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Sunday, January 10, 2010

A Fan of Fans...

I was wandering around on the web this morning. I went to Google and started through some of the images files for mini ideas.
Tessie wandered in and was looking over my shoulder.

I happened to think of a project that was in one of the mini magazines many, many years ago. Someone did an article on folding fans. They were printed in black and white and not really very detailed. If you wanted color, you had to take felt tipped pens to them. That was way before computers and pretty pictures.
It is a place where you can buy copies of antique fans. They had seven pages of thumbnails. I went through and found some that Tessie liked. I put them in a greeting card program and re sized them to scale. We printed them out on card stock. I didn't bother with the back side. That could be painted a solid color if need be.

I cut them out carefully. Tessie can't handle the scissors, but she immediately got the hang of folding them.

With a sharp edged, metal ruler, she bent every other mark on the front side and creased it sharply. That caused the shape that you see in her hands. It started turning into a cone. When she finished that, she turned it over and in between the folds, she creased it in the opposite direction. Thus a fan shaped accordion fold that you see by her feet. That flattens out the fan.

After we had them all folded, with Tessie's directions as to what to use, we decorated each one.

The peach one at the top just got a fancy edge with scissors and a silk rose and leaves.

The center green and black one got an edge of black angel lace glued to the back and a gold ring at the center bottom.

The blue one got the tiniest blue lace glued to the front and the rose treatment.

The black and white one got white angel lace on the back and a pink rose.

The next two got similar treatment.

My favorite is the black and pink one in the foreground. The trim on that one has pleated ribbon on the back and a red bow.

So now you know where to go to get the fans and what to do to make them fancy. Have fun! Bet'cha can't make just one!

See you tomorrow.

14 comments:

Papillon Bleu said...

The result is exquisite!
Love the mini fans.
;-)

rosanna said...

So good !! and thank you Casey, you are a gold mine of ideas !!

Susanne said...

So nice, Tessie, thank you very much for sharing!
Susanne miniaturedreams.blogspot.com

~MiniMaker said...

Love the fans!

Karina Schaapman said...

thank you so much for sharing !!!!

Susan@minicrochetmad said...

You and Tessie are a great team! The fans look beautiful!!

miniacollection said...

I have never seen such beautiful miniature fans.
Geneviève

Deni said...

They have turned out fabulous Casey! I like the one in the middle on the left with the sweet white lace edging! so pretty
Great Idea!

stil-blicke.blogspaot.com said...

Diese Teilchen sind wunderschön geworden. Ganz tolle Teamarbeit.

Liebe Grüße PuNo

stil-blicke.blogspaot.com said...

Wunderschöne Teilchen....toll gemacht.

Liebe Grüße PuNo

Dawn said...

Thanks both for sharing fans, they are beautiful.

Sans! said...

Bookmarking this already. Thank you, Casey! So simple and effective. My favourite kind of tutorial.

Ara said...

These are wonderful and thanks for the links.... I'm a bit scared I won't be patient enough for the folding but I'll give it a try!

Caseymini said...

Ara. Don't worry about it being perfect. If you look closely at the ones that Tessie folded, they aren't. It is really more to give the fan texture than to make perfect pleats. Just be sure to fold the front first and then do the back in the opposite direction. It will be fine.