Things I Didn’t Buy 31

I really liked this Ace carbon paper packaging—simple, graphic, and I like the airplane and fonts.

This Royal School Life paper packaging is also great.

I liked this Acorn note book filler packaging as well.

And this Audio Magnetics packaging is pretty cute—love the script font.

Finally, this VHS cassette tape rewinder amused and saddened me in the way obsolete technology often does. This was once an expensive item that was sought after, but now, no one wants it and is in fact useless to practically everyone. But I do appreciate the general design of the product. And I like the Kinyo logo.

DIY: Spool Banner

When I went thrift shopping with a friend, she bought a bag of thread that had older and newer spools. She just wanted thread and didn’t want the empty wooden spools, and I gladly accepted them when she offered them to me.

Looking at the spools, I thought I could make a cute banner with them. They could be used for place setting names on a table for a party or a special message for someone.

DIY: Tiered Paper Fan Flower Ornament

This tiered ornament is based upon the Paper Fan Flower Ornament and can be used as Christmas ornaments or as party decorations.

DIY: Paper Fan Flower Ornament

This ornament is based upon the Paper Fan Flower I created for packaging decoration. It’s simple and can add a pop of color as a Christmas tree ornament or as party decorations hung on the wall or hung from the ceiling.

DIY: Paper Circle Christmas Ornament

I realize that Christmas is still somewhat far off (and I know have complained before about how early Christmas paraphernalia starts showing up in stores), but I’ve decided to post a Christmas project anyway (because sometimes you can’t control when you have ideas).

This is a very simple flat circle paper ornament that’s easy to make and easy to personalize.

DIY: Tangram Magnets

I loved tangrams as a child; sometimes I’d played with them by myself while other times I played against an opponent. It’s one of those fun yet educational games (that parents like to give their children) as it helps players think and learn about spatial relations.

I thought I’d create Tangram Magnets that you could place on the refrigerator (and play whenever you wanted).

DIY: Folded Paper Napkin Ring

This is a simple way to create napkin rings that are just made out of paper—no gluing or taping required. They aren’t too hard to make, disposable and inexpensive.

DIY: Scrap Paper Packaging Decoration

I just seem to accumulate different types of paper (e.g. fine art, scrapbooking, cardstock, used wall calendars and paint samples). Sometimes I use these papers in projects and am left with bits and pieces, and I thought I could use those scraps to decorate packages.

DIY: Paper Fringe Tag

Creating fringe is an easy way to add some texture and visual interest to plain colored cardstock; I used this simple technique to make a gift tag with.

Pop of Color

I’ve made paper jewelry before in my DIY: Paper Earrings project, but this time I decided to focus on using paint swatches for a pop of color. Paint swatches have just about every color imaginable and in particular the trendier colors of the season. One of the nice things about using paint swatches is that they’re printed on thicker paper so they’re pretty durable, and the coating on them gives them more resistance to water than the average paper stock. Granted, since they are paper they won’t last forever, but I think they’re a simple way to add some color to jewelry—and the colors can be switched out as often as you like.

For this necklace I measured and marked on the back of each paint swatch the size of the pieces I wanted. Then I used my x-acto knife and ruler to cut them out; my pieces were 0.25 inch wide and 2, 2.5 and 3 inches in length. I punched holes at the top of each rectangle and used jump rings to connect them to a chain and finished by adding a clasp.

After I’d made this necklace, I realized that the paint swatch pieces may not always stay flat against me and that the backside of the swatches could show. The backside of a paint swatch isn’t very exciting as it’s just filled with type. If I were to make this again I might glue two paint swatch backs together and (after the glue dried) then cut out my shapes from that so that no paint swatch back would ever show. Plus, it could be interesting to use two different colors that could add some visual interest or make a piece of jewelry reversible.

This necklace wasn’t very difficult to make. However, it is a bit of work to make paper jewelry considering it doesn’t have a long lifespan, but I think it could be worth it if you have a very specific color you want your jewelry to be.

DIY: Paper Chain Banner

I thought using paper circles and jump rings together could create a cute banner that could be hung on the wall for any event (e.g. birthday, baby shower, congratulations, etc.).

DIY: Paper Ball Christmas Ornament

The Christmas trees I had growing up never looked like the Christmas trees you see on TV that are perfectly decorated with their color coordination and shiny metallic ball ornaments. No, our Christmas trees were decorated with a mish-mash of ornaments that were both store bought and handmade—it made for a unique tree.

To create a simple Christmas ornament, I decided to use folded paper circles (not unlike what I did for my Lantern Tag). I think it’s a nice ornament to make if you don’t have quite enough ornaments for your tree (and don’t want to buy more) or if you want a disposable ornament.

DIY: Paper Fan Flower

When I was a kid, I would use an accordion fold on a piece of paper to create a “fan” (as if that could help to cool me down against a hot summer day). But I thought I could use this simple fold to create a “flower” that could be used as packaging decoration.

DIY: Paper Earrings

There are times where you might want or need “disposable” earrings, like a Halloween costume or holiday-related earrings. This is a simple way to create earrings that can be whatever shape you can cut out of paper.

DIY: Lantern Tag

I was thinking about other ways to use circle shapes, and came up with a festive lantern tag.

DIY: Woven Paper Tags

I’ve been to a few paper shows. Not tons, but enough that I’ve accumulated a couple of boxes worth of stuff. A paper show, in case you don’t know, is just what it sounds like: a show about paper. People who use paper in their printing will go to these shows and talk to vendors about the different types of paper and pick up paper samples.