Cardboard Hanji bedside table .....

Over the last six weeks I've been working on making this 50 cm tall x 40 cm wide cabinet out of cardboard and Hanji paper.

Completed cabinet

I now have instructions on how to make this so if anyone is interested I'll be posting it on my website in the next week or so along with about 5 other worksheets for sale from Sets of drawers to a divided box and lamps of different shapes and sizes.

These worksheets will enable you to cut out and make your own pieces of Hanji which is especially useful if kits aren't available. It gives you the flexibility to create your own articles, add your own details and the satisfaction of knowing you made it completely by yourself.

For my cabinet, about the size suitable for a bedside table, I choose a traditional white paper with writing on it for the inside of the cabinet and a brown mottled specialty paper with an imprint of cats on it for the outside.

I then trimmed it with a traditional border design in black with a plain beige colour underneath. The border design is 2.5cm wide on the sides and around the doorway and I then repeated the design on the top but cut it 5 cm wide.

Doors open

Inside of the cabinet

I finished it off with beige and orange strips of Hanji paper to highlight the trim and I then used brass fittings with engraved hinges along with a butterfly clasp. It was finished off with 2 coats of polyurethane varnish in a gloss to give it a surface that can be wiped over and I will now get a piece of bevel edged glass cut to place on the top just to give it extra protection as a tabletop.

Butterfly clasp

Engraved hinges

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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 a...

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 swastik...

HANJI TRIVIA - Punjabi 'Hanji' .......

When researching about Hanji I've come across many sites that relate to the word 'hanji' being used in Punjabi, one of the Indian languages. There's a band called 'Cornershop' that made a CD in 1997 called, "When I was Born for the Seventh Time' and at the beginning of the song, which I believe was originally sung in Punjabi, they use the word Hanji. In Punjabi both 'han' and 'ji' mean yes. When talking informally to a person they use 'han' but if speaking to an elder or a person with a superior status then they put the two words together and say 'hanji'. You just never know when this word might be used ......

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