333. Paper Cranes Star

I have absolutely no idea how many paper cranes I have made in my life so far - I may well be past the thousand… I use to make them out of every kind of paper I can get my hands on, whenever I'm just sitting around somewhere. They also tend to be left where I make them (lecture halls, dinner tables, anterooms, parties, …) They also decorate almost every present I'm giving to someone. All in all I assume that less of my cranes stay with me than don't. Still, I've got a box at home where I collected all those that would turn up in various corners of my room, handbags, pockets, pencil cases, and god knows where. I try to keep track of their number but it only ever works for so long. So, eventually I shall have to count them again - which I just did. These are 409 paper cranes:

… plus/minus two or three - I didn't double-check.

If you like paper cranes - or if you don't just yet but feel like you might - check out this beautiful project!

228. Space Traffic on Milky Way

Yay, today's project is somehwat insane! :D

Over the past three days I've been working on a very special kind of street... I wanted to make the milky way - out of actual milk.

Now, here it is:

See how the street sign can change its language:

Apparently, on the Milky Way they're driving on the right...

I was having a lot of fun folding all kinds of different paper spaceships. A mere few minutes before I was going to pour the milk, I suddenly thought that I simply had to add a little blue box here, somewhere - it's not very detailed but recognisable, I'm sure, especially since it is lopsided as ever. :D

Those spaceships did float rather well, except they kept drifting towards the edges, so on many pictures it looked like they were about to crash or - as in the first one - drift over into the oncoming lane...

Here's what the basic piece looked like before being flooded:

It's made of cardboard covered with tin foil. The sides are plain black paper with some stars painted on them. The centre line is made of a long straw painted black. The size of the whole thing is about 36 x 26 cm, so, actually quite small. All the more surprising how much milk fit in there: I didn't have enough and had to fill it up with water until it was more than half a litre.

This was great fun! (And a big mess in the end...) :D

203. Paper Crane Mobile

Today, I finished making a mobile of paper cranes. I decorated the 'ceiling' with a star:

202. Orange Origami Star

I learnt a lot about "orange" this night when we watched two films about the Sannyasa movement. Slightly disturbing if you look at the whole picture...

Here's a star for the occasion:

113. Large Origami Star

This day rushed by without me even noticing. So, when we returned home tonight after a fantastic circus show, I realised I still hadn't made a star and so my sister generously sat down with me and taught me how to make this origami star:

 

While I made an eight-pointed star (out of eight sheets of paper) because that's easiest, my sister tried one with seven which gives you a kind of three-dimensional sculpture: