Paper Craft Saturday

Today I finally put the finishing touches on a paper craft I started a month or more ago. I wish I had some nice name to call this craft, but everything I can think of is way too cheesy, and the original name on the DIYideas website is ‘freewheelin art’. Blurg. Naming fail. Here are some of the craptastic names I thought of: paper craft circles, circular paper fans, paper wheels, ummm, you get the idea. Lame names.
Anyway, lets not judge this book by its cover, shall we? After all, the actual product is pretty cute. As I was saying (ahem, typing), I started these wheels a while ago… The only problem was I didn’t create anything for them to properly hang on. They were just precariously balanced on push pins, not a good plan. They are hung over our bed and one too many times (actually, just once would have been too many) one of these plopped down on my face in the middle of the night. Now, they are only made of paper and they are round, so there are no sharp edges to gouge my eyes nor are they heavy and nose crushing, still, a definite nuisance.
However, they are now (finally) equipped with little black ribbons from which to hang. Simple and, hopefully, effective. 
These fans (or wheels or what-have-you) were really easy to make. I constructed them one evening while watching a movie. The materials you need are: craft paper (double sided is better), crafting glue, paper cutter, clothes pins, a large book (or weight), scissors, and ribbon (or string, or fishing line, or floss even). Here are my 7 all stacked like some bizarre wedding cake. A bit challenging to get them to balance. Perhaps, these could not only be wall decorations, but also children’s stacking toys! ha.
The hardest part for me was consistently getting my folds even.  And, by hardest, I mean impossible. None of my folds were even (might have something to do with my movie watching multi-tasking); therefore, when I glued together the sides they didn’t quite line up. Oh well, a little trim with the scissors on the offending edge and voila. Even.
Here are the instructions and DIY image. Well, here is my current installation. I’m still playing around with the composition. I’m not super jazzed about it as is, but that is probably because I remember really liking how they were arranged previously (when they were attacking me in my sleep). The push pins are all still in the same spots (luckily, they did not attack. Now that would have been some gouging action), so I just need to keep playing around with which one is where.   Today was actually lovely outside. Unfortunately, I ran out of my allergy pills about a week or so ago and hay fever came a knocking in full force today (which, finally prompted me to actually drive the 5 minutes to Walgreens and pick up some new ones). But, anywho, I was not up for much yard work wise. Some of the neighbors planted another 4 trees this morning (now only 3 to go!). Bill and I also went shopping at the mega home warehouses. We hit up Home Depot first, because we had a 7 month old gift card that needed to get used… Then we headed over to Lowe’s (a whopping 1/2 mile away from our first destination). I don’t know why, but I really prefer Lowe’s to Home Depot. It might just be that I am more familiar with the layout so I can actually find what I am looking for within 10 minutes, it also might be that their indoor gardening section is superior… We pretty much exclusively bought stuff for outside (wheel barrow, shovel, new gardening gloves, plants, and a ton of seed packs). Hopefully by next weekend my allergy meds will be in full operational force and we can get outside and get some more work done. Bill did do some yard work today (what with his lack of allergies). He mowed the lawn and added mulch to our new trees.
Tomorrow looks like it is going to be pretty busy. We have breakfast with friends, an opera matinee (Bill’s first, my second- hope it’s good!), and we both have some work to do (as in our actual paying jobs, not working around the house). Who knows, we might squeeze in a project or two. There is a certain gift that is almost ready to be installed…. Oh, the suspense!