This past week I needed a simple activity to distract me from being desperately unhappy about being on a diet of gelatinous material.  For some reason I can’t fathom now, I allowed some villains to remove seven of my teeth.  I think I must have been tricked.  I get rather put out when I am denied enjoyment of tasty foodstuffs.   Combined with all the other discomforts resulting from teeth thievery this made me a big Grumpasaurus Rex.  To alleviate this situation I turned to my store of instant gratification projects.

I find paper folding rather relaxing and it doesn’t get much easier than these cute little stars.  It is a pleasant sort of mindless activity.  It’s the type of thing that girls enjoy making in class when they are supposed to be taking notes.  All you need is some paper, a pair of scissors, and time to kill.  The scissors can even be optional if you are good at folding and tearing paper.

So what do you do with all these tiny stars?  I like to put them into all my packages like 3D confetti.  Some people make gobs of them and put them in pretty vases and jars.  I’ve also seen people coat them with a clear sealer (like Mod Podge) and use them for earrings and other jewelry.  I think it would be neat to string them up like a beaded garland.  Or you can throw them at the cat and/or significant other.

I know there are lots of other tutorials out there for these things, but making a tutorial and taking lots of pictures was part of the strategic distraction from my dental woes.

Tiny Paper Stars

or

Origami Mini Stars

Materials/Tools

• Some sort of paper:  copy paper, magazines, etc
• Scissors

Notes: Avoid thick or stiff paper.  Paper that is about the thickness of regular copy paper is ideal.  Old magazines with the slick, sort of thin paper works great.  I particularly like seed catalogs and coupon clippers because they are colorful too.  If you want to be fancy, some people sell paper specifically for these stars.  It’s already cut into strips and has pretty patterns and colors.  Search for “origami” or “lucky” star paper.

The Making

1. Cut the paper into long narrow strips.  A paper cutter is very handy for the part if you have one.  The strips should be somewhere between 1/4″ to 1/2″ wide and 10 or so inches long.  It doesn’t have to be very exact.  If you are using a magazine or regular size sheets of paper, just make them the length of the long side of the paper.  I made these about 1/2″ wide but I really prefer them 3/8″ to 1 cm or just a bit smaller.  You can experiment with different widths to see what size you prefer.  Just a tip, wide strips work better if they are longer too.  Conversely for skinnier strips it doesn’t need to be as long.

All those garishly colored ads finally have a purpose!

1. Take one of the strips and basically make a knot at one end.  To start out make a loop a couple of inches from one end (1).  Whichever side you want to show should be on the outside of the loop and the short end should cross underneath the long end.  Take the short end and tuck it back through the loop (2).  Holding this end, carefully start to pull the other end to make the knot snug without crinkling it.  Start to flatten the knot and continue to pull the knot snug (3).  The goal is eliminate the gaps at the corners and form a tidy little pentagon.  Once the knot is tight, completely flatten it and trim the short end close to the edge of the pentagon.

If you leave gaps like this the star will be lopsided or lumpy

1. Fold the long tail across the little pentagon (5).  It should line up neatly along one edge (6).  Flip the whole thing over and repeat (7).  Continue flipping and folding until you get to the end of the paper (8).
2. Fold the little flap over and carefully tuck it in under the two layers that cross over it.  Ta-da!  You now have a cute little origami pentagon.

Eep! I really should have cut my nails.

If the tab at the end is too short or difficult to tuck in, trim it off and tuck in the new flap instead.

1. Lightly holding the little pentagon in one hand along the edges(9), with the other hand use your fingernail to push in the middle of one side (10).  (Pretend I have a tripod for my camera and I can use both hands for 10)  Repeat for the remaining four sides and magically your pentagon has transformed into a puffy little star.  If you want the points to be crisper, carefully pinch the tips (*).  Some people use pliers or tweezers for that part.
2. Repeat ad nauseum with more paper until you have gazillions of tiny stars.  They are much better in large quantities.  Just a warning, they aren’t hard to make, but can be time consuming if you make a lot.  However, it’s a nice activity while you are watching tv or something else mindless.

Troubleshooting

If the stars are crumpling when you try to push in the side, your paper is too thin and you should use longer strips so there are more layers.

If the sides are too stiff to push in, your paper is too thick.  Try making the strips shorter and if that doesn’t work, find a thinner paper.

And lastly, remember these are for fun and don’t have to be perfect to be cute.

That’s all for now folks.  Maybe I can get around to covering my adventures in canning soon.

Every now and then I find it important to have what I consider an “instant gratification” project.  Usually it’s the end of the week and my brain is through being creative, but I still want to make something.  Other times I use it as a pick-me-up when I get frustrated because a prototype has just epically failed or I’ve had another string of losing battles with my sewing machine.  It’s something that I know I can’t screw up and that is going to turn out fine even if everything else I’ve been working on has made me want to cry.    Ideally these projects are quick and entertaining, cheap as free (or nearly so), and don’t require any special tools or skills.  I’ve come up with many of these projects over the years, so this is the first of many in this theme.

This week’s project is actually the result of two things, just for fun and also a little bit of necessity.  I’ve been doing a lot of custom commissions lately and needed to unwind a bit.  I love custom work and coming up with new designs, but it is a bit brain taxing by the end of the week.  I’ve also been attempting to get a bit more organized.  I write lots of notes to myself, like new ideas for stuffed animals, important dates, tiny drawings for who knows what, and an assortment of other random information.  Unfortunately I usually write these things on any handy post-it note or scrap of paper within reach.  As you can imagine this leads to a disarray of scattered notes that is not particularly useful or organized.

This is on a good day

I’ve used this unkempt method for years, so I’m pretty adept at dealing with my “rat’s nest” method of filing, but I’m working on this whole “grown-up” thing.  I suppose the modern approach is to use the computer or fancy phone or even a planner to keep track of these things, but I like the more tactile approach.  The act of physically writing things down and list making are both very gratifying to me.  My first thought was to buy several of those tiny little pocket Moleskines.  I have a strange affection for tiny little books and they come in all sorts of wonderful colors.  Then I recalled that I didn’t really have the extra money to spend on an army of tiny notebooks, and I didn’t need to anyways.  I’ve had a book on bookmaking that I’d barely touched so why couldn’t I just make my own booklets?  Double plus bonus, I could make them basically for free and they are super easy!  Thus inspired I proceeded to make several of these handy booklets and I took lots of pictures so you can too.

Tiny Booklets 101

Materials

• 1 4×6″ rectangle of thick paper such as cardstock or thin cardboard like a cereal box
• 8 4×6″ sheets of regular paper like plain printer paper or lined notebook paper
• Sturdy thread, waxed if you can find it

Optional

• Beeswax to wax the thread
• Markers, paint, stamps, or whatever you want to decorate your book

Tools

• Scissors or a paper cutter
• Sewing needle, embroidery size is pretty good
• Awl or other pointy/pokey tool
• Ruler
• Bone folder, knitting needle, or your own fingernails
  

  Click to zoom in

A few notes on tools and materials: These instructions make a booklet that is 3×4″ big with 16 pages.  A sheet of 8 1/2x 11″ paper is enough for 2 4×6″ rectangles, so you would need one sheet of cardstock and 4 pieces of plain paper to make one book.  If you are creative you can make this all out of recycled materials like leftover scraps of paper and cardboard.  If you want to be a bit fancier, you could buy some of that scrapbooking paper that has all the pretty patterns and colors.  I didn’t feel like hunting down waxed thread, so I just used regular thread and ran it through some beeswax a couple of times.  If you don’t have beeswax either, it’s really not that important.

I don’t own an awl, so I improvised and switched out the blade of my exacto knife with a sturdy needle (like for embroidery).  This is a pretty handy tool for lots of other projects too.  I also don’t own bone folder, which is a traditional tool for paper folding, but I figured out that the tip of a knitting needle or something else hard like your fingernail works too.  And finally, if you want really even pages, a rotary cutter or paper cutter is great and makes things a lot quicker.

The Making

1. Fold all of your inner sheets and the cover paper in half.  I would recommend folding the inner paper separately from the cover.  Run a bone folder (or knitting needle or fingernail) along the folds so they are nice and crisp.  If you are using really thick paper or thin cardboard, you may want to score (lightly cut) down the middle before you fold.
   

   Look at that beautiful folding!

   

   The crisper the fold the flatter the book will be.

2. With the cover paper and the pages put together, poke three holes along the fold.  One should be in the middle and the others about a 1/2″ from the top and the bottom.  If your pokey tool is kind of thin like mine, wiggle it around a bit to make the holes a little bigger.  Make sure to put something like a phone book or a stack of newspaper under your booklet before this step so you don’t also put a hole in your table.
   

   Stabitty, Stab, Stab

3. Now it’s time to break out the needle and thread.  Thread your needle with 18-20″ of thread and DO NOT knot the end.  Starting from the inside of the booklet push the needle down through the center hole and pull the thread until only a couple of inches (or enough to comfortable tie off with) are left sticking out.  Keeping a hold of that tail, bring the needle back up through the top hole and then back down through the bottom hole, gently pulling up all the slack each time.  Finally, carefully poke the needle back up the middle hole, being careful not to poke through the thread that goes across the middle.  Gently pull up the slack again and trim to the same length as the beginning tail.
   

   This is where it begins

   

   The stitching should go in the numbered order

   

   Now you’re ready for knotting

4. With one tail to each side of the string down the center, tie the two ends together in a square knot over the middle.  Trim the tails however long you prefer, but don’t cut them all the way to the knot.  It’s very important that the knot be over the middle string so it can’t pull back through the hole.  If you don’t know how to tie a square knot, I’ve included some informative pictures.
   

   It is very important the knot is around this string.

   

   Remember, right over left, left over right

   

   This knot looks very similar, but isn’t as good

5. Technically the booklets are finished at this point, but I think they look better and will lay flatter if you leave them under something heavy (like a pile of textbooks) for a couple of days.  Just don’t forget where you left them unless you like surprise books.  I suppose that’s kind of fun too though.  After this, or before if you skip it, decorate to your heart’s content and enjoy!
   

   I like my tails kind of long

   

   View from the outside

   

   I tried one with pleather, but it curled up too much.

Like I said before, these books are very easy to put together and don’t take very much time either.  It’s a great way to use up scrap paper and I can be as creative or lazy as I want with them.  They are a very appropriate purse or pocket size and I can have a different one for each new purpose.  It has been very helpful for keeping track of hours I spend on my work, and all the different projects I’m supposed to be working on.   Now I have to decide what to do with this newest batch.  Or maybe I’ll go make some more.