Spring is nearly here and, how to make a small pot

Here in the UAE we only have two seasons, summer in the mid to high 40s C & winter in the 20s C. The change in temperatures between seasons is very welcome but due to the harsh summer conditions there isn't a huge variety of plants that will survive and therefore most of the fresh flowers are airflown in daily from Holland. They are beautiful but it gets very expensive to be constantly buying fresh ones for display.

I don't think about the other seasons so much these days but I did notice in one of the homeware stores this weekend that it was decorated ready for Spring.

There were special pastel toned bowls, flowery cushions, blossoms of different varieties and colourful plants as if to herald the beginning of a season we don't even experience in this part of the world.

They weren't fresh flowers they were artificial. I've never been much of a lover of plants other than fresh ones but these days they've improved tremendously from the old plastic varieties and are really quite lifelike and appealing so I decided to buy a small bright yellow plant for my desk.

On getting it home I thought that it'd probably look better with a small container for it to sit in. I scoured my overflowing cupboards for just the right sized pot but couldn't find anything that would be suitable so I decided to make one out of Hanji.

This is what I did.

Cut a long strip of cardboard to fit around the plant. Score it every 1cm.

Check to make sure it fits.

Cut out a circle for the base.

This is how it should fit

Cut out & glue papers for the inside of the pot

Glue the sides to the base and then tape

I printed a photo onto Hanji to get the effect I wanted.

Paper the outside of the pot

Finished

The picture is of a brick wall and the pattern is a traditional design representing prosperity and long life but you don't need to use photos and any Hanji paper would be OK. It took about an hour to make and it's just what I wanted.

Hanji is such a versatile craft and if you have an idea in mind of what you want then it's likely you can make it with a little bit of imagination and 'thinking outside the box(pot)'.

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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