Folding Trees

US Thanksgiving is approaching, so why not try making this simple and  cute turkey paper model from Macula.tv. 

Today on Folding Trees we’re very excited to present a giveaway for a papercraft kit from Brooklyn5and10.com, an online shop offering a selection of affordable whimsical gifts, growing kits and craft projects. The prize will be your choice of Saka Karakuri paper animation kit, delivered direct to your door! (Retail value $9.95 plus shipping).

	Teeter Totter by Saka KarakuriThe first steps of a budding ‘bot This is Saka’s most popular model. The adorable robot walks as the crank is turned. Kawaii!
	Climate Change by Saka KarakuriA penguin attempts to escape the thawing tundra! Turn the crank and the penguin helplessly repeats his attempts to lift-off. Sadly, our darkly humorous penguin is not equiped to fly.
	Doomed by Saka KarakuriTurn the crank and this fish flops helplessly on the cutting board. Sad, but darkly humorous.

A little more about the prize… These kits are original Japanese karakuri or “trick mechanism” by Keisuke Saka, one of the world’s best paper engineers. Saka’s beautiful designs use only a few moving parts, yet produce elegant (and darkly humorous!) movement. Saka paper automata models are easy to do with complete illustrated instructions. Just cut out, fold, glue and assemble. Recommended for ages 12 and up (younger with adult help).

To enter our contest, click through to Brooklyn5and10 and take a look at all their cool papercraft kits, then come back here and leave a comment on this post saying which of the 3 kits pictured above you’d like to win!

The contest will close on Tuesday, November 3rd, at 12pm EST. Good luck!

UPDATED: The contest is now closed. Thanks to all who entered – we’ll be announcing the winner later today!

Here is lovely idea for a newborn baby’s nursery; these cute little baby booties made from your favourite scrap booking paper. Hop over to the Kaisercraft website and click on the link to get the free pdf.

Fantastic Toys makes the most adorable plush, and now Tim has generously created a free PDF set of 5 gnome paper toys, featuring a hanging mobile, gnome bowling, a gnome paper doll and finger puppets – all equally cute!

The Golden Rule is a new papermodel by artist Saka, you can purchase the kit via brooklyn 5 and 10.

From the makers:

“The Golden Rule kit marks an innovation in paper engineering as each model can be turned separately or joined together to move sequentially. Three models, together or separately, still there is only one Golden Rule.”

Style me Pretty is treating us to an enormous package of free PDF downloads for DIY favor packaging in 4 different colors. Have a look at the bottom of the post for some custom matchboxes and other links to more inspiring tutorials. Cute Cute Cute! [via CRAFT]

Frabjous is one of many amazing 3D sculpture/puzzles designed by George W. Hart. Feel like making a Frabjous? Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has written a very clear toturial on how to put your Frabjous together with a link to Hart’s free PDF download for the template. Their corrugated cardboard version is pictured above.

Here is a free download for you, just in time for a sunny Friday afternoon. Marshall Alexander is a Dutch paper engineer with some amazing free toys. [via How About Orange.]

This is interesting – British designer Paul Smith has launched Project 10: Bag in Japan. It took a bit of sleuthing, but I found this explanation on his UK website:

Paul Smith has taken one bag shape, the ‘Flight Bag’ and created 138 individual designs for it – 138 in total, for every Paul Smith shop in Japan. Each shop will stock just one design inviting customers to get something very rare and special.

Designs include everything from vibrant graphic prints to more muted colours and new takes on the signature multi-stripe.

Re-evaluating large-scale manufacture, each design is limited to an edition of 10 – the result is a unique, inspiring and entirely individual collection of bags.

What’s the paper connection? Well, Paul has also released papercraft versions of all 138 bag designs (as free PDF downloads) on his Japanese website. The yummy looking fruit bag pictured above is part of the 7th Week collection, to save you browsing for it

Video gamers will love these paper model downloads to make all the cute power-up etc mushrooms from Super Mario!