30 Days of Creativity - #12

Paper Crafts

Figure1. Starting an origami triangle

Today was a day to try some paper crafts. I had recently gotten a couple of books from the library—one on paper tessellations and one on origami. It was time to try something from each. It ended up being  a family affair, with my daughters trying their hands as well.

Origami Triangle, Origami Pyramid

Not being in an overly ambitious mood, I made a simple triangle out of a square piece of paper (Figure 1). Big whoop. Realizing that was not very impressive, I proceeded to a three sided pyramid. Big Whoop!

Tessellated Paper

Figure 2. Old and interesting gummed paper

This was actually more interesting, and was tackled by the girls. I had recently obtained some very interesting gummed paper at an estate sale and hadn't come up with a legitimate gummy use for it yet, so we figured, "what the heck." It has an interesting fuzzy texture, but turned out not to be ideal for the purpose (Figure 2). It does not hold a crisp edge, which is necessary to get a large number of precise folds into it. I also tears too easily.

But, somehow they got it to work and produces the attractive curved shape shown in the middle of figure 3. Figure three also shows the origami pyramid.

Figure 3. Triangle, tessellation, and pyramid

The tessellation book recommends mulberry paper, which apparently is very tough and holds a crease well. It also happens to be fairly expensive (although you can get a deal on some on eBay). If we ever decide to get seriously into tessellating paper (not likely) it would be worth the investment. Some of the creations shown in the book are pretty amazing though.

References

Montroll, John; Origami Polyhedra Design; Wellesley, MA: A K Peters, 2009

Gjerde, Eric; Origmi Tessellations: Awe-inspiring Geometric Designs; Wellesley, MA: A K Peters, 2009

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30 Days of Creativity - #8, #9 and #10

Sounds easy doesn't it? Make something everyday for 30 days. Sheesh! (Note: My posts went into a hiatus because my images stopped uploading, but now they are working again).

The Moleskine-like Notebook Project

I love my 32-page Moleskine notebook. Is that pronounced like "skin" or like "skyne"? I don't know. I've seen several described projects for making various kinds of notebooks. I had previously stashed away some materials with which to make one, so today is the day I begin.

Figure 1. Notebook cover cut from an old grade book

I began by tracing the outline of my trusty Moleskine onto a piece of vinyl-like plastic materiel I salvaged from a no-longer-used teacher grade book. In a world of computer grade-keeping does anyone use those anymore? It was probably several months ago I was cleaning up and found it and immediately recognized that that material was ideal for making a notebook cover.

After tracing the shape I cut it out with scissors and free-handed the rounding of the corners. Looks okay!

Using the same Moleskine original cover I layed out a pattern for the pages on a piece of ghost grid archival graph paper for scientists and engineers that I had purchased at an Edward Tufte seminar several years ago. Good stuff that.

Figure 2. The cover material, paper and a Moleskine notebook
to use as a model.

Cutting the paper was tricky because it is hard o get them all the same size when cutting free-hand, and the edges get sort of rough when trying to cut too many at once with less-then-sharp scissors. I have no paper cutter. Again I free-handed the rounding of the page corners, with less than stellar success but I am not done yet!

Figure 3. Drilling the binding holes.

After putting the pages and the cover together I set it up on  drill press and drilled holes for the string to pass through for the binding. I used some black hemp cord coated with beeswax and a curved needle to run the thread through the holes. This comes out looking quite similar to the Moleskine binding, but the hemp I used is a bit thicker. A thinner hemp cord would work better.

All in all, it is a pretty reasonable substitute for a Moleskine and I think it will serve well as a highly portable pocket note keeping device.

Figure 4. Sewing the binding with waxed hemp cord.

Figure 5. The notebook compares well with a real Moleskine.

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