KARABOUTS

Folded Paper

I'm writing crochet patterns at the moment and that doesn't lend itself to blogging, so I thought I'd blog about a folded paper project I made for the new apartment.  This project is a replica of something I saw in one of my favorite out-of-print books, Paper Pleasures.  An artist named David Lewis did the folding sequence.  I've searched for Mr. Lewis on the Internet but can't find him.  There were no directions about how to fold his piece but with some trial and error I figured it out.  Mr. Lewis' work was 4 panels and big enough to hang on a gallery wall.  I decided to make my version three panels and small enough to fit in an Ikea frame.

I started with three squares of 6" origami paper.  I folded the first one like this.

It's not as difficult as you might imagine.  Start by folding your paper into sixteenths in both directions.  Then make 7 folds on 45% angles.  I drew a diagram for you.

Once you've got your pre-creases done, fold up your paper like so (solid lines are valley folds, dotted lines are mountain folds).

If you thought that was hard, don't worry. The next step is easy. Pick up the second sheet of origami paper and crunch it into a ball. 

Then use both of the skills you've just learned, folding and crunching, and make the third square of origami paper half crunched and half folded.

Smooth out the crunched up paper areas and you'll have a progression that looks something like this. Pretty cool Mr. Lewis!!!

Mr. Lewis could have stopped there but he didn't.  He took an airbrush and gave his paper a gradient color from light to dark.  I don't have an airbrush so I used a Rembrandt soft pastel instead.

Starting at the lower right corner of your paper, color like crazy with your soft pastel.

Use a tissue to gradually spread the color to the opposite corner.  Work it around a bit until you get a nice gradation from light to dark.  Workable fixative will help with this process.  I stopped and sprayed my pieces a couple of times while coloring, and then again at the end to keep the color on the paper.

 

Now get your Erikslund frame from Ikea (I painted mine white a few years ago).

And add your works of art!!!

 

Thanks Mr. Lewis. 

Painted Chandelier

This is our new chandelier for the office.

I love the way it looks now, but when it started it looked like this:

This old brass chandelier was originally hanging in the bedroom. When we put up new lighting in the bedroom we took this down. Mike figured we'd put it in the trash. Mike was WRONG. He didn't know that I had a plan for this baby involving Dawn dishwashing liquid, apple cider vinegar and four cans of spray paint.  

First I took off all of the parts that were easily take-off-able and scrubbed everything down with dishwashing detergent. Then I soaked the loose pieces in a strong apple cider vinegar solution, and applied straight apple cider vinegar to the rest of the chandelier with a cloth. I let it sit for a day or two and then rinsed off the vinegar and gave it one more good cleaning with Dawn.

Next I took it out to the backyard and hit it with several coats of white primer spray paint.  I used Krylon because it was the only brand they had at the nearest hardware store.  It worked great.

I let the primer dry overnight and then put on the color - a nice bright yellow.

I sprayed the bits and pieces separately.  It took a number of coats of paint to achieve a smooth even color. 

I threaded the tubular candle sticks on a long strip of cardboard to keep them still while I painted.

After another day or two of drying time, I put the whole thing back together.

Because I wasn't sure I had done the wiring correctly, I spliced the main cord to an old extension cord and plugged it into a wall outlet to make sure it worked.  It worked!

Mike did the installation while the Karabouts dolls looked on.

And here's the final effect.

 

Our Big New DIY Project

Mike and I recently purchased our first home.  It's a two-bedroom garden apartment in a 100+ year-old building.  

On the broker's website the apartment looked like this:

But once we got in and started work we found many things like this:

And this:

One of the first things we did was paint.  We used Benjamin Moore Aura paint on our last apartment and I hated it.  It was hard to apply, I had problems with sagging, and it wasn't any easier to clean than other paints I've used in the past.  

This time we went with Home Depot Behr Premium Plus.  For the hallway, dining area and living room we chose Silky Bamboo. 

After we painted the walls we put down new molding that I'd painted bright white.  We also painted the odd, previously-black, strip of half-round molding near the ceiling bright white.  

It was a lot of work but it was worth it. The Silky Bamboo has just the right amount of contrast with the white molding.  The place looks bright, fresh and clean.  I haven't been this happy with a paint color in years.

Another thing we did before moving in was tear out the existing closets and build in new closets.  The old closets stopped two thirds of the way up and had cheesy sliding doors.  

Here's the old bedroom closet:

 

And here's the beautiful new floor-to-ceiling bedroom closet built by Mike and his friend Buddy.  This closet has 8-foot bi-fold doors and is big enough to hold all of our hanging clothes, our dresser, blankets, towels, boxes, you name it.

Here's the office closet before:

and after:

Mike and Buddy made the office closet a little narrower to give us more floor space.  What we lost in width we more than gained in height as this closet also now goes to the ceiling.  

In these photos you can see the bedroom and office paint colors (bedroom - Whitened Sage, office - Summer Moon) and the new doors Mike and Buddy hung to replace the cheesy (there's that word again) hollow core doors.

After finishing the painting, the molding and the closets the place was looking pretty good but it was still missing one important thing.

The fish tank!!!

Now that the fish tank is here it feels like home.