Monday, January 9, 2012

a january craft - spare paper chevron art


When you are a paper goods nut like myself and work with paper of all shapes, sizes and colors, you tend to end up with a bunch of odd strips of excess card-stock.  I even have a smaller box within my "Colored Paper" box just labeled "scraps" that I can access for a rainy day.  Staring at it this weekend, (when it was indeed rainy) I decided I was going to put those scraps of paper to work to help fill up an empty frame I had sitting around the house.
so here's what you'll need:
  • 2-11"x17" pieces of paper
  • scraps of colored paper, no less than 1"x1" in size
  • xacto knife or cutting utensil of some sort
  • glue (elmers works just fine)
  • a pencil
 1- start with 2-11"x17" pieces of paper.  Overlap, trim and tape/glue together as needed to create the size artwork you'd like.  For this project, I chose to make my art measure16"x20".


2 -Then mark about 1/2" from the corners.  This gives you an idea of a border so your frame won't overlap the squares.  Unless you want it to, then just ignore this step


3 - Cut your pieces of colored paper down to 1"x1" squares.  Then line one up with your marks and glue it down (please pardon the fuzziness of these first few pictures... crummy iPhone camera)
4- Then take your next 1"x1" piece of paper and line it up next to the first one
5 - Now its time to start the chevron - take the paper square you'd like to place next and fold it in half on a diagonal.  Then glue it next to the other squares.  This creates the void of color that will define the shape of the chevron.
6 - Keep this rhythm going until you finish the first row and start again on the next row - but this time move the folded square either forward one space or back one space to create the chevron..  This is a great art project for when you just need to let your mind rest - its so wonderfully repetitive.  
I started with about 10 colors and just kept the pattern of colors going to create at least some cohesion. It's totally up to you.

Once you're done, you can then pop it in a frame and voila - a fantastically simple, colorful, and did I mention 3Dimensional piece of wall art in one afternoon!
  - Leslie

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