Materials and methods of their use
Paper is one of the most affordable materials and, in addition, it is presented in stores in a wide variety: colored, velvet, thick, thin, corrugated, etc.
Paper can be used in different ways in creativity - painted, cut, twisted, glued, there are many options.
What benefits can you get from working with paper?
Working with paper with your hands stimulates the development of imagination, fine motor skills, and teaches you to work with concentration and accuracy.
It’s easy to learn how to make paper crafts with your own hands; all you need is the desire and the necessary materials. Below we will talk about popular creative ideas when working with paper.
Children are taught to make crafts from colored paper in kindergarten. But these are not just activities for preschoolers. There are ideas for adults too. There are complex and labor-intensive ones, using quilling techniques, as well as completely simple ones, where only basic skills are needed.
Pinwheel
A fun paper craft for summer would be a windmill.
- Take 8 multi-colored squares. Each is bent diagonally and cut into 2 parts. The result is 16 triangles. Only half will be needed.
- Cut out 2 circles with a diameter of 3 cm from cardboard.
- Connect the sharp corners of the triangle, leaving a bend only at the tip. Lubricate this place with glue. Place on top of one circle and press.
- Repeat with the next triangle. Apply to the first overlap. The edge of the side is in the middle of the first triangle. Glue all the triangles.
- Each protruding corner is smeared with glue and connected to the middle. Start from the last glued part, moving clockwise.
- The middle is sealed with a second circle.
- Pierce in the center with a tailor's pin.
- Roll the paper sheet into a thin rope, starting from the upper left corner. Crafts made from colored paper look more interesting.
- The last corner is glued to prevent it from unraveling. Cut off the ends.
- To make the mill rotate, the blades are attached to the stick at a short distance. To do this, wrap a layer of paper 2/3 of its length around a toothpick. Glue the edge so that it does not unravel. Remove the toothpick and a tailor's needle with blades fits into the resulting hole.
- Pricked onto a paper stick.
DIY 3D paper painting
This example is a simple one. It suggests making a cute picture with your own hands, which will be a nice gift for Valentine's Day. It is a sheet of paper decorated with cut out voluminous hearts that look like butterflies wanting to flutter in a split second.
You can place many hearts on one A3 sheet; their size is chosen by the author of the craft. To cut out even hearts, you need to fold a sheet of colored red paper in half. Draw halves of hearts along the fold. Cut, unfold and get a full-fledged heart.
There is no need to smooth out the cut pieces. They shouldn't be flat. Glue the hearts onto a sheet of paper, mixing them. Let one be closed, the other unfolded. In principle, you can choose any color or even replace the shapes with stars, flowers, etc.
Paper vase
To create a vase you need: a variety of paper, a glass jar (any shape of your choice), scissors or a stationery knife, glue.
Using different shades you can create the most unusual creative vases. The paper needs to be beautifully cut and glued to a glass jar using glue.
We recommend: DIY vases from plastic bottles, 9 master classes
Use your imagination to make your craft an unusual decoration. Such vases will not only complement the interior, but can also stand with flowers.
Paper valley of cacti for the holiday
Today, decorative elements are expensive, but you can make them yourself. In this option, it is proposed to decorate a table for a children's party. Let the theme for the holiday be Mexico. The outfits are appropriate - giant sombreros! And the table should be filled with cacti, not real ones, but paper ones!
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You can create these crafts from paper and cardboard. First you need to draw cacti of different sizes on paper. Let them be big and small, green and fantastically colorful.
You can even make three-dimensional cacti by connecting elements - the trunks of a paper plant - into each other's grooves or by gluing them together. Using pencils, you should paint the blanks with dashes representing spines. Now take small cupcake molds from the shelves and insert paper shapes into them; for stability and beauty, pour sand or small pebbles into the molds.
Paper flowers
You can make unimaginably beautiful flowers from colored paper, both simple and complex in creation technology.
Flowers by children's hands
It’s better to start with something simple, for example, you can make paper tulips with your children:
Photo from iheartcraftythings.com
Or create a bright sunflower from paper circles. We make the middle from paper balls made using the papier-mâché technique.
Flowers for interior decor
Callas are easy to make and look very gentle!
Using Quilling technology you can create unusual twisted roses. In this case, the pearl will give them a special charm.
WeddingGlasses shows how to make them and what is needed for this in its video tutorial:
By analogy, you can make roses with wavy edges. Cut a long strip of colored paper, make a wavy edge and twist the rosette. Try playing with colors: blue, light blue, white...
If you are not sure that you can properly care for even a living cactus, then you can glue together such a family of artificial ones. To do this, we glue a cactus out of paper, do not forget to make it “blooming” for greater attractiveness, and “plant” it in a pot with expanded clay or other pebbles.
Photo from www.patcatans.com
Paper succulents are also incredibly realistic:
Photo from dreamyposy.com
YOU WILL NEED IT You can download templates and master classes on making flowers from paper quickly and for free!
Paper flowers for wedding celebration
You can make beautiful boutonnieres for your wedding using paper and additional decorative floral elements:
Author – Lily Sarah Studio
MASTER CLASS ON THE TOPIC
Groom's boutonniere: a wonderful decoration for the Wedding Day
You can even create a bridal bouquet from paper.
Photo from weddingcandles.ie
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DIY bridal bouquet or how to make a wedding amulet
Life-size paper flowers
In addition, you can make life-size flowers from paper, which you can use to decorate your home or set up a photo zone. Very often they are used to decorate shop windows.
Paper is a simple material, but you can create masterpieces from it!
Posted by Heather Grimstead
Combine petals of different shapes and shades:
Author — Oksana Nesteryuk
Posted by Abigail Gillespie
You can decorate a child’s room in this “floral” way.
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Large flowers made of corrugated paper: impressive decor for interiors and photo zones
He shows how to make a lush chrysanthemum in his master class Paper Folding Origami & Crafts :
Polina Repik clearly demonstrates how to make a large paper flower in her video:
Origami as a way to work with paper
The term "origami" combines two words. The first - “ori” is translated as “folding”, the second - “kami” is translated as “paper”. Literally it is folding paper. This art is more than five centuries old. It originated and developed in mysterious Japan, where they can make from simple paper figurines to complex masterpieces. Today, origami is popular all over the planet, thanks to books and the Internet, everyone can learn how to make paper crafts using the Japanese method.
Toys made from simple figures
From the photo of paper crafts you can see that patterns are not needed to create many toys. Simple figurines made with your own hands delight children.
Caterpillars, cats, and birds are collected from several colored cylinders.
Finger cones, decorated with ears, eyes and noses, turn into animal faces.
Complex figures are created according to diagrams. They cut out unusual animals, finger toys, and a zoo. Cardboard actors play in a puppet theater.
How to make a paper puppy: origami technique
While adults don’t often sit down to make crafts, children are big fans of tinkering with paper. And so that their labors do not involve a lot of cleaning for adults, learn how to create paper crafts for children without using glue. The best option is the ancient art of origami.
In this short master class, an option for creating a paper puppy is presented.
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First you need to choose the color of the future puppy. It doesn’t have to be classic, the dog can be anything. The next step is to cut out a square from a piece of paper. Now you need to make a triangle out of the blank. While it doesn’t look much like a puppy, but by turning the side corners down, you get ears!
And if you turn the bottom corner up, you get a chin! So the dog's head appeared. To give her her appearance, you need to draw eyes, a perky black nose, a mustache and a tongue! The puppy is ready!
Holiday balloons
Paper crafts for children can be made in the form of Christmas tree decorations.
The upper ends of two strips of different colors, 10 cm long and 0.5 cm wide, are glued together. Wrap one strip around the other and glue the lower ends together. They make several preparations.
Cut out a square and 2 small circles. Roll a square into a tube. Glue end to end to the circle.
The circle is smeared with glue and the ends of the strips are placed on it in different directions, like rays. Glue the other end and ends of the strips to the second circle. The tube is made of such a length that the twisted blanks bend, making the toy round. The ball will become more beautiful if you glue glitter to it.
European art - quilling
Quilling is a technique for working with paper, also called paper rolling. If you master this skill, you can create amazing crafts, both voluminous and flat. But this direction requires a lot of endurance and patience. In order to create interior items or even simple figures, you need to twist not just a single spiral, but dozens, hundreds, sometimes thousands.
The resulting spirals are folded into various shapes that form modules. And you can use them to make photo frames and decorate albums, greeting cards, even beads and necklaces!
This direction came from the Mediterranean. In coastal Europe it was mastered back in the 15th century! And it gained popularity because of its availability and low cost. But even royalty did not disdain this direction; even Queen Elizabeth of England was fond of quilling at one time.
Tools for quilling
The main thing you have to buy is paper. You need a lot of it. Cut the strips in advance. They shouldn't be short. By the way, stores sell ready-made sets of strips. You can’t do without glue; it is desirable that it is of high quality and does not leave a lot of dirt. The shopping list will also include small scissors, tweezers, and an officer’s ruler. To curl the paper, you still need special rods (they can be replaced with simple toothpicks).
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Basic Quilling Skills
All large quilling paintings are made up of small patterns. Below is a description of the basic figures. White paper is suitable for learning.
The basis of the basics is spiral winding. You need to arm yourself with a rod or toothpick. Then start winding the strip of paper, doing it very tightly. Then glue the edge of the spiral and remove it from the rod. It's a tight spiral.
You can also make the next element - a “cone”, but adding each new turn like a ladder.
The basic skill for all other figures is called "light spiral". We make it tight, but at the end we loosen our grip and only after that we glue the edge. Then from this you can make an oval, a drop, a triangle, a heart, a flower, etc. They are easy to shape with your fingers because the spiral is not tight and allows you to change shapes.
If you glue such figures together and place them on a sheet of paper, you can get bouquets, butterflies, beautiful meadows of charming sheep. A themed paper craft for summer will be ready if you put in a little effort and use your imagination!
Interior decor with colored paper
Using regular colored paper, you can easily and at the same time creatively decorate your living space.
Paper wall decor
Anyone can master the art of paper wall decoration! What could be simpler than folding bright square elements from colored paper and gluing them together in the form of an original colored mosaic. This panel will bring life to a dull wall!
You can make it a little more complicated and make a panel using the origami technique from triangular sections:
Author – Lisa O'Neill
MrTipptiger in his video shows how to assemble a double pyramid from paper for such a panel:
A flock of paper cranes can divide a room, for example, between a children's area and a creativity area.
We learn how to make paper cranes from a video from the Ideas for Life :
You can cut out a whole flock of swallows from plain white paper and decorate the wall with them. Don't forget to make one bright "strokes" in the shape of a bird of a different color.
Author: Stuart McLachlan - Paper Styling and Illustration
Or make a 3D miniature of hearts for Valentine's Day.
Hearts can be made in different ways. For example, these voluminous ones:
Or make a huge heart out of fluttering butterflies with a gradual color transition from rich blue to soft blue:
The Quilling technique will also come in handy. We make an air feather from thin curled colored strips of paper...
Photo from diysecrets.com
...or a peacock feather.
Surprisingly, you can create interesting three-dimensional 3D paintings from colored paper. Helen Musselvilt (Helen Missel) , excelled in this art . Each of her paintings is like a whole life story. For example, a sweet home among flowers:
You can come up with your own 3D story!
The winter theme is also very colorful; a bullfinch or a snowman looks impressive against the background of snow patterns.
Helen Missel's flight of fancy is simply amazing!
More recently, contemporary art has been replenished with another new direction - paper silhouettes (Paper Profiles) .
Dan Tobin Smith , English photographer and artist Rachel Thomas created this project together. Its essence lies in making multi-layered portraits from paper. Rachel creates layered sculptures and Dan Thomas Smith photographs them to capture the contrast between light and shadow. The works of these artists are created manually, without the use of computer technology. This technique is somewhat reminiscent of Quilling.
Photo from the site www.i-staple.ru
Hanging mobiles made of paper
In addition, you can make original hanging mobiles from paper. A night breeze consisting of the Moon and stars will fit perfectly into a child’s room...
...or this simple but surprisingly cute wall panel:
In your work you can use color transitions:
Cute bright umbrellas will perfectly decorate your window.
Watch how to fold a paper umbrella on the Show Origami :
Vytynanka
From plain white paper you can cut out beautiful home decorations - vytynankas. They are mostly New Year themed.
Very often they decorate windows...
...or make intricate garlands.
The technique of cutting out protrusions is also used in the making of postcards and paintings.
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Christmas decorations
You can use colored paper to make simple but at the same time very cute decorations for Christmas.
A sophisticated Christmas wreath made of paper rings with beaded berries (you can use a dyed toilet paper roll):
Photo from the site https://kiflieslevendula.blogspot.com
Variegated wreath of floral elements:
ZOYA FRIDMAN shows how such flowers are made :
It has long been fashionable to decorate homes and offices for the New Year with paper kusudama - this is a glued ball of paper elements folded in a certain way.
Such balls can be made with floral elements and, in addition to colored paper, scrap paper can be used.
Kusudama also looks great made from plain paper:
How to make a simple paper ball, watch the video Show Origami :
There are also a lot of techniques for adding them.
Author — Natalia Romanenko
How to make another of the many different types of kusudama balls, see another video tutorial Show Origami :
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You can download templates for creating paper balls quickly and for free!
Paper creativity is the basis of creative thinking
This material describes only a few areas of paper art. In fact, there are many more, you just need to let your imagination run wild. It is useful for people of all ages and professions to engage in such art.
It not only brings aesthetic pleasure, but gives inner harmony, develops thinking and allows you to calm down and forget about the bustle of everyday life.
