Azuma Bukuro Bags

Azuma Bukuro – Quite a mouthful! 
A  clever and simple traditional Japanese style bag. Also called a wrap bag or triangle bag. [I believe Azuma means East and Bukuro means bag or wrapping] 

 

It’s made from a rectangle of fabric that’s cleverly folded and stitched. 
I made myself a couple from vintage sari fabric.

I have some beautiful vintage Japanese saris too and I am making them up into bags for the Freshly Found online store.  The pretty print of the patterned border creates interesting lines when made up into the bag.

When the handle is untied, the bag can be neatly folded up for storage.

The pink and white version shown here is available in the online store.  If you would like to make one yourself, there are a number of tutorials online.  Burda have a well illustrated tutorial for making this  “Triangle Bag” and Mifuku have a photo-illustrated Spanish and Japanese Tutorial too.

White Washed Proteas

A new batch of proteas with a slightly different finish

Whitewashed book paper and paper twist stems.

Ready just in time for the Freshly Found Exhibition of recycled products at the the Kloof SPCA’s Golden Paw Society Launch today.

Gentian Roses

Gentian for gentlemen at an upcoming function. 

 

Loved making this order up in this beautiful colour 🙂

Did you know? Interesting Gentian info from the Gentian Research Network a free, not-for-profit, web-based forum for worldwide research on the natural history and evolution of the flowering plant family Gentianaceae (gentians).

• Gentian violet is a water soluble dye used primarily in medicine to stain bacteria, but also in other histological procedures.  It is not derived from gentians, but got its name since it is pink-violet like some gentians in the genera of Centaurium, Gentiana, and Gentianella.
• The gentian family contains 87 genera and over 1600 species in the newest classification. It is closely related to other plant families that include coffee, periwinkle, milkweed, madder, and dogbanes
• Gentians have been used by humans since ancient times as herbal remedies, and taste very bitter. 
•  Their flowers are often colorful (blue, pink, red, yellow), and the true blue gentians (Gentiana) are often grown in rock gardens.

Cotton Print Trees

Christmas Time with bonded paper and fabric squares folded into mini trees.  

The delicate bright green floral sari prints are all the decorating these simple trees need.

They may be folded from a square of normal paper or light cardboard, but 
here they are made from a fine layer of cotton fabric bonded onto good quality book print paper (those annual share report books have their uses!!)
I love the way the typography gently emerges  through the botanical pattern.

How to fold:

Fold a preliminary base. Squash fold each flap.

Crease fold each point up

Reverse fold the points and tuck under. Once again, squash fold each flap.

Crease fold each flap up. Reverse fold and tuck under.

Join each inside point with a thread. Pull in and tie to secure the tree shape.

If you would like to try the fabric option, here’s how it’s done using fusible applique paper

Cut a squares of book paper . Cut a square of fusible bonding paper, iron it onto the fabric and cut the square out.

Flatten the paper square, peel the backing paper off the fabric square, and iron the fabric onto the paper square.

Some More Indigenous Flowers♥

 Book vases with indigenous sprigs…

 My paper versions of the cheerful Vygie, the healing Cancer bush [Sutherlandia frutescens] and Peace Lily [Spathiphyllum] all of them in various book vases

Concertina Shells…

These are the interesting leftovers from an enormous project we have just completed.

Christy, Sandile, Hlengiwe and myself have sourced, sliced, folded and strung together hundreds of folded books for the Shaw Sisters, who are supplying a nation-wide chain store in South Africa.
So…when you are at the mall – please be on the look out for this coming-soon literate installation, and let me know when and where you’ve seen it. – and send us a pic too.  Thanks♥
A special thanks to the Highway Hospice Charity Shop for supplying us with books to recycle and to Isla Designs for your contribution too!

Thank You Thank You!

Big thank yous to some talented locals for coverage of the I Love Pop-Up-Shop at artSPACE in Durban. I am so delighted with the way they have captured our Freshly Found Products♥ (Click on the links to see the work of the other amazing exhibitors.) 

Gorgeous pic by Illustrator and Designer Fathima of Happines is…

Another Happiness Is… perspective

Lauren of Glossary and her camera made this beetroot dyed bloom sing

Lovely and light pic by Glossary

Creative Business guru Nadia vander Mescht has published a comprehensive article on Gen Motley’s curated space too.
More info and visuals on the artSpace website and Facebook Page.

Basic Barrel Roll – Book Fold Tutorial

In response to loads of interest, we will be posting some tutorials on the art of book folding or Bibliogami.  It has become a very popular craft and Freshly Found has been folding books for years.  We are in the middle of an enormous order right now, so thought it would be a good idea to document some of the techniques we use. 

One of the simplest folds is the barrel roll  Start with a paperback that has a flexible glued spine. Choose a book of 200 – 250 pages.[100-125 actual sheets of paper].  Remove the outside cover.
Lay the book down flat and count 5 pages.  Roll the pages towards the spine.

Tuck them in as close to the spine as possible, then repeat with the next 5 pages and so on.  Always work in the same direction.  

Here you can see the lovely gentle symmetrical pattern that forms.  Continue until all the pages have been rolled.  At first, you will have to hold the rolls in place, but as the round is completed, the tension of the folds will keep everything in place.  No glue is needed.

These look good just as they are.  Simple book fold forms have a lively, yet calming effect.  Over the next few days, we will give you some ideas for using these beauties. 

If you create any these, we’d love to see how they turn out♥

We’ve talked about these shaped books before on this blog.  
Do you remember these Barrel Roll Decor items?

Table Tut                  and                           Bookshelf Display

Tickled…

I have grown quite passsionate about paper – in particular book paper.  I have learnt that each page has a grain, some pages are firm and flexible, while others are fragile and brittle and I am fascinated by the way books age from white to deep cream.

We have started to dye book paper with red ink.  These variations in colour have made such beautiful results.  Same ink bath – different book pages- many delightful shades 🙂 

We have made some large proteas from this paper and are busy with a batch of pink buttonhole proteas  at the moment too!

Freshly Found is definitely in the Pink!

Old Books – New Covers

I so enjoyed this public holiday project on Easter Monday.   I finally got round to covering a very old, unused, but sentimental set of World Book Encyclopaedias.

 

I decided to update them with a Bauhaus font.  Each book was covered in a light white cardboard sleeve, sourced from my local printer, who keeps the waste printed-on-one-side-only paper for me.  The letters were printed onto white sticker paper, and stuck onto the spine of each book.

I had covered my set of Golden Hands craft books a while back, but added stencil-print numbers to them too.  I like the calming rhythmic repetition and the fact that they now all add white bright white light to a darkish room in the house!

As soon as we got back from the Design Indaba, we had 2 weeks to get some orders out, before heading to our timeshare in Mpumalanga.  We had a wonderful family week away.  
But now we are back into full swing – cultivating paper flowers.