52 Create – Craftvent Calendar, Day 6

52 Create, my weekly creative output for 2011.  Continuing along with my “Craftvent” calendar for my 2 year old daughter.  Simply put, it’s an advent calendar filled with crafts, all home made, many will be joint projects so she gets some fun of making stuff as well.

 

Day 6 – Today I made a Finnish Christmas Star.  I got the idea here, but used an old toy catalogue instead of fancy paper (cause that’s what I had).  While it looks complicated, it’s actually pretty simple once you get going.  I think this could be really nice made out of contrasting wood veneers (maple/walnut, ash/mahogany, etc.) and would definitely last longer.  This one is now hanging in our apartment as it’s far too fragile for a little 2 year old’s hands…

My other Craftvent Calendar Crafts

52 Create – Craftvent Calendar, Day 5

52 Create, my weekly creative output for 2011.  Continuing along with my “Craftvent” calendar for my 2 year old daughter.  Simply put, it’s an advent calendar filled with crafts, all home made, many will be joint projects so she gets some fun of making stuff as well.

Day 5 – Today I made some origami boxes.  Each box is slightly smaller making them able to stack inside of each other.  On the backs I wrote the numbers 1-7 to help my daughter learn her numbers (she knows them, just not the order…).  Done in Christmas colours, I finally broke down and bought some paper as I was getting tired of using advertisements.  So far the boxes have been well received, being made of paper they won’t last long, but she’ll enjoy them while they last.

 

My other Craftvent Calendar Crafts

52 Create – Craftvent Calendar, Day 4

52 Create, my weekly creative output for 2011.  Continuing along with my “Craftvent” calendar for my 2 year old daughter.  Simply put, it’s an advent calendar filled with crafts, all home made, many will be joint projects so she gets some fun of making stuff as well.

 

Day 4 – Well I couldn’t really do a Christmas craft advent calendar without some snow flakes….  So today I made her a bunch of snow flakes to hang up in our window.  Adds to the decorations for the holidays and they were fun to make as well, never gets old.

52 Create – Craftvent Calendar, Day 3

52 Create, my weekly creative output for 2011.  As I wrote on Day 1, I’m doing a “Craftvent” calendar for my 2 year old daughter.  Simply put, it’s an advent calendar filled with crafts, all home made, many will be joint projects so she gets some fun of making stuff as well.

Day 3 – Today we made some toy paper boats.  I had the idea from reading an old Curious George book where he is supposed to deliver newspapers, but instead folds them into boats and floats them down the river…  We had good fun playing with them in the sink, they lasted about a day with a few “drying out” periods, but eventually the water tore the paper apart.  Might try it with magazines next time as the paper seems like it would hold up to water better.

52 Create – Craftvent Calendar, Day 2

52 Create, my weekly creative output for 2011.  As I wrote on Day 1, I’m doing a “Craftvent” calendar for my 2 year old daughter.  Simply put, it’s an advent calendar filled with crafts, all home made, many will be joint projects so she gets some fun of making stuff as well.

 

For Day 2, I made some Christmas trees out of card stock.  I put a slit in each tree so that they slip together and stand on their own.  I coloured one and my little turkey coloured the other one.  It’s a really fun craft to do and she loved getting involved, although was a bit impatient waiting for me to cut the trees out…

Photo of the Week

This week’s photo is from a trip to Berlin last November.  I really liked the subway and train system and took many pictures.  I was a bit disappointed that what I thought had been a colour roll was actually a black and white.  Many of the shots just didn’t work in black and white, however this one, with it’s contrasty architecture, really lends itself well to it.

 

Taken with my Hasselblad xPan, 45mm lens, Kodak Tri-X, developed in D76.

Photo of the Week

 

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with my Holga.  I hate the way the bulb switch moves on it’s own, often ruining an entire roll of 120 film, yet when it works, I often get a great picture which I love.  I’m not a holga kind of guy, I was given mine by a friend who’s foray into film photography lasted about 2/3 of a roll.  I have an unwritten rule about not selling cameras that were gifts, which unfortunately means I end up keeping more of them around then I would like…

Anyways, this week’s photo is of some kid’s push cars outside a little toy store in Montmartre, Paris.  It’s on the back side of the hill and I walked by one day and thought it would be a great shot to put up in my daughter’s room.  I have some plans to make a wooden push car later this year as part of my 52 Create project.

This picture will be put up this weekend on my Etsy site for sale, so head on over if you’re interested.  Any of the pictures seen on my flickr site can also be purchased, leave a comment or contact me directly if interested.

Of Cameras and Paris…

This is a re-post from 99 days in Paris.  With our recent move to Paris I spent the day exploring the film possibilities of this city.  Read on to see my results.

I didn’t bother buying any more film before we left as I had discovered that it was much cheaper in Paris.  Roger had suggested Prophot as an excellent place to buy film, and he wasn’t joking!  While the camera stores in Calgary have a very limited selection, this store sold ONLY film and photo papers and chemicals, that’s it.  The selection was astonishing, I didn’t have to buy the only film they had, I actually had a choice.

They were even selling black and white slide film, although I didn’t get any as I wasn’t sure where it could be developed.  I did however pick up a roll of PX100 Impossible Project film (for polaroid).  This is the new polaroid film that has just reached the market and is now in black and white!

I then headed over to Negatif+, a store that specializes in pro film developing.  While in line I was chatting with the man behind me.  I told him how great the film selection was in Paris and that you could get nothing like this in Canada.  He told me that this was only common in Paris, and was getting worse and worse.  Too bad, I thought maybe Paris was reversing the trend!

Should have some pics back in a couple of days to post on the blog…