Pushing the envelope: Happy birthday, Jack!

Jack's 19th birthday, and I wanted to make a card out of something unusual. I get a lot of business envelopes, and they are usually the first thing to be recycled or shredded. But I noticed that the insides of these are often interesting, and they include windows made of glassine paper.

I had a lot of fun making a card with a front, back, and an interior page, gluing envelopes together and adding other paper elements, including part of a reproduction from a math project Jack did as a kid, a chart showing prime numbers.

The front is the WOW page, with the WOW behind glassine. The back has the little Hermes fellow with the American flag (the Jack icon). The next page includes part of the math chart. Next up, the orange page, with the illustration that reminds me of elaborate catapulting constructions Jack used to make. The end result is a little card sculpture.

Happy birthday, Jack!

Something to Make: Woven Paper Valentines

Last summer, when we were in Germany, I made a few coasters out of recycled magazine pages, following a tutorial I found at How About Orange (those are Jessica Jones's finished coasters in the photograph here).

It was fun to have a little project to make during Euro Cup soccer matches that required only a free piece of paper and a pair of scissors. Little traces of our stay left for Chris and Heike on their coffee table.

These can be a bit addictive. With Valentines Day coming, I decided to modify the design slightly, making paper hearts.

For these, I used fairly heavy coated paper samples from design magazines, and did not fold the strips. After awhile you just stop weaving. Glue the long edges of the strips together, trim into a heart shape, and Voila!

Something to Make: Gift Boxes

While my cake was baking I looked at the mix box and decided to cover it with colored paper. Now it makes a  reusable (and reusable again) gift box. I used a heavy textured double-sided paper – it doesn't wrinkle, and completely covers the images on the box. These can be purchased in a stack and are surprisingly inexpensive...much less than the same amount of gift wrap. Now the box works for a book, or any number of other small gifts. (Like this book, with a packet of seeds..)

Next I covered a pot pie box. I found an old collection of scrap paper tucked away in a box of its own and (this is the uncanny part) the image on that box is a green Darwinian Tree of Life, surrounded by creatures of many kinds. That's a nice little echo, given my recent interest in Darwin. (I covered that box many years ago: can you sense a bit of an obsession?)

It's easiest to cover a box if you carefully take it apart and flatten it, reassembling it after the glue dries. I used plain white tacky glue (colle inélégante). The pot pie box has a nice piece of silver paper inside that can also be used to add a decorative touch. Now if I could just figure out what to do with that pot pie pan...Incense burner, suggests my friend Kim. (It appears to be fire resistant). Or a place to park a gluey brush when making projects..