Archive for November, 2005

Oriental Trading Co?

November 30th, 2005

This is non-origami-related- have you ever bought anything from the Oriental Trading Company?

we had a friend give us a copy of their catalog, and it’s full of very cheap (low cost, and low quality) inexpensive items in bulk. some of the stuff was just insanely cheap, and made me wonder who was making it all. kind of strange.

I remember my mom getting the same catalog when I was a kid, but it’s been a long time since I’d ever seen it. She used to buy supplies for the disabled kids she worked with; little toys for prizes, etc.

I managed to pass on ordering 144 little drink umbrellas for $4.95. although somewhere deep inside I’m thinking of possible uses (justifications?) for such a purchase…

Hopefully the Fair Trade part of me will win out over the “hundreds of drink umbrellas!” part of me. It’s equally difficult arguing with the “10 miles of streamer tape!!!” voice, but he’ll just have to live with it.

Posted in weblinks | Comments (0)

origami tessellation lamps

November 29th, 2005

Wow! this french origami site has some pretty amazing tessellated lamps for sale! since my french is limited to finding the metro, buying lunch, and locating bathroom facilities, I can’t understand much of it.

Although it does promise to take me to another dimension!

base made of wood, using compact fluoresecent bulbs to avoid setting things on fire (good idea, there).

for the most part, they seem to consist of 45 degree angle tessellations, or vertical pleating designs which have interesting bases or designs in the vertical portions. My initial thought was “I can get more complex than that!” but in reality a simpler design probably catches the light better, and isn’t as distracting as something overly complex. This is, no doubt, another item to try out folding and see what comes of it! I can imagine the stockpile of white unryu paper that I have probably will come in handy for this particular project.

This looks like a good idea- I had some plans for making a lamp using some of my flat-fold tessellations, but perhaps some sort of standalone 3d model would be good.

boutique: les lampes

UPDATE: Anna from Origami Austria created this lovely diagram (with help from the Real Chris) for folding one of the above lamps. You can download it here: http://home.arcor.de/kaliz/Lamp.pdf.

and while we’re speaking of lamps, check out these “le klint” lamps over at hive modern:

le klint lamps

they are spectacular (and 60s pop) lamps folded/pressed from what looks like one sheet of PVC or similar polycarbonate plastic.

some of these remind me a lot of tessellations I have folded, and really make me want to fold them as lamps- others are crazy curved shapes I couldn’t think of reproducing accurately.

blurb from the site says:

“These hand-folded sculptural lamps were designed by Andreas Hansen and has been in continuous production in Denmark by Le Klint. Le Klint pendants are enjoying renewed popularity and cast quite an awe-inspiring glow when lit… a smart alternative, or compliment to a Nelson bubble lamp.

Le Klint shades and lamps have been designed by an impressive list of competent and well-reputed designers and architects. There is no doubt that this is one of the explanations why Le Klint lamps are considered “modern classics”. Made from a color stabilized white PVC which is completely washable and anti-static.”

If you like these, check out Ranjit’s photos of one of them over at flickr:

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/ranjit/65388851/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/ranjit/65388679/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/ranjit/65388489/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/ranjit/65388282/

Posted in art, design, geometry, lighting, origami, origami tessellations, paper | Comments (3)

Last posting on origomi.blogspot.com - all content moving to http://www.origamitessellations.com

November 28th, 2005

I’ve merged the content from my origomi.blogspot.com blog site and my origamitessellations.com site, into a single location. I now have active, working RSS feeds, and all sorts of other good things. I’m particularly excited about how much easier it is for me to add items, which means I’m much more likely to keep things up to date.

One feature I really like is the flickr photo gallery plugin, which allows me to display all my latest flickr photos in a convenient in-site gallery. check it out here.

However, there is a downside: for the time being I am unable to provide Portuguese translations of all my pages, although all diagram documents will be translated (with help from my Brasilian friends!)

Meus apologies, origamigos!

So, if you’ve been reading this website, or checking it occasionally- please hop over to www.origamitessellations.com. that’s where everything will be from now on.

This is a good change, really, and I think it will be an improvement overall. I’m still getting the hang of the WordPress blog system, but so far it’s working for me.

Thanks for your time and interest, everyone! I appreciate it greatly.

-Eric Gjerde

Posted in Site Info | Comments (0)

extremely cool hand-cut kanji stencils

November 28th, 2005

Ignore a lot of the kimono stuff on the top of the page (or not, I guess it’s your call) and scroll down to the bottom and check out these amazing hand-cut kanji stencils.

not related to origami in any way, but still very neat if you’re into paper in general.

I’m a paper freak, so… yeah.

Posted in art, paper, papercraft | Comments (0)

new folding sequence for the tsuru (origami crane)

November 28th, 2005

This came in as a post to the Origami-L mailing list, from Anna of Origami Austria (Origami Österreich).

Apparently at one of their meetings, they discovered a “faster” way to fold the traditional crane (also known as a tsuru).

Essentially, it involves using a double-rabbit-ear fold to speed up the folding process- if you’re good at eyeballing this sort of thing, it should really make things easier. I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks promising. They also put together a very nice PDF for it. (this is the english version- follow the link to their site above if you want the German PDF.)

new way of folding the traditional Origami Crane

Posted in o-list postings, origami | Comments (0)

Jane’s 3d star

November 28th, 2005

Jane (mawelucky on flickr) takes her great new innovative star collapse to new heights here.

I can’t say enough about how cool this particular fold is- she had sent me a similar fold previously, which was also ingenious in this same way. it’s really some new and different thinking on the problem, and it just goes to show that many people looking at the same thing see it differently.

so now all of us who fold 3/6 tessellations have yet another great move to add into the mix! I suggest you folks give this a try- ask Jane to email you her nice instructional document!

Posted in flickr photos, origami, origami tessellations, paper | Comments (0)

The Fitful Flog: The Three Card Monte

November 28th, 2005

The Fitful Flog: The Three Card Monte

Philip has a seriously cool “wallet” fold, which gives you a hexagonal folding wallet which holds several ID cards/credit cards/whatever.

The best part, of course, is that his final version looks like a set of playing cards! now that’s just crossing the line into utter geek cool factor. (or at least in my opinion.)

well, really the bestest (yes, I said bestest) part is that he took the barcodes from his frequent purchaser cards and printed them onto the thing, so he doesn’t even need to carry those things around with him.

He’s got CP’s posted; they look swell using Adobe Acrobat Reader on my PC, but they are non-visible using Preview on my Mac (10.4.3). ack!

great work! thanks for sharing! oh, and they are CC licensed, so you don’t have to worry about the origami harpies chasing you down and hounding you for giving away the CP to people. double great!

Posted in creative commons, geometry, math, origami, paper | Comments (2)

industrial origami

November 27th, 2005

Industrial origami

Found via future feeder.

very interesting process; looks like they have devised some methods for folding things from a single piece of sheet metal, including things like jack stands, boxes, 1U server chassis, etc. I’d love to watch the folding process for some of these, especially if it is completely roboticized.

Posted in design, geometry, math | Comments (3)

interesting and odd japanese blog

November 27th, 2005

house dust

did some searching on technorati for Yuko Nishimura and I found that future feeder posted a link! great to see the word being spread.

followed another link, and saw this blog which had not only a nishimura photo, but a photo from my flickr account! that was pretty pleasing to see, even if I can’t understand anything on the page.

It’s like a linkfest blog of cool and interesting things; reminds me a bit of the Akihabara watch blog. I like gadgets, so it’s now on my RSS “watchlist” !

Posted in art, flickr photos, geometry, mentions, o-list postings, origami tessellations, paper | Comments (0)

Flying Spaghetti Monster

November 26th, 2005

origamiwolf on Flickr has folded this wonderful FSM (Flying Spaghetti Monster) out of Thai Saa (mulberry paper).

His noodly appendage was apparently at work here!

Posted in art, flickr photos, origami, paper | Comments (0)

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