Do you remember those folded paper fortune-tellers from back in the old school yard? This romantic version of the origami toy is at Colloco Homeware & Gifts (UK). It’s both a toy and an art object — and maybe an imaginative 3-d greeting card for Valentine’s Day?

There was always one kid in the crowd who knew how to fold one. At our school, it was Judy (who grew up to make her living from an interesting balance of crafts and computers). She wouldn’t tell anyone else how to do it, and drove us all nuts — you know how 10-year-old girls can be! — but I picked up a fortune teller that she’d dropped, took it home, and dissected it carefully to figure out how it all worked.

You want to know how to make one? No secrets here!
Here’s a video I found that gives particularly clear instructions for how to fold an origami fortune-teller:

At recess or lunch break, or sometimes in a slow-moving math class, Judy would pull out a neat square of folded-up notebook paper from her back pocket and open its corners to slip in her index fingers and thumbs. The other girls in our group would gather around…

First one, then another of us would “pick a number” — the number of letters in the name of the boy we liked best, most often — and Judy would open and close the paper fortune teller, one direction and then the other, while counting down the numbers.

Well, here’s how Wikipedia explains the rules:

The player first asks a question to the person holding the fortune teller. This question will be answered by the device. The holder then asks for a number and/or color. Once the number and/or color has been chosen, the holder uses his/her fingers to switch between the two groups of colors/numbers that occupy the inside area of the device. The holder switches these positions a specific number of times, which can be given by the amount of letters in the color selected, the number originally chosen, or the sum of both. Once the holder has finished switching the positions of the fortune teller, the player chooses one of the flaps that has been revealed. These flaps often have colors and/or numbers on them, and the chosen flap often is the same as the color/number originally chosen. The holder then lifts the flap and reads the fortune that is underneath. Any one of these steps may be repeated to suit the user.

Remember it now?
I’ve been thinking a lot about fun grown-up crafty versions of old schoolyard games and toys lately, so we can expect to take a few more little trips down memory lane in the next few weeks. What other cool homemade toys and impromptu games do you remember, from when you were a kid?

It’s easy to create a professional-looking  torn-edge effect,  to use when you’re scrapbooking or making greeting cards, gift tags, or other torn paper crafts — even some amazing art.

3 Easy Steps:

1.  Start with a good quality paper — off-white is great for gift tags when layered over a patterned or dark-coloured piece of paper.

2.  Set it in lukewarm water. You want it to be completely moist but not soaked.

3.  Pat off any extra water, then gently tear out the shape you need.

It’s just that easy to get a great effect with torn paper edges for all of your paper craft projects!

Allow me to introduce the lovely and talented Ching Ya, a dear friend and social media geek with a delighthful creative streak. Today, she’ll teach us how to fold our own paper stars in this photo tutorial. Enjoy! ~ Jen

The Cute Little Stars

Twinkle twinkle little stars
How colorful and adorable you are…

I’ve always loved them, it’s my dream to hold the stars in my hands and admire their beauty.

Guess what? My dream came true after all!

Cute isn’t it?

I sprinkle these little ones around my Christmas corner, along with the tree of course.

So, do you want to spice up your Christmas decorations with these little ones? I can assure you, by the time you finished reading these instructions, you’re gonna shout out, “OMG!! It’s THAT simple??”

How To Fold Your Little Paper Stars

What do you need?

A half-used colored/wrapping paper (I prefer recycled ones, you could use brand new if you like), a ruler and scissors. That’s it.

Are you ready to rumble?
Here goes:

Step 1.
Measure and cut a strip approximately 1cm width and 20-25cm in length (depends on your liking).

Step 2.
Do it as if you are making a perfect knot.

Step 3.
Make sure ‘A’ is on top of the tail. Then continue to tuck ‘A’ inside the hole.

Step 4.
Pull ‘A’ through gently and flatten the knot.

Reminder – Make sure ‘A’ is neither too long nor short. A considerable length as shown in the picture will be just right.

Step 5.
Bend the excessive end to the back. (Cut it off if too long.) Now a pentagon is formed.

Step 6.
Bend the long tail according to the sides of the pentagon. That is, go up from underneath the pentagon as illustrated, following the direction of the blue dotted line.

Continue the ‘pentagon-wrapping’ method (see next 4 photographs) until it almost reaches the end.

Here’s what your star will look like at this point:

Step 7.
Slip the tail into the body of the pentagon. Cut off the excessive part if necessary.

Step 8.
Hold your pentagon as shown in the next photograph. Press in hard until the pointed ends are formed.

Continue pinching with other sides until the star becomes “puffy”…

… and VOILA!!

Now you can carry on with as many of them as you wish. Even fill up a jar with stars, and give it as a present to your loved ones. Now they’ll never running out of wishing stars for Christmas!

Ching Ya loves traveling, photography, and acoustic guitar! She owns a blog It’s My Life ~ It’s Now Or Never where she talks about her interests in movies, music, events & occasions, fun sites, personal thoughts as well. It’s her passion to write and share the fun with her readers. That’s why she has a Christmas theme on-going right as we speak!It’s All About Christmas so why not check it out and get into the groove? Or visit Ching Ya at Drama Sum It Up, where she follows her favourite TV drama -– currently, that’s “Prison Break.”

Heirlooms to treasure, or just plain creative family fun — either way, there’s a special magic to Christmas decorations that you make yourself at home, and it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Here’s a round-up of patterns and how-to tutorials for frugal holiday decorations that you can make yourself:

Cardboard, glue, tiny pine cones, and scraps of birchbark — topped off with a sprinkle of glitter, the only special craft item you’ll need to do this — create a rustic miniature Christmas village! Kristin Nicholas –”Getting Stitched on the Farm” — gives a clear step-by-step tutorial for making your own.

Snuggle the houses on a landscape of poly fibrefill or quilt batting snow, if you’ve got some on hand, or just drape a white cloth over crumbled balls of newspaper to make a winter landscape to showcase the minature village.

Squawkfox makes soft stuffies in the shape of tiny trees from leftover scraps of fabric. Quick and easy to sew, it’s a great project for anyone just learning to sew — and you can have amazing fun in embellishing the simple stuffed trees with buttons and bows and fabric paints, whatever you have on hand! Download her printable 2-piece pattern and make yourself a whole forest of stuffies!

Popcorn garlands were always a part of Christmas when I was a child, for example. Sometimes we’d have a bag of those big burgundy-red cranberries to string along with the popcorn — beauty! And sometimes the family dog would sneak a snack from the Christmas tree. I still smile at the memories…

Becca spreads the seasonal joy (and festive decorations) outdoors, with molded bird seed treats — pretty wreaths to feed the birds while they decorate the trees in your yard. (These would make a terrific frugal gift for a birdlover, too!)

Tiny pieces of felt, a little stuffing, and a couple of paperclips — that’s all it takes to make these cute ice skates mini-ornaments from a tutorial by Not Quite Vintage (inspired by her grandmother). Add sequins or seed beads for buttons, or whip a bit of colourful embroidery floss up the front edge to look like laces.

Another favourite do-it-yourself Christmas decoration around our place, growing up, was salt dough modelling clay we’d shape like Play-do into stars and trees and angels, bake in the oven until they dried, then add a touch of craft paint and a ribbon for hanging… My salt dough modelling clay recipe is here, if you want to give it a try for yourself.

Maybe paper crafts are more your style?

Design Sponge has the DIY on this clever paper ball ornament — make a whole lot of them from those tag-ends of gift wrapping paper that are too small to use for much else, and dangle from a swagged evergreen garland, or hang them in a window or on your tree.

Want more Christmas paper crafts? You can find instructions for making the best ever 3-d paper snowflake at Cut Out and Keep . (I tell you, forget those paper snowflakes you might have made in kindergarten — this is in a whole other class!)

And if you’re short on time and/or patience, but you still want the snowflake bling, you can always go for this pretty blue snowflake, from the collection of free printables at Canon.

At the price of printer ink, though, I’d be inclined to print out one copy of the pattern and use it as a template for making snowflakes from plain white paper. I’ve done something similar with lightweight cardstock (empty cereal boxes, actually), then used a little thinned-down white glue and glitter to make them into stars…

This year, the holidays are going to be especially tough for a lot of families — so what better time to rediscover the true meaning of the season, sitting down with the kids to create new traditions that have more to do with sharing the moment than with spending hard-earned money at the mall?

This free printable paper craft is for our American friends, but with a federal election looming north of the border, here, too, you’ve got to wonder how long it can be before a Canadian version hits the ink jets…

You know how the old curmudgeons down at the coffee shop have been known to call the issue-dodging politician a mere puppet of this or that?

Well… Fold US Candidate is a clever little site with a fresh trendy design, happy video demonstrations, and — here’s the whole point — free printable so you can make your own finger-puppets of the American contenders (and their stylish spouses).

Just imagine! No more ranting helplessly at the television, my friends — now you can hold your own political debates in a homemade puppet theatre (cleverly crafted from a cereal box?), put your own words in the mouth of each candidate, and declare your own winner.

Heck, while you’re at it, why not hold your own “on paper” election?
(Sycophants and dangling chads not included.)

How can a crafter turn an image into a custom pattern for a knitted motif — quickly and easily — without spending a fortune? It’s not as difficult as you might think, and it can be done for little or no cost at all.

Suddenly, all sorts of creative possibilities come to mind –

• custom logo knitwear for the cheerleading squad
• a child’s artwork reproduced on a sweater vest for Granny
• Impressionist landscapes rendered on knitted afghans and throws
• a knitted tote with a rock idol’s portrait
• your pet’s portrait on a knitted cushion cover…

Here, for example, is a chart for knitting a Union Jack flag motif in three colours. (Click on the thumbnail image to see a larget version, or feel free to grab the printable PDF knitting chart to stitch up a UK flag as you wish.)

Now, let’s talk about how that knitting chart is made…

Here are three different ways to chart out a pattern onto a grid — without having to invest in some of that delicious but high-priced stitch-mapping pattern-design software — and each method has its strengths and weaknesses.

1. Graph paper (either pre-printed knitting chart paper, or grids that you print out yourself) and coloured pencils or such
2. Free online image-to-knitting pattern conversion tool
3. Free downloadable Knitting Pattern Generator software

A lot of this will apply to a wide range of grid-based needle crafts and art projects, too — crochet, needlepoint, petit-point, cross stitch — possibly even related crafts like fabric-paint embroidery, if you’re into pointillism techniques — as well as beading and mosaics, so don’t go away, even if knitting is not your craft of choice!

1. Knitting Chart or Graph Paper

Grab a selection of coloured pencils (one for each colour of yarn you plan to use), and mark your design — stitch by stitch — on a piece of knitting chart paper. One row of blocks in the pattern grid will be equal to one row of knitting, and each coloured block represents one stitch. You’ll just follow the knitting chart stitch by stitch, colour by colour of yarn, along the rows of the pattern.

It doesn’t get much easier!

But here’s the trick — knitting stitches are longer than they are wide. Regular pre-printed graph paper won’t work very well for this. You want paper that’s marked out in a grid of little rectangles, not squares, to match the height and width of knitting stitches. Using an ordinary piece of graph paper, marked out in squares, will call for a little quality time with your calculator and math-oriented brain cells in order to get the proportions right for the knitted image.

A big time-saver, and much easier to get good results, is the knitting graph paper that’s specially made for Knitting graph paper has rectangles, not squares, and is sized to the ratio of actual knitting stitches — because it does help to see what you’re doing, to scale, as you plan out the design or image to knit.

If you’re handy with the computer, you can print up a custom grid to suit the scale that fits you best.

Tip — print your grid onto a piece of tracing paper, instead of basic office bond paper. That way, you can place the tracing paper over your photograph or motif and use it as a guide when you’re plotting in the colours for each of the rectangles that represent a stitch for your pattern.

And do slip that tracing paper pattern inside a protective plastic sleeve, so it won’t run the risk of getting torn or damaged, as you’ll be referring to it often while working on your project.

2. Image-to-Grid Online Knitting Pattern Generator

The second way to make a knitting pattern from a logo, photo, or other image is a quick-and-easy free online tool from MicroRevolt:

knitPro is a web application that translates digital images into knit, crochet, needlepoint and cross-stitch patterns. Just upload jpeg, gif or png images of whatever you wish — portraits, landscapes, logos… and it will generate the image pattern on a grid sizable for any fiber project.

Here’s the deal — you go to the knitPro site, select a grid size (48×64, 96×120, or 120 x 160), select a stitch size for needlepoint, cross stitch, crochet, or knit (portrait or landscape), and then browse your computer to select the image you want to convert.

The pattern will be downloaded to your computer as a printable PDF file, like the Union Jack knitting chart shown above.

Like any software solution, this tool works best with pictures that have simple lines and a limited number of colours, so you may need to experiment a bit to get it right. And you pretty much have to take whatever is given to you by knitPro — there’s no easy way to make adjustments to the pattern that is generated from your image.

3. Image-to-Grid Free Knitting Pattern Software

Third, there’s a clever free program that can create knitting patterns out of pictures, that you can download and install on your own computer. The Knitting Pattern Generator is made to work on both Linux and Win32 computer systems.

KPG also offers some features that you don’t get with a simple online utility — like the choice of pretty HTML or plain text output. And here, you do have the ability to edit the generated template, if you want to tweak the design that the software has created to make it better suit your needs.

You can specify a background colour instead of having it default to the first colour given. You can create a database of yarn or thread colours, and KPG will pick the closest colour from that list to match your picture. Or you can use a black-and-white picture to create a pattern that uses only one colour of wool, and different stitches are used to create the picture.

The downside, as far as I’ve seen so far, is mostly that knitPro is not as sophisticated as we’re used to seeing in commercial programs — but what do I expect for free? — and it’s directed specifically to knitting, rather than a variety of needlework. Still, as I mentioned, once you’ve got a grid in place, it’s a short step to adapting it to a change in the materials or technique.

Still, I’ve really only just begun to play with this free software, and I can tell you I’m looking forward to many hours of arty-crafty fun to be had. Did I mention that you can use KPG to create illusion patterns — designs that don’t make sense until they’re viewed from a certain angle — and how cool is that?! Ideas, ideas, ideas…

So, those are the three cheap-and-easy ways that I know of, to create a knitting chart from an image. Do you have a favourite tool or technique to share? Use the comment area to let us know what method works best for you!

Small gifts can be hard to wrap up in an attractive way, especially when they have odd shapes. Sure, you could get a little cardboard box to put them in, and then wrap that up — but where’s the fun in that?

Here’s what we’ve started doing in my family — wrapping up those awkward small items to look like strange little vaguely human characters!

It’s become quite a competition, to see who can come up with the funniest face or the most imaginative use of those scraps of wrapping paper and ribbon that were just a bit too good to toss out after the last gift-giving occasion… Thrifty!!

Here, a paper drinks umbrella has been pressed into service as an accessory. These faces are drawn on with marker, but sometimes the giftwrap artist will glue on bits of coloured cellophane for sunglasses or use other “found objects” to add character.

Can you guess what’s inside these two package-people?

Perfect for the artist wanting a touch of Africa in her work — these colorful paper beads are individually made by beaders in Kampala, Uganda. More than just ethno-hip in the extreme, however, these beads save women’s lives:

Through the production of handmade jewelry made of paper beads, Ugandan women generate income to lift their families out of poverty… North Americans partner with Ugandans by opening their hearts, homes, and communities to buy and sell the beads. All profits from BeadforLife are invested in community development projects that, along with income generation, help people escape extreme poverty.

Not the crafty type? Get your jewelry ready-made — necklaces, anklets, bracelets — or do good for less fortunate women by stocking up on notecards, calendars, or handmade jewelery bags (made from hand-printed fabric) with six individual pockets to safely hold your precious trinkets, great for travelling or for a special gift.