Monday Makery - Paper Crafts for Father's Day

'What can we make for Daddy?'  is what we've been saying this week. Ideas for Father's Day gifts are always a bit tricky, but we want to surprise him with something original and hand-made .  I've been thinking about paper weaving for a while and with a stack of newspapers and magazines ready for recycling I decided this was the week I would get busy with some paper creations.  I soon discovered paper weaving is so satisfying and you can turn newspapers into something practical and quite cool for Daddy!

You will need:

• newspapers or magazines - choose some pages with images that you like
• scissors
• sellotape
• glue

1. Lay the newspaper or magazine out flat and cut off the 'spine'
2. Each page of the newspaper or magazine will become a strip.  To make the strips fold a sheet in half, in half again, and again, into 8ths.
3. Make approx 20 strips.  For this basket, I used 7 strips vertically and 7 strips horizontally for the base and another 6 for the sides.
4. Lay the strips out vertically and begin to weave in strips horizontally.  The best method is to insert from one end and slide across.  Adjustments can be made to line them up.  Continue until you have a base square of the basket with remaining unwoven strips at the sides with lengths that look even - you can measure if you like being exact!  Fine adjustments can be made by sliding and pulling the strips unto place.  Fold in the unwoven sides, ready for weaving the uprights.
5. The sides of the basket are a bit more fiddly and will require little bits of sellotape to hold the strips in place.  Start from one corner and work your way round.  When you reach the next corner, simply fold around the corner and continuing weaving along the next side until the end of the strip, at which point fix with sellotape.  
6. It will take a bit of 'jiggery pokkery' to get the final basket shape with strong sides, but with some glue and sellotape along with a bit of patience you will have a super woven basket.

We chose to add a bit of paint colour to our newspaper basket and we will give it to Daddy for Father's Day as a basket for lego sorting when he's doing some projects!  I got absorbed in some more paper weaving in the evening and created this mini basket which will pefect for Daddy's cufflinks:

Next, I was inspired to make some gift bags.  Gabe selected some pictures from magazines and newspapers that he thought Daddy would like.

These gift bags are so simple to make.  Once you've got the hang of one you'll want to make lots.  I plan to put this quick little paper craft into use for handy little party bags and will be collecting a store of some colourful newspaper and magazine pages over the next few months.  I'm really quite fond of this Beatles bag - with John Lennon on the front - Daddy is going to love it!

You will need:

• Newspaper & magazines - favourite images
• Ruler & pencil
• Card
• Scissors
• Glue
• String

1. With your chosen sheet of paper you will need to divide it up into panels that will make each side of the gift bag, plus a flap.  For example, the page that I used was 22.5 cm across, I divided it into 2 panels of 8cm, 2 panels of 2.5cm and 1.5 cm for the flap. 
2. Lay the sheet out and mark the vertical panels with a pencil.  Also make 2 horizontal marks 3 cm from the top and from the bottom.
3. Turn the sheet over so you are looking at what will be the interior of the bag. Fold over the top section at the 3cm mark which will be the top of the bag.  This can be reinforced with pieces of card (see white inserts in the picture)
4. Mark and fold a section at the bottom which will become the base. Leave this unfolded, it's the crease that you need.
5. To make the bag shape fold along the vertical marks and glue at flap to form the rectangular tube.
6. Fold the base, following the crease, just as you would when wrapping a present, and glue in place.  Cut a rectangle of card to sit inside the bag and reinforce the base.  Make holes at the top and insert string for handles.  There you have it - a home-made paper gift bag!

We made quite a few with some themes we thought Daddy would like:

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We have more Monday Makery craft & recipe ideas here.

For behind the scenes photos of Sisters Guild we have the gallery of the A-Z of Sisters Guild here.