Asian Style Tree for Altrusa Festival of Trees

Now that Marie is out of the way it is time to finish up the Asian Style Tree.  Wouldn't it have been nice to have them more than a week apart!  I failed to finish the cupcakes, I had made 18 not counting rejects, but didn't get them all decorated.  So I have a ton of cupcakes with no idea what to do with them!

So this week I am trying to get something accomplished for the Asia style tree.  Everyone liked the iris folded ornaments so I have been concentrating on making more of them.  I bought some wonderful origami paper unfortunately it was a bit expensive.  It was tricky but I squeezed out two ornaments with the origami paper, a fan and another kimono.  The iris folding patterns were from the book "Iris Folding, Spiral Folding for Paper Arts" by Design Originals.  This is a great pamphlet style book and comes with patterned paper inside.  I have a couple more of their books and treasure them all.

 

Iris folded origami paper fan.

 

Sadly the fan ornament had a flaw in the design.  All the layers of paper end at the same point at the bottom of the fan.  This made the fans extremely bulky.  So I cheated!  I only folded the papers slightly instead of in half, reducing the bulk.  Then once the fan was done I carefully cut away some more of the excess paper at the point.  That was scary, but I didn't hurt the layering.  Even with all of the cheating the fan was still too thick at the point.  So then I had a great bit of inspiration and put it in an embossing folder and ran it through a Cuttlebug!  The embossing enhanced the design greatly and squished it a lot flatter.  It was tricky adjusting plates so that such a fat project would go through and in the end I had to scrim it.  Then I ran the cardboard backing for the fan through the machine.  Next added a tassel and hanging thread and hot glued it all together.  I also ran the kimono ornament through the Cuttlebug to make it look richer with the embossing.

 

 

Iris folded origami kimono.

 

Yesterday I worked on a framed piece inspired by the kimono pattern.  A kind person gave Lee a beautiful 16" x 20" frame.  From the moment I saw the frame I knew that it was going to be part of the Asian style tree.  Along with the tree ornaments we also needed to add gifts and so this would be my gift contribution.  So I enlarged the kimono pattern and then cut it out of a 16" x 20" piece of black mat board.  Then I took several handmade papers and some gift wrap and made a larger version of the kimono.  It isn't finished yet, I am still thinking of changing the image in the center.  The image in the framed kimono is a little too blue.

 

 

Framed iris folded kimono.

 

So far only five ornaments are finished.  My hope is to make more of the teapots today, since I already bought fabric for the project.  Maybe I will be able to make a tutorial on the teapots.  It has been a long time since I did a tutorial.  Only two days to finish up and I still haven't made up a necklace for another tree gift.  Got to get back to work!