Miniature hanji table ...

As I wind down and try to get projects finished before summer I wanted to make one last thing before I head off to Australia and Europe to meet up with my children, grandchildren and friends that we've kept in touch with during the 12 years we've been travelling the world and living and working as expats.

When I was in Korea with my Hanji friends I was given a small kit and at the time, I had no idea what I was going to do with it as I saw the kit as a bit of a challenge. I wanted to choose a paper that didn't have too big a pattern so as to overshadow the shape and design of the piece and also to choose a colour that would take a small cutout on top.

Because of the size of the piece, at just 15 cms long and 9.5 cms tall everything was going to be fiddly.

After much deliberation I chose a two tone grey patterned paper with swirls on it and a light grey plain paper for the inside of the cabinet and the outside of the drawer. For the inside of the drawer I chose one of my favourite small printed designs in a pale grey.

The curved top is made with 2 layers of 3 mm thick cardboard whilst the body of the cabinet is the same.

The cutout I used was of a dragon and as I couldn't decide what colour I would eventually use I cut out a black, red and a grey dragon all at the same time. I decided to go with the grey one in the end but to brighten the whole thing up I placed red paper behind it.

When it came to putting a knob on the drawer front I tried a brass one but it didn't seem to do anything for the unit so I used a grey one with a pearl inlay in it.

All in all I think it's quite cute and another one to add to my collection of pieces.

Comments

Lotus symbol in Korean culture .....

In traditional Korean Hanji art you can see many different designs of plants, animals, letters and insects. I'm sure you've wondered what they all symbolise as they are repeated so often and in many different ways. In this post I just want to take a brief look at the lotus plant and what it symbolises for the Korean people. I've used this design on a few articles but I never really knew the full meaning of what it represented until I started doing some research for my book. Even though many of us aren't Korean we can still use these designs and in so doing, translate a deeper meaning to our articles. Here are a just a few of my favourites from the easiest to the more difficult to cut out. The lotus flower symbolises creation, birth, liveability and reproduction and therefore it's one of the most important symbols in both Korean culture and its traditional religions. In both Confucianism and Buddhism

The Buddhist symbol, Hanji & Korean culture ....

When selecting designs for my Hanji pieces I tend to make stylistic choices as to what will look best on each piece but the Korean designs all have very deep symbolic meanings. None more than the Buddhist swastika (manja) design. ‘Manja’ (만, Man is “卍” and 만자, Manja literally means “letter Man”) is also called Srivatsalksana in Sanskrit. It is one of the thirty-two (32) marks of excellence of the Buddha and is said to exist on his hands, feet, hair and waist. For those of us in the West this is often confused with the German Nazi swastika symbol but in fact it's been around for about three thousand years. The swastika is an equilateral cross with arms bent at right angles and all in the same direction, usually to the right, or clockwise. It's a symbol of prosperity and good fortune and it originally represented the revolving sun, fire, or life. The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit swastika which means, "conducive to well

Online Hanji paper store, in English .....

I'm really pleased to be able to share with you this website where you can order a variety of Hanji papers from Korea and it's all in English !!! The store is based in Daejon, Korea. HAMINBRIDGE ( Thehanji ) was established by Moonyang Park in 1983. It's a family owned 2nd generation business and they have a factory in Junju. They also have a factory in China where some of the paper is made. The website is at www. thehanji.com and it provides a selection of specialty Hanji paper (Korean paper) and products. I ordered some papers from them recently to see what it was like and they were extremely efficient in dealing with the order and it was here in the UAE within 5 days so I was really impressed. The prices were good and they even have some on special, the paper is beautiful and the ease of ordering was amazing. They do sell rolls of paper, traditional papers and lanterns but overall I did think the range was a bit limited for what I wa

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