Sweet Bee: International Paper Crafter of Mystery

Hello, dearies. I've been neglectful in posting this week, but I haven't had much going on. I've gotten a touch of the holiday lazies--much of my to-do list has been crossed off and I've been taking advantage of this to do not much of anything. HowEVER--I saw something online the other day that made me whip out my scissors and ruler and hop to.

First up: some woven paper baskets known as Swedish hearts (or--if you're Swedish--jhartkorgar). 

Traditionally they are done in red and white, but I had some green I wanted to use.

My dad has a bit of Swedish in him, so I thought these would be one of those cute "connect with your heritage" projects. I'd rather connect with my mom's heritage and eat lotsa ravioli, but paper-weaving it is. I couldn't remember where I had seen them so I had to scout for a few tutorials--I ended up using this one. If you give these a whirl one thing you need to know is that the rectangular part needs to be more than twice the width (or else you end up with some not-so-neat edges or edges that don't snug up at all). Usually handles are hung on these and they are filled with small treats--but I was a bit frustrated and disinterested so I am just letting them be.

Then, while I was perusing Allsorts I saw some sweet German Christmas paper stars (also known as a Froebel star--you didn't know you were signing up for language lessons, didja?). My dad is half German, so I'm claiming this as another heritage craft. Using this tutorial, I sat myself on the couch and trimmed and folded for a few cozy evenings.

This was my first one. The paper got a little smashed and torn but I kept going just to get the hang of it. 

It took me about forty minutes to make this happen. After a few more I was down to about ten minutes, start to finish. Not too bad for something that looks intricate and scary (at least that's what I'm telling myself).

 These are a small fraction of what I made--I got a little bit carried away. Some of the papers were double-sided so those ended up looking really cute. They aren't very large--they come out to be about 2ish inches.

On a few of them the parts that make them look a bit 3-D tore, so I have a few that are flat stars. I didn't want to just toss them away where they'd feel neglected and unloved (yes, I do that thing where I personify silly paper stars and other non-human things--I get it from my mother), so they're sitting in the bowl with the others right now (yeah....I sat long enough to fill a bowl with these).

Then I thought "I wonder if I could make these out of ribbon!" I had some wired ribbon I thought would work but it was too smooshy looking, so I pulled the wire out and remade it. It's much larger (about 7 inches) but it's not as cute:

Eh.

So then, because I have this personality quirk where I just HAVE to make it work (which translates nicely into having to have the last word) I used some other ribbon I had and it came out much cuter:

It holds the shape surprisingly well for ribbon and has a nice puffy look to it. 

Here's the side view:

These are supposed to be much more 3-D than they are, but try as I might I could just not get those points to happen. I like them the way they are though--kind of flat, but not really. Maybe I could call them German-American stars...y'know...to differentiate a bit...or something.

Here's one more closeup of a paper star:

And here's the side:

Those little loopy parts are supposed to be very pointy, but every time I tried to shape them it would tear or wrinkle and just not look good, so I left them how they seemed to want to be.

Now I just have to figure how I want to string them up. I think the paper ones would be really cute as a kitchen garland. I am for sure making a few more of the ribbon stars, though. I think that one's my favorite. 

Have a happy Friday!

My CSN giveaway ends tomorrow--see the entry post for a chance to win! I'll be announcing the winner sometime on Saturday.