Hi everyone! Over the past week I was busy being crafty with my Canon PIXMA printer. I'm no novice at crafts, but I was a little nervous looking at the paper crafts available on Canon Creative Park as they looked very intricate and a tad tedious. So I decided to take it slow and start with the easy-to-make crafts available on Canon PIXMAtown first.
Canon PIXMAtown is filled with crafts for all occasions by six different artists. I wasn't surprised to see a number of Japanese artists featured, as the Japanese are well-known for their paper crafting skills. Having chosen and printed out the crafts I wanted to make, I armed myself with a scissors, a ruler and double-sided tape, and followed the simple instructions online.
The first thing I decided to make was this awesome Tokidoki envelope. I love Tokidoki prints, so this envelope was really fun to make, and it's probably also great for a gift or a letter to a friend.
Here's a shot of the back - check out that awesome detail! My cutting looks pretty neat, but that's only after some trial and error. You can read on for some tips on how to cut paper neatly.
Next, I decided to do something even cuter...
These lovely bookmarks were designed by Aki Kondo, the creator and producer of the world-famous character Rilakumma. They are so adorable and easy to make! See the dotted line on the bodies of the characters? That's where you can clip the page of your book so that the cute heads of the characters can pop up from the book edge!
The bookmarks are so cute that my friend wanted to use them as doorgifts for an event, heh. I also gave one to my SO, who loved them so much he asked for one.
More pictures of the bookmarks:
The next thing I made was an adorable card case designed by Aki Kondo as well.
You can store your cards in this card case and it's roomy enough to fit at least 5 cards comfortably! When it's closed, the kitty's paws look like they're holding the brown chain thing, which is the most adorable thing ever. I love useful and cute things like that!
Next up, we have the GagaTree Cable Organiser!
I originally thought this wouldn't be easy to make, as there were more parts than the other crafts (the head, the body and the puddle of water). It turned out to be surprisingly fun and easy though! To store your USB cables, you can remove the boxy top, roll up the cable and put it inside, then cover it back. It looks like a robot with cable arms, doesn't it?
The last thing I made was this gorgeous Tokidoki Stationery Holder!
I love the effusion of colourful and cute prints, but the cactus girl's head was really tough to cut because of the tiny spines! Speaking of which, here are a few tips and tricks to cut out intricate paper shapes:
1. Roughly cut out the outline of the shape if it is on a large piece of paper.
2. Don't bend the paper to reach the inner corners of shapes. Instead, cut at angles so that you can point the scissors towards the inner corners. Cut from both sides.
3. Use a small scissors (cuticle scissors) to reach hard to get corners or intricate areas.
4. If you're not too sure of cutting directly on the outline of the shape, cut on the outside and leave a bit of space so that you can go back and cut some more instead of cutting too much.
Hope that helps with your craft endeavours. Next week I'll be posting about crafts that can be made with Canon Creative Park, stay tuned!
