DIY Life

Going to the nursery to buy starter plants is super easy, but doesn't really fulfill our quest to "go green". After all, someone else did the hard work of planting those seeds, so all we have to do is buy the potted plant. Being a busy person myself, I can understand why even the most avid gardener would slip into a nursery undercover and unnoticed to buy starter plants they didn't have time to start themselves.

I have the seeds, but haven't started my own pots yet. I do believe I will be planting the seeds this weekend, thanks to a tutorial on newspaper seed starter pots. The tutorial shows us through step by step pictures and wonderfully worded instructions exactly how to rip and fold a sheet of newspaper so that it becomes a beautiful little seed starter pot.

The tutorial takes my love of origami and my love of gardening and puts it together in one neat little package, er, pot. With the neat origami pot, I can conveniently save a trip to the nursery. Tell us in the comments how you start your seed pots.

[Via: TipNut]

This past Monday, March 3rd, was the yearly celebration of Hinamatsuri in Japan.

The name is variously translated as "Girls' Day" or "The Doll Festival." Although it functions as a day devoted to prayer for the growth and happiness of young girls, and probably originated as a celebration of the year's first peach blossoms (an alternate name is Momo no sekku, or "Peach Festival"), special ornamental dolls have become synonymous with the holiday.

Hinamatsuri is fun for little girls and their parents, and also appealing if you love to buy or create miniatures, or just have an interest in Japanese culture. Please join us after the break for more information about a few of the holiday's traditions, the dolls themselves, and lots of links to free downloads and projects.

Sadly, while the doll display is often set up some time in February, it's considered bad luck to leave your personal hina ningyo out for very long after March 3rd (a superstition suggests that the little girl who does so will never marry).

It's good news for you: an excuse to do one of the following projects right away!

• ShojoBeat magazine's Hina doll pattern (PDF download) doesn't come with instructions; they ran in the magazine. You need smooth cotton cloth, iron-on transfer paper for your printer, stuffing for soft dolls (poly-fill), and hand-sewing skills. Print the doll patterns onto the transfer paper, then cut them out and transfer them to the fabric. Cut out the fabric (leaving the pink seam allowance), pin each doll's two halves together with the right sides facing, and stitch most of the way around (I would leave the bottom open). If you know how to clip into the seam allowance while sewing a curved item, it might be a good idea. Remove pins and turn the doll right-side-out through the un-stitched area. Stuff the doll and sew the bottom shut. Voila: you have a royal couple!
• Yamaha's printable papercraft display with "dolls" and accessories (PDF download), and English-language instructions for assembly (also a PDF).
• Manga-style empress doll coloring page.
• Hina doll coloring page (from a French site which is also the source of many of these links).
• Fold your own hina ningyo with Tammy Yee's printable origami emperor and empress. Assembly instructions are included.
• With Cedarseed's Hinamatsuri desktop icons and wallpaper, you can celebrate all year round! The wallpaper shows the platform, and the dolls are the icons. Available for Windows, Mac, and others.

Every week Francesca Clarke tells us how involving kids can make DIY fun, rewarding, and keep them out of trouble too. Welcome to the science of wrangling rug-rats into doing their own DIY projects and exploring the world while making it better. Watch out for the hot glue!

Last week we celebrated Valentine's day by crafting butterfly puppets and floral decorations. This week I'll show you how to make origami fortune tellers. This DIY version of the magic 8 ball, also called a cootie-catcher was iconic in the 80's. All you need is a piece of paper, scissors and a pencil.

Most of you will remember them from sixth or seventh grade, where you'd huddle around the fortune teller and eagerly await your fate. Some of you will take out a sheet of paper and fold one in seconds, remembering each move as if you were playing it yesterday. Others will fumble with it, folding and re-folding, trying to replicate this childhood game.

For the fumblers, here's how to re-create the origami craft with your own kiddies.

I am so in love with the art of origami, but sometimes feel like a new born babe who just can't get her hands to move correctly to fold a piece of paper into a magical work of art. I can do an elephant, a flying bird, and a gift box, but can't do a lampshade or even a hedgehog.

The possibilities of what you can create are endless, as is clear in this article on Wisebread; 8 fun and frugal things to do with origami. If you have a wedding coming up, make your own centerpieces. Make someone you love an origami greeting card. Give a gift in an origami fabric container. Make jewelry. You can even turn your old business cards into neat origami works of art.

Anytime you get bored and think there is nothing to do, pick up a piece of paper or cloth and turn it into something amazing. Just don't let your boss catch you at your new found craft! You may find yourself fixing that piece of paper into a "hire me" sign.

You just never know when you might be in need of a small container. Sure, you can be prepared with small plastic containers or a water bottle. But what about those times when somebody wants a drink of your water and you just don't feel like sharing their germs? Or maybe you find yourself with a car full of children and all of them wanting some chips but you don't want the crumbs all over your newly cleaned upholstery? These are the perfect times to whip up a small paper cup.

The classic cup pattern that many of us learned sometime back in middle school is a practical and cheap solution to situations like the above examples. You will need a square piece of paper and the set of directions to whip up the cup, you could either print out the directions or take a minute or two to memorize them. Once done, it should be easy to construct the cup when the need arises. Typing paper is likely best if the cup is intended for drinking, but if you plan on using it for snack, recycling a magazine page could work just as well.

A word to the wise: these cups are not meant for long term us nor are they intended for hot liquids.

Kids love to draw and create things with paper. If they are complaining this holiday season that they don't have any money to get Gramma and Grampa the perfect Christmas gift, sit them down with some paper to make a paper lampshade.

Tomoko Fuse made an origami paper lampshade with a large piece of paper that was folded over and over again. The corner folding continued at the halfway points of the paper, with the paper being well creased with a bone folder. Horizontal creases were made at all intersections, which completed the folding process. The model was bend around so that all diagonal folds became mountains.

Your kids will not complain about being bored anymore if you give them the paper to do this fun origami project. Use caution with the fire retardant spray, please. An adult should spray the paper lampshade in a well ventilated area.

If you're looking for a unique way to wrap a small gift, or would like to make a few last-minute ornaments or package decorations, why not try fabric origami? Armed with fabric stiffener and a few tools, you can get leftover fabric to behave just like paper... with the exception of the fact that you can just iron out any mistakes.

While the Fabric Origami web site discusses preparing the fabric, there isn't much information about what to do with the stiffened fabric: they want to sell you the patterns. (That's not going to help if you want to do this in the next few days!) Here are a few sites with free instructions for origami boxes, which you can make with fabric or paper:

• A basic origami box pattern.
• The Origami Resource Center's page of box patterns and tutorials: this site has dozens of links. Not all of the links are in English, but most have diagrams that are clear enough that it doesn't matter. This is the place to go if you'd like to make boxes in shapes like octagons or pyramids.
• Origami box video at Expert Village (3:18): Similar to the video above, but the demonstrator talks you through the project.
• Kristina Werner's origami box video (5:54) is probably the best of the three, showing you how to make a larger box with scrapbooking papers.

Wrapping paper is so often just thrown away; that's a waste of money and bad for the environment. This year, why not try to make the packaging part of your gifts? These origami box designs are simple to make, and recipients can enjoy them all year long. Best of all, they don't take much longer to make than it would take to wrap a present in the first place.

I have never been on a Carnival cruise, but I know that it is common practice for a guest to enter their room and find their towels shaped into friendly animals. These cute animals are known as "towel origami." Guests love returning to their room and finding their towels shaped into everything from a peacock to an elephant.

Leslie Millet is a busy stay at home mom who makes towels into animals and has a free video that shows you how to make them. She demonstrates how to make Eddie the Elephant with a large towel and a hand towel. She takes the large towel, folds each side in about 4 inches, and then rolls each side into the center to make the legs. Then she takes the hand towel, puts it in her mouth, and rolls each side to make his head. I don't know about you, but now I want to see how to make all the other origami towel animals so that I can turn all my towels into fun shapes. What do you think?

Origami is one of those crafts that requires real skill. Some people just get it while others don't. I am definitely in the don't when it comes to folding origami. These instruction detailing how to make an origami flying bird, take you through all the folding steps. There are 20 steps and it is recommended that you keep your folds as clean and precise as possible, making the whole project easier.
Here are the supplies you'll need:

• Table or hard surface
• Two hands
• Paper
• Reading skills
• Patience
• Scissors

I suspect my main reason for failure is that I never bring enough patience. Still, if you think you can tackle it, this is one of the neatest origami projects I've seen. This isn't the traditional Japanese peace crane, it is a bird with flapping wings. The simple fact that it's animated will be a huge hit with the children.

Here is one of the cheapest children's craft projects that I know of. I learned about the newspaper captain's hat from that old favorite book, Curious George and The Man in the Yellow Hat. By following the instructions provided in that book, my brothers and I made many a hat which fueled many hours of imaginative fun.

I found some of the best and easiest to understand instructions for the newspaper hat project have already been provided by our friends over at Instructables, so rather than taking up valuable Internet resources by rehashing the project, I shall direct your attention to their fine site. Please also note that they provide a link to other folded paper hat designs. You and your child can have hours of fun creating these hats and building fun stories around them.

Just when I thought I was pretty good at origami, I saw this and realized my efforts only amount to a faint crease in the vast art of paper folding:


In a small suburb of Paris, Eric Joisel creates works of staggering origami genius that really are heartbreakingly beautiful. Note to Tolkien fans: don't miss the hobbits and dwarves in the "faeries" section of his website.

It's hard to believe he creates each of these 3D paper sculptures with a single sheet of paper, but the guy is legit. He does make an exception to the single-sheet rule for his musician series: the musicians' instruments are made from a separate piece of paper.

In case you want to give it a go, he provides instructions on how to make a baby hedgehog, a design that took him more than five years to develop. Let's just say it's not for novices. For now I'm content to simply gaze on with envy and awe.