Okay, you know you’re too busy when you forget that your first book was released 2 days ago and miss doing a post on the release date…

My papercraft book and kit, Paper Chains & Garlands, is now here! It’s available to purchase exclusively through Barnes and Noble.

Front of box

I was hoping that I’d be able to sell signed copies through my site, but it turns out that the shipping costs for me to receive author copies from the US make that an impossible dream. So, instead, if you’d like to buy my book, I’d be very grateful if you’d click through from the links on my site, so I can make a tiny commission from your purchase!

Back of box with pictures of all the projects down the left hand side

For those of you without a magnifying glass, the back of the box reads:

Paper chains and garlands make everything more festive! Turn your next celebration into a creatively crafted occation to remember. Create delightful decorations on themes that range from the seasonal (snowflakes, autumn leaves, cherry blossoms) to the decorative (pleated flowers, pinwheels, elephants). The illustrated instruction book by expert crafter June Gilbank shows you how to fold, cut, unfurl, and string chains and garlands like a pro. With tips on how to cut simple paper dolls as well as elegant Chinese lanterns, Paper Chains and Garlands is the perfect craft kit for expert crafters as well as beginners.

Inside the box: the book, 4 rolls of paper chain paper and 10 sheets of double-sided garland paper

The book has full illustrated instructions for all 14 projects and includes full-size templates.

Inside the book: pretty colours, and full instructions & illustrations by me!

I hope you’ll enjoy Paper Chains & Garlands. It’s a sweet little book and kit, and would make a perfect Christmas gift, if you’re thinking that far ahead!

If you’d like to buy it, please click through to Barnes & Noble now. It’s a total bargain at only $9.95, so don’t miss out! Thank you for your support 🙂

FINALLY! I can give you a sneak preview of my papercraft book, Paper Chains and Garlands. After months of waiting, it’s wonderful to see how my projects, text and illustrations have been transformed into a thing of beauty… And it’s not only a book, it’s a kit!

Front of box

Back of box with pictures of all the projects down the left hand side

For those of you without a magnifying glass, the back of the box reads:

Paper chains and garlands make everything more festive! Turn your next celebration into a creatively crafted occation to remember. Create delightful decorations on themes that range from the seasonal (snowflakes, autumn leaves, cherry blossoms) to the decorative (pleated flowers, pinwheels, elephants). The illustrated instruction book by expert crafter June Gilbank shows you how to fold, cut, unfurl, and string chains and garlands like a pro. With tips on how to cut simple paper dolls as well as elegant Chinese lanterns, Paper Chains and Garlands is the perfect craft kit for expert crafters as well as beginners.

Inside the box: the book, 4 rolls of paper chain paper and 10 sheets of double-sided garland paper

The book has full illustrated instructions for all 14 projects and includes full-size templates.

Inside the box: the book, 4 rolls of paper chain paper and 10 sheets of double-sided garland paper

Drawing all the step-by-step illustrations took me sooo long, but I’m really happy with how clear and colourful it all looks. The inside of the book isn’t all purple, by the way – the instructions and illustrations for each project match the colours in the actual project – it’s so pretty!

Paper Chains & Garlands will be available in Barnes and Noble stores and from www.bn.com from September 30th 2009 – that’s just over a week from now!

I was hoping to be able to sell signed copies from my shop, but sadly due to the box being over 2cm thick, Canada Post would charge me $8 (Canada), $9 (US) and $16 (International) just to ship the book, which I doubt any of you guys would be willing to pay for a $10 book, right?! 🙁

I think it’s a really cute kit and I hope it’ll do well. Now I just have to wait until the 30th and see what people think of it!

As you may or may not have picked up from reading my blog over the past few months, I’ve written a papercraft book, to be released exclusively through Barnes & Noble. I finished writing and illustrating the book months ago, but haven’t seen a copy of it yet, so it all feels very unreal at this point – did I really write a book?! Maybe I just dreamt it…

Well now, thanks to my friend Jana and her camera, I have proof that it really did happen! Although it doesn’t yet appear on their website, a search for “June Gilbank” on the in-store Barnes & Noble catalogue computers reveals:

That’s Paper Chains and Garlands: Easy-to-Make Decorations for Parties, Holidays, and Home Decor by June Gilbank! It really exists!

Not long to wait now – I hope I’ll be able to show some pics from the book itself shortly! I can’t wait to finally be able to show you the result of all the hard work I put into it. 🙂

This post was originally published on my old papercraft site, Folding Trees.

As a lifelong Star Wars fan, when I saw the instructions for an X-wing origami model [via @avgjanecrafter on Twitter] yesterday, I just couldn’t resist trying one!

Pictured above is my attempt, using a 6″ square of silvery grey origami paper. It was all pretty easy until the last step – folding up the 4 wing tips (I can never get this part looking neat with origami cranes either – it’s just too thin!). Still, I think it looks pretty cool.

I made this pretty pop-up card a couple of weeks ago, but had to wait until it arrived with its recipient before I could post about it!

It’s a lotus blossom that we featured on Folding Trees last year – such a pretty design! You can now see my review of the process of making the card, below.

Tutorial Review: Lotus Blossom Card

This review was originally published on my old papercraft site, Folding Trees.

In progress

Cutting the template pieces:

Finished piece

The finished card, open:

And from the side:

Notes on this tutorial

The template comes on 2 pages. Unfortunately it’s designed for 11.7″ long paper, so for folks with letter-sized or A4 paper, the template is slightly too long and a couple of edges will be cut off. I didn’t realise this, so I had to draw the missing bits back onto my printouts by eye before cutting them out. You can avoid this by making sure “Shrink to Printable Area” is selected in Adobe Reader when you go to print.

I found it slightly annoying to have to cut everything out twice (once on printer paper to make the templates after printing, and then again on the coloured cardstock after tracing the templates), but you could save and reuse the printed paper templates, so you only have to do that step once. You could print directly onto your cardstock, but as each piece is cut from a  different colour, you’d waste a lot of cardstock that way.

The card came together easily enough – the directions are very simple. The stamens were a bit fiddly to cut and to attach; I’d advise that you treat them gently so you don’t bend them.

The finished card is stunning and the pop-up effect works well. You could modify the idea with different coloured cardstock, or, if you’re feeling very creative, change the shape of the petals to make a different type of flower. If you haven’t checked out the tutorial yet, I recommend you take a look!

Level of difficulty

Time

Cost

Link

The original tutorial is available here.

My craft room/office is upstairs, so it gets pretty hot in summer without the air conditioning on, especially with my big computer purring away generating heat all day. I didn’t want to run the air conditioning in the house all day, every day, when I only use this one room during the daytime, so I bought myself a cheap desk fan. It works really well – I don’t feel sluggish any more, and my concentration has increased dramatically! The only downside is that it’s not pretty. Not at all:

Ugh, that’s really not what I want to look all day – it’s hardly part of my ideal creative ambience! Now, if only there was something I could do to improve the appearance… Hang on – I’m a crafter! I make things! No problemo:

I revisited my own teabag folding tutorial, and used some beautiful origami paper from Alice to make a little paper medallion to cover the logo in the centre of the fan. It makes such a difference to the overall appearance. Notice the cool colour palette in the paper design, which adds to the effect of the fan – now just looking at it makes me feel cooler!

It’s just a little thing, but it makes me happy 🙂

In case you’d like to make your own paper embellishments, I used two squares of 3″ origami paper which I quartered to make eight 1.5″ squares. This made a medallion of just over 2″ wide. To make a larger medallion, just start with larger paper squares. See my tutorial for the simple instructions – it’s a lot easier than it looks!

Folding Trees, the papercraft site that Eve and I co-founded, is a year old this week! It’s been a great first year; between the two of us, we’ve written over 400 posts, and published tons of paper-crafty inspiration and tutorials.

Here are a few of our most popular tutorials from the year:

clockwise from top left: 1) my Tissue Paper Carnations; 2) Eve’s Kusudama Ball (my updated tutorial here); 3) my Lucky Wishing Stars; 4) Eve’s Balloon Lights

Of course, it’s also through my work on Folding Trees that I got a book deal (yay!). My book, Paper Chains & Garlands, is at the printing stage, and should be released in late summer or early autumn – I’ll keep you posted as I hear more!

If you have any interest in crafting with paper, do check out Folding Trees for a daily dose of projects and inspiration 🙂

You may have noticed that 2009 began with my announcement that I am taking the leap into self-employment, and then… well, not a lot else. Two patterns in two months is hardly impressive, especially when I should have all this extra time available. But I haven’t just been lazing about; now I can (finally) reveal what’s been going on…

Are you ready for my huge, exciting news?

Early prototypes

I have been writing a book! But wait – it’s probably not the book you’d guess I’d write… It’s a papercraft book about paper chains and garlands, and it all came about through my work on Folding Trees. I’ve been working really hard for the past couple of months designing the projects, creating the samples, writing the instructions and drawing the illustrations, and now it’s finally coming together!

Pretty papers

My book should be out in the US through Barnes & Noble in late summer 2009. The process has been a lot of fun, a phenomenal amount of work, and a big eye-opener into the world of print publishing. I’ll share more details as the publication date approaches…

Now I am returning to my crochet designs, and I should have two new patterns for you by the end of the week!

And one more thing: If you sell your crafts and you’re still undecided about signing up for an ArtFire membership, I strongly suggest you give it some more thought. Since I wrote my last ArtFire post, the $7 advance memberships have been going very quickly – half of the remaining memberships have been snapped up in the past 10 days! If you miss out on one, you’d have to pay $20 per month if you want to enjoy the full benefits of selling on ArtFire.

Looking at my March sales to date, my ArtFire sales are at 22% of my Etsy total, which tells me that the monthly fee has already been worth it! I would guess that the last $7 memberships will be gone in about a week, so please do consider grabbing one before it’s too late. And if you do, please list me (planetjune) as your referrer – thank you! Here’s my direct link: Register on ArtFire.com.