traditional

910: (360/365) After Christmas Sales

| wonko

Retailers really have a nerve when you think about it. Right up to Christmas they hike up their prices. We dutiful drones pay top dollar for loot which we wrap and give away. Come “Boxing Day” prices plummet in almost obscene ways and it can get hectic as people clamber for bargains:

We went early, with a list and an idea of what we would regularly pay for the items on that list. In, bought (from the then still full shelves and racks), and out again in an hour and a half – this is the stuff of legends. Continue reading →

859: (309/365) Jumping Frog

| wonko

The traditional world of Origami has many classic folds, it is constantly amazing to me how few of them I have actually folded:

This is a traditional jumping from – well, at least one version of it. The mechanism is simple and relies on paper thickness to provide a spring on the back legs. You gently press between the back legs and as the paper flips out from under your finger, the frog hops – ingenious. Continue reading →

796: (246/365) Japanese Andon Lamp

| wonko

Paper is an amazing thing. In Japanese culture, for centuries, walls and furnishings were made from timber and Washi (hand-made Kozo fibre paper). Candle-driven laps made of paper (counter-intuitively) are still common, this is an Andon Lamp:

There are 2 versions of this – one that uses 4 squares (this one) and another minor variation makes the frame with 4 bits of paper and then you put in other paper inserts into frames formed on each side of a contrasting colour/texture. Continue reading →

701: (151/365) Queenslander!

| wonko

…a little known fact, up until the night of the day this fold was supposed to be folded (last night if I am honest, missed a day, catching up, sorry) I had NEVER watched a Rugby match. Ever:

So I was over at a mates place, we were supposed to be playing a board game but apparently State of Origin was on, so they watched and I did too. Continue reading →

685: (135/365) Bug

| wonko

Old-school origami can still be fun, and this model is no exception:

Eduardo Clemente’s book “Papiroflexia” contains a plethora of old-style 60’s origami, before the boxpleating, tree-maker days. Continue reading →

644: (94/365) Picnic at Hanging Rock

| wonko

While in regional Victoria, in the vicinity of the Macedon Ranges, it seemed wrong to leave Hanging Rock off our agenda. Back in the 70’s, there was an important Australian movie made called “Picnic at Hanging Rock”:

A fiction/mystery, it involved the mysterious disappearance of some school girls at the rock, after they had a picnic. We visited, climbed and were not lost, thankfully, but by sheer coincidence we visited on the 50th anniversary of the book, and also by good chance they were filming a mini-serialisation of the same story in the woods we walked through.

Continue reading →

547: Stellar

| wonko

As part of the school’s social justice program, I was asked to come up with a fold for a bow tie that I could teach year 7-10 boys and girls from 3 schools on a Friday afternoon:547StellaBellaFella

Based in part on a technique used by many, but first seen in a video, I devices a way of using a square, hiding raw edges and basing most of the folds on halves (figuring boys could actually fold things in half fairly easily). Continue reading →