Wow, what an impressive piece of art. A pencil where the top part is converted to a little miniature statue. A very delicate job to make such small details.

I think I’ll go and give it a try myself. I think you can get a long way using a few needles, a mini screwdriver and a sharp little knife. I just need to find a nice big pencil that is easy to manage and then I should be able to make some reasonably looking mini statue/shape/sculpture.

Maak zelf een kijkrol. Hier een stap voor stap uitleg om zelf je eigen kijkrol te maken. Benodigdheden zijn een lege wc rol, papier, een potlood, een schaartje, plakband en een beetje creativiteit.

Stap 1, teken het figuur dat je in de rol wilt hebben op een circel ter grootte van de wc rol. Zorg er voor dat je extra ruimte hebt op de plaatsen waar je het figuur aan de rol wilt plakken.


Stap 2, knip het figuur uit, met de extra ruimte die je later nodig hebt.


Stap 3, vouw de extra ruimte om zodat je een stukje papier aan beide kanten hebt. Hierdoor valt het figuurtje later niet om.


Stap 4, plaats een klein stukje plakband over de extra stukjes papier, met de plakkant omlaag.


Stap 5, plak het figuurtje in de rol.

Thanks to Make, a website on things you can make yourself I have discovered a fun new use for empty toilet rolls. The idea is truly brilliant and it is very easy and fun to do yourself. A still life inside a toilet roll, so that really makes it a ‘still-roll’.

The process is as follows. First you need an empty toilet roll and use it to draw a number of circles the size of the roll on a piece of paper. Inside the circles you draw the various parts/images that you want to place inside the roll. Now you need to cut the figures from the paper leaving an extra piece of paper on the bottom of each figure used to tape the figure to the inside of the roll. Sticking the figures to the inside of the roll can be a bit tricky but you should manage. You now have a nice artistic toilet roll with scenery!

There are a lot more things you can make using toilet rolls, like these tree-like structures.

After some experimenting I made my own mandala. Using some iron wire and a little bit of time and patience it wasn’t even that hard. The mandala I had bought was pretty small (about 10cm). The version I made myself was around double the size (20cm) because the bigger size made it easier to manipulate the wires.

Needed:

• Two big pieces of iron wire of around 20cm. Make sure the wire is not to thick to easily bend but also not to thin.
• 36 smaller pieces of iron wire of about 6 cm
• Pliers
• Few pieces of rope

Preparation:

• Bend the ends of all the iron wires, so you can hook it onto another wire

Execution:

1. Hook the final parts of the long pieces of iron wire together so you get two separate circles of iron wire. Use the pliers to close the ends so you cannot break the circle.
2. On each big circle you need to hook 9 little pieces of wire pointing upwards and 9 pointing downwards. Use the pliers to close the ends so that the small wires are fixed to the circle on one side.
3. Now for the hard part. Bend the small wires one by one and bend them over the base of the next wire. The last wire needs to be bend and connected over the first wire, so stretch the wires to cover the entire circle. Use the pliers to close the ends and connect all the wires to the circle.
4. Connect the two parts you have with the pieces of rope. You need 9 pieces of rope to connect one side of a circle to one side of the other circle.

Possible improvements:

1. Replace the little pieces of rope by small beads. This requires you to connect the beads before you fix the small iron wires. This means you are connecting the two parts right from the start of this project, and will make it a bit more complex.