Friday, June 06, 2008

Plastic Beads for Pegboards


Anybody know the real name of those plastic beads that kids put on pegboards in different shapes? I want to buy some for my bird to play with - I love making her toys. It's a little bit of crafting, a little bit of entertainment, a little bit of bonding with my bird, and a little bit of thriftiness.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Origami Instructions

Thanks to a comment on a previous post, I've just found the website Origami Instructions. There's some tips and hints in words, some line drawing images (like you'll see in books or sometimes come with origami paper), but most interesting to me is all the videos posted! There's nothing like watching it happen in real time to give you a good solid sense of which way to make certain folds (I never remember which symbol means mountain and which valley, so I always have to look at the next step to know which they meant), and to give you a three-dimensional feeling of what's going on - when doing origami you often have to keep mental track of the multiple layers of paper, and a line drawing never does that justice.

If you're new to origami, I suggest you start off by watching the video you want to try once through, then take it slowly, pausing after every single last step during the process.