A psychedelic chicken and a mathematical object

I forgot to post this when I made it back in May. A card was required for a birthday, so psychedelic chicken came to the rescue! I drew a weird chicken with paisley pattern, and cut it out and gave it a speech bubble:

I decided to leave it black and white because I quite liked the effect of the intricate pattern, though it would also look good done in clashing colours. It could be a do-it-yourself colouring card.

To go with the card, I made a fold-out 3D object. I posted it flat, and it has to be assembled by folding each layer at 90 degrees. It's not as neat as I'd have liked because you have to use a craft knife to cut the slits and it turns out it's really hard to cut curves in pearlescent card with a craft knife.

Father's day mathematical card

Today is father's day, and Mr T had an idea for a card. He wanted to use that technique where you use straight lines to get a curved shape, and I like using eyelets and making a lot of noise, so we pooled the two and got the hammer out. It's not a real card unless you need a hammer to make it, right?

First step: glue a bit of Indian newspaper (with writing in Hindi (I think)) to a card, and punch a grid of holes around the edge. That pen-like tool is the hole punch, which punches holes just the right size for the eyelets to go in:

Next, I added the eyelets. They're just little metal things, and you put the face of it on the front of the card and the back goes through the hole. Then you use the other tool and hit it hard with the hammer till it splays the back open and fixes it in place. I used multi-coloured ones:

This is the back of the eyelets - they look like little flowers:

Then I used embroidery thread to make the lines. I used two colours here, and did two curves. You could easily add in the opposite corners and do four:

The back of your work should always be as neat as the front:

Happy father's day!