Here at The Madhouse, we have received a few craft products from Flair to roadtest now so when we were offered a Paper FX kit to review, Sophie was already excited before even knowing what it was all about !
It's actually a rather nifty piece of kit that allows you to weave paper, including strips of paper from glossy magazines or offcuts of wrapping paper, to create items - how's that for a fabulous way of upcycling things ?!
In the box, you get :
- the paper weaving loom
- a paper-ripping tool
- a paper creasing tool
- a glue stick
- cable ties
- swizzle sticks
- a round piece of plastic that I haven't used yet but that I think is for making bases
Before you can get weaving, you have to prepare a stash of paper strips which takes quite a while, so we set up a three-generational production line. I used the tool to rip magazine pages into strips the right width - a regular glossy magazine page gives you three strips and, through trial and error, I discovered that you can save time by ripping two or three at a time.
Sophie used another tool - rather like a pasta maker, as she said - to put three regularly-spaced creases in each strip of paper.
Then she passed them onto Madhouse Nanny who folded the strips along the creases to make a four layered strip of paper. These can be left open (for the outer edges) or glued together to create a closed strip.
Once you've created a stash of folded paper strips, it's time for the central unit to come into play. It looks complicated but is actually surprisingly simple to use. The wheel on the side lifts every second strip so it's a piece of cake to push the horizontal strips through and glue them into place.
This was Sophie's first attempt, using rather haphazard strips ripped from a random glossy magazine.
She was impressed at how easy it was to create this "placemat" and now can't wait to get her teeth into one of the more complicated projects.
The booklet shows you how to make some very funky objects, such as a bag, coaster, pencil pot, purse etc. I think these would look really funky with two different contrasting colours of thick paper or vertical strips of coloured paper with horizontal strips of magazine pages.
I'm sure it will take some practice but it's a really fun project and I love the fact that it uses recycled materials from home rather than specialist refill packs that need to keep being bought and that ultimately lead to the toy being left at the back of the toy cupboard when it works out too expensive.
star rating : 4.5/5
RRP : £19.99
Disclosure : We received a Paper FX kit in order to write an honest review.
Other reviews you may be interested in :
Stuff like this amazes me, on my blog I have posted a few times about craft projects, we love making and creating.
ReplyDeleteThis post reminded me of a site I once see where it taught you how to make your own hamper baskets! x