they use scissors and sticky and my floating lanterns used paper clips.

More it like origami is an added tool to my paper repitoir to go with the papier mache and stamps and punches.

It is however something I am considering a new skill, I've never before applied myself to origami. I got a voucher for Christmas so I ordered some funky paper and a few more books - I do not have my brothers books instead I have two falling to pieces paper backs from the 70's which I've inherited from various elderly relatives. They pretty much contain stuff I just needed a little reminder of or rediculously complicated projects! So I also ordered two books one is Easy Origami and the other was dragons... yes I know but I could not resist 🙂

Of course I also ordered some more felting needles.

Interestingly I am having lots of ideas and inspiration with the origami not sure if it's because I am having all the rests and naps the nurologist suggested or weather this is just normal with origami. I spent today designing two workshops for festivals etc... and making bits for when I take my books and zines to shows. Thinking about it the making of the zines is paper craft too.

As I fold shapes say the hearts at the beginning of the post I think... this could be the top of a dress, or if we stop the folding at this point you could turn it into a fox and if we squeeze it like this and drew some whiskers it would be a mouse...

Turns out they also fit as page corners!

I made Alaric a load of cufflinks for advent, he is currently making himself a cufflink holder out of metal but it is going to take a while so I folded him a temporary cufflink holder.

The hearts are for Mary's birthday, I have also worked out a couple of the flowers from the kit which she wants for her party too 🙂 and it's a little tricky but I found a tutorial for 3D diamonds which I will attempt (It's My Little Pony themed and we are also making lots of hama bead decorations too!).

She wants some nice boxes for sweets and things to sit in too so some of the funky paper I got is very pink and pretty for this purpose - I improvised these boxes on the base of a basket.

Annoyingly the funky paper all arrived before the books I've ordered and then today the dragon book arrived but not the easy origami! Still the internet has helped, I've started up a pinterest board call Folding Space.

So year origami - I'm loving it, finding people on twitter and youtube and blogs and things too 🙂

Pony’s and Paper (by sarah)

Today was quiet, everyone but me went away, I sent my eldest off into the icy morn without her tie because though we thought we had sorted everything days ago the tie had slipped our notice, the same as we forgot to go shoe shopping in the sales. She got to borrow one from student services and is not yet in trouble - we still can't find the tie!

Youngest had her first day at after school club and came back more hyper than ever, she arrived home after her sister which was weird!

She was a little tearful mainly I think because she will not sleep and of course school during the day means no naps, she was still a pickle when it came to bed time tonight. She is being good to the cats as her new years resolution - she got licked and not scratched today - this has cheered her up.

After chickens had been fed and watered Jean did homework and Mary played with her set up of play mat, palaces and my little pony, moshi monsters and disney princesses.

Dinner was still Christmas food - we are still in Christmas here and will be until the 6th. Jean announced that when ever she starts looking at religions and studying them all she can see is plot holes.

They then played minecraft together, Mary went to bed and we watched Steins:gate just the first episode with Alaric so he can start sorting his cosplay for the Comic Book Festival. Now I am awaiting the chest nuts he is toasting and yes I did not make it to the first Drink and Draw of the year - I'm not really sure the evening ones are going to be that doable for me anymore 🙁 but fortunately they do now have weekend ones as well 😀

So what did I do all day whilst my family where away?

Well I actually got to do all the rests that I am supposed to do, and inbetween them I managed to have an amazing almost the old me day... I wrote 1000 words of fiction, I sorted out cross posting and other blogging issues. I processed a few photos. I can get max 2 hrs of high concentration done and that is split up and broken.

With great effort I have stuck to calories (1600 until the end of the week and yes that includes the chestnuts), my arthritis is being a little act uppy at the moment which sucks but I'm good.

This means I have not done much physical exercise today but have done some.

I had the most lovely amazon delivery lady 🙂 Really churpy and happy, she delivered sparkly my little pony stuff for Mary's birthday which I will probably actually do the party for in February as I need more space to plan and do things than I used to - it the shift from being physically unable but mentally capable to the other way around - physically I am the best I've been as an adult but brain is a big fat raspberry (ie I just wrote the same paragraph in slightly differing forms three times because I had already forgotten I'd written it!).

Also there was origami paper - lovely lovely multiple sizes paper - but sadly the books I've ordered at various points with money and vouchers have still not arrived so I am stuck with the 70's falling to pieces project and what ever vids I can find!

Still I have started improvising and making up my own projects and to my utter amazement - today I came up with new ideas for workshops - I've been working on ideas I had already planned before the head injury and fortunately there had been alot of them - but this... this was brand new ideas with brand new skills and there was not one but two of them!!! With variants 😀

Yeah so origami featured in my day whilst "watching" the Hogfather - I was lonely so put it on in the back ground - again this is something I have not been able to really do since the head injury - I managed to focus on a project with background noise. I wanted the sounds because I was lonely - so happy about managing this 🙂

A Mix of Things (by sarah)

Today has been lovely and annoying, destructive and creative in turn.

Mary Elf and the Tinsel Dragon Cat have been up to shinanigans - I wonder which of them decided to poo on the table cloth this morning - the nice white one with shiny white flowers on it that snags easily that my aunt bought us? I assume it was the cat, it smelt like cat - I was not happy but here they are being cute - the sequence will be storyfied never you fear.

The Tinsel Dragon Cat was lonely and felt quiet rightly that it did not have enough tinsel so it called to the Mary Elf, a little rainbow of a thing that hopes here and there and everywhere and never EVER stops talking.

The Mary Elf attended the great Tinsel Dragon who was once again in it's most comfitable of guises as the young cat Lithium. Mary Elf listened with care to the instructions of the Tinsel Dragon Cat.

The instructions where simple... go forth and fetch all the tinsel that abounds across this fair and mighty land and bring it back for a snuggly bed was to be crafted.

So the Mary Elf went and had many adventures over great lakes that others called puddles and scoured vast deserts of "the super market", onward the little rainbow bounce trekked until the was a montain to scale of stairs scattered with toys which she had to tidy.

Until she bought home much tinsel for the Tinsel Dragon Cat to sleep upon. So pleased was the dragon in it's guise as little Lithium the pusskin that with paw and claw Mary Elf was Knighted most valiant in all the land of Front Room. There was much rejoicing.

The End

But not of our day. Unwanted turd cleaned up Al's cousins turned up and we did presents and things and had tea and headed out for a lovely greek meal in Gloucester Docks.

Except our car wouldn't start - this has increasingly been an issue we need to take the battery out and top it up (or that was our first thought anyway). So we headed out in the van after we'd moved all the tents and greenpeace signs I picked up at the wood recylcing project to turn into something for the garden - if we ever get stopped by the police (happens a lot when you drive a van) then we might have trouble convincing them that we are not militant activists or something!!!

The meal was lovely though Mary did not like the octipus tentical that was served up to one of our number - she loves octipi and talks to them when she sees them. She almost tried a prawn.

I felt guilty that all the presents we handed over where home made and embarassed that the scarf and hat that glow in light where knitted using the looms and not just on needles - I kind of feel it's cheating but I am getting neat results with the looms and still struggling about with needle knitting.

I got a lovely wooden bowl.

I hear there is a computer game and things too and Mary is excited about knitting the little mouse that is her present 🙂

The resturant we were aiming for was actually closed so we ended up the opposite side of town to where we had parks, there was a cunning plan of Al and Maurice getting the car and van and picking us up. It went abit haywire as plans often but all was well with a bit of twoing and throwing.

We said goodbye and headed back home, it was getting dark, the sun set was a beautiful striation across of the city and sea scape of the dock, I failed to take a photo I'm not sure why.

There were swans.

Our car was clicking and clicking and clicking and clicking when we got home, it had been locking and unlocking itself continously whilst we had been out. Roll on car madness involving origami, welding and drinking straws.

The moon was a finger nail sliver and venus (I think) was bright and garish.

I used Jean's head as a camera stand. I also had to help her with her homework by taking photos of her in posses from some famous artist. His drawings look like Mary's, no honestly they do!

Back to fixing the car... we needed to take the battery out but a terminal cover was needed and there wasn't one on the battery so origami came to the rescue!!!!

I am so proud of this that you are going to see it in action from three different angles!

It was to stop accidental contact and sparkage!

It is folded from half a page from a very old and battered copy of an Enid Blighton book. It was beyond salvage and has been used in three different craft projects and now fixing a car.

The contacts were all pretty corroded - enough that I am wondering if that is part of the problems we've been having. We have like a spare jump start battery - the car reset itself with that and stopped the damn clicking which must have been driving our poor neighbours made as it was outside their window 🙁

The fault also left the car basically unlocked, there was only really some loom knitting and survival tools and some cuddlies and colouring in books of the girls in the car but still I'm sure we would be grumpy if they got stolen!

Turns out there's a battery bracket/brace with a slightly inaccessible bolt.

I held the torch and after accidently getting Imperial and Metric round the wrong way Al got his long bolt undoing tool firmly in place and turned, all locked home and good seeming there was a crunch and then the thing went round and around.... because the force had broken it :/

The bolt had not moved.

Other tools where got but would not fit or reach etc...

Queue the welding and adapting of a screw driver to make an undoing of the bolt tool. The new belt sander I got Al for Christmas was also used, the go pro failed to record sadly so there will be no funky video 🙁

He tried it... it needed further adapting.

And again. He was resigned and cold.

Back out in the ice he went and... the damn thing broke and the bolt was still firmly in place.

Kids fed and in bed, we ate our Christmas pudding - it's a gluten free one so it fell to pieces but we had some special brandy butter and it was nice and warm and filling.

We decided to add penetrating oil but the reason we had not already done this is that the little tube for getting into narrow spaces was not long enough so a drinking straw had to be used to extend it so that we could actually get the oil down to the bolt. A special tool will have to be got to get the battery out. We used the jumpstart battery to lock the doors and packed up for the night. School run in the van which will be interesting as car share kid has a broken leg so will need help getting in and out 🙁

But it should be possible, other down side is that Al will have to pay for parking as the free carpark for his new job has a height restriction (£8 a day and it obv. ates fuel).

He is now PC minecrafting it to calm down.

I've been doing more origami...

This is what I mostly made 🙂

Muse Monster Book Corners or origami bookmarks, they are a variant on the hats I used to fold out of newspaper 🙂

I am making them to go with The Monster Blog Zines and Wiggly Pet publications that I make. They will be making a debut at the Ok True Believers Comic Book Festival in Cheltenham this Feb.

And then I wrote this post.

The Hackspace Grand Opening (by sarah)

Those of you who follow me on various social media will have seen the photos of Cheltenham Hackspace new premises being spruced up and that is because tomorrow (well today now!) is the grand opening 😀

Sunday 4th of December - if you are local then please pop along - hackspaces or createspaces are made by and for the community and we'd love to meet you 🙂

I'll be taking along steam punk and textile stuff to be working on and have plenty of spare so others can have a go! There is plenty to see and people to talk to and skill share with 🙂

Also I have been making craft videos for Advent as it turns out it is the tenth Christmas of Salaric Crafts How To Blog!!!

Of course I only have 2 vids up and it is now technically day 4 - annoyingly obsolete laptop is obsolete and is being a pain in the backside but I shall continue limping along with it and hopefully get the other two vids to you some time tomorrow!

I also have a craft fayre Monday at the Costa Coffee on Metz Way in Gloucester 🙂 Mainly taking Wiggly Pet Press stuff with a bit of Steam Punk etc...

Within and Without Virtual Launch Party (by sarah)

This weekend is the virtual launch party of my poetry, music and art album Within and Without. It went live at 10 am this morning 🙂

There will be give aways and postings of links, explanations of the recordings, videos and more. I am running a Facebook Event, a Google Plus Collection as well as blogging across various platforms 🙂

I will be going until 11 pm Sunday evening!

Within and Without is an on going art, poetry and music project that I started several years ago. This is the first part and contains the visual poem A Stranger Dream which is also a colouring in book I have produced. Some of the colouring in sheets or art visuals are included in the download along with art work from a sister book not yet released that goes with the track Winter's Heart.

The whole download costs £1 and comes free with any merch purchase you make. If you wish to just just purchase the merch you can go to my Etsy shop.

I hope you all enjoy the work.