why I have a ream of square paper

Yesterday as we gathered for what would be our last Chinese Brush Painting class in 2007, Linda showed us this beautiful snowflake ornament. Instead of getting out our inks and brushes, we spent about five minutes trying to recreate the demo from a class the day before. Linda didn’t make one at the time, but she watched and assured us that it was super easy to make.

When she said that you start with six square sheets of paper, I instantly knew that this is why I have a box full of paper that I have never used. A couple of years ago, I had Keith and Mark at the copy center cut a ream of paper off into a perfect square. I thought that I could use it to make a variety of projects from cootie catchers to miniature coloring books, which I used as a mini-catalog for a period of time. But I stopped producing cootie catchers and now just send pdfs.

A few weeks ago Carol asked if I would be willing to lead a craft project this Friday night (tonight). I don’t know if she knew this or not, but I have grown quite found of leading demos and workshops at Paper Source. I am trying to figure out how to expand my workshop experiences. So of course, I said yes immediately. I love to share the creative wealth on all things paper. I have insane amount of paper that involves various paper and envelope sizes that is pretty useless outside of the walls of Paper Source. Unless of course you can share the information on how to express their creativity with something so basic that we are surrounded by all of the time.

I believe that it has been found that as people began using technology more, they only began printing more. So much for the paperless revolution. Why not do something fun with all of those sheets in your recycling bin? Wouldn’t it be interesting to have snowflakes made out of the report you spent five hours reading for work? I am sure that has to be therapeutic to roll all of the little arms and then decorate your office. If you prefer a pristine white snowflake, just cut off the end of the paper that contains the file name, date and url in the header and absolutely nothing else. It will be a great day when our printers since there is nothing on the page, so don’t print it.

A very simple web search turned up this How to Make a 3D Paper Snowflake on Wikihow. Yes, it is that easy that a six-year-old should have no trouble. And they look great. I took my materials and a sample over to the church last night. And the Horizons kids were all impressed. They even wanted to make one. That says something. I spent an entire year trying to entice them with paper craft projects. Joy was the only one who would regularly bite. Spread some holiday office cheer. It is Friday with less than two weeks until Christmas and Hanukkah started this past Tuesday at sundown.

And if you are in the DC area, be sure to visit the Downtown Holiday Market, which begins today at noon. It is located on F Street between 7th and 8th Streets NW and runs until 8pm each evening. Last year, I noticed that some of the vendors change day to day. So be sure to visit early and often. And of course, everyone is welcome to our craft and chili event tonight, which runs from 6-8 pm.

Enjoy!