Arts & Crafts

Calligraphy describing U+2829 BRAILLE PATTERN DOTS 146

I need to practice my calligraphic dots and circles, so today’s character comes from Braille.

Did you know that Braille is slightly different in every language? The twenty-six letters of the Latin alphabet are generally the same across languages, but beyond that there is a lot of variation. For example, I wrote ⠩, which represents:

Chinese, Japanese, and Korean have their own entirely independent Brailles. The symbol ⠩ represents the syllable く (ku) in Japanese Braille, the final “yan” in Mainland Chinese Braille, and the vowel ㅠ (yu) in Korean Braille.

Freshly painted origami paper of various colours hang to dry

I visited the Ochanomizu Origami Kaikan (お茶の水おりがみ会館) as a fun little diversion in Tōkyō. The centre is part shop, part school, and part studio. I got to take some photos of the paper-dying process and took home some supplies that might inspire me to make some more origami soon!

A closeup showing the texture and rich hue of washi dyed purple
A stack of dyed washi paper is flattened and compressed

Paper is dyed a solid colour and then flattened and compressed.

Origami paper can be dyed, painted, or both depending on the intended pattern. When I visited, the artisan was using a special multi-headed brush to paint green stripes on one side of the paper; the other side had already been painted gold using a very wide, soft brush to achieve a consistent finish. The result is a pattern perfect for folding into snake decorations for the upcoming new year!

A paintbrush with many heads, used to paint stripes, sits in a pan of green paint
A large sheet of white paper with newly-painted green and gold stripes
Large origami snakes and brushes displayed in front of a paper craftsman's work table

The tools, process, and results of making origami paper.
Calligraphy describing U+237C RIGHT ANGLE WITH DOWNWARDS ZIGZAG ARROW

Calligraphy is one of several hobbies I’ve started dabbling with. I’m practicing by writing information sheets for random Unicode characters, which gives me an excuse to share some typographic trivia!

Today’s entry is U+237C RIGHT ANGLE WITH DOWNWARDS ZIGZAG ARROW, also known as angzarr. This is an unusual “ghost character” that nobody knows the meaning of. Jonathan Chan has an ongoing series of blog posts tracing the history of the character to the Monotype foundry between 1954 and 1963, but is no closer to discovering the original purpose.

A homemade rubber stamp in the foreground, with stampmaking supplies and a test print in the background

Before we left for Japan, I tried my hand at making my own stamp to use on the cover page of my eki stamp book. I think it turned out pretty well for my first attempt!

The stamp is made out of a 1/8” thick rubber gasket material. I used an X-Acto knife to carve it into a stylized rose design, glued it onto a wooden coaster, and sanded it down a bit to allow ink to stick to it.

A stamp impression in fuchsia ink of a stylized rose, with five petals and five stamens emanating from a pentagonal center

A test print in fuchsia ink
Vector art of fire hydrants of various colours

In 2007, New Zealand paint company Resene decided to name this specific shade of teal “zomp”.

A small stack of Magic: the Gathering cards in a homemade paper packet

Leah and I have really gotten into Magic: the Gathering. Our favourite ways to play are sealed deck and Jumpstart, both of which involve opening new packs and making decks out of what you open.

Since it would be wasteful (not to mention expensive) to buy new cards every time we play, we only buy a certain number of packs each set and re-use the cards we open to make our own packs for later games.

Cutout template for a tuck-flap box

Cutout template for a 94mm × 67mm × 18mm tuck-flap box, which holds 20 unsleeved Magic cards with room to spare.

We originally tried coin envelopes and a product called Cubeamajigs, but neither was as nice or convenient as the side-loading papercraft boxes I made with my Cricut.

The above SVG image can be imported into Cricut Design Space to make boxes of your own. Or, if you want to make a box with different dimensions, a tool called Templatemaker can make similar patterns.