Making a kanzashi box

Kanzashi-style casket It will become a real decoration for a women's dressing table or an elegant chest of drawers - in such cute boxes you can store jewelry and jewelry, as well as useful little things for creativity. At the same time, it is not necessary to buy caskets in stores - using popular techniques of applied creativity, you can always make an exclusive product with your own hands.

The Kanzashi technique originated in Japan about 400 years ago.when in the XVI century. such intricate hairstyles became popular with local women that they needed to be fixed in some way. And so the hairpins-jewelry, called "kanzashi", were created. If in origami the main source material is paper, then in kanzashi is used natural silk.

From them beautiful ornaments are formed, with which the craftswomen can truly surprise others. At the same time, they are made as simple little flowersso and more complex decorations in the form of cascades. Over time, this method was borrowed to create decor items, in particular, stylish boxes for storing little things.

For beginner needlewomen, it sometimes seems that this is a very complex and laborious technique. In factIt’s absolutely easy to make a casket, since the work is based on a single technique - folding the tape. But time for the manufacture of the casket will take a lot, it will take accuracy and scrupulousness - Indeed, in order to decorate a small box, you will have to add several dozen small and larger flowers from small cuts of satin ribbons.But believe me - all these efforts are, no doubt, worth it, and as a result an exclusive product will be born that is not ashamed to even present to a loved one as a gift.

If desired, the caskets can be additionally decorated. In recent years, round caskets decorated with plastic dolls have been very popular. To create an original thing, its upper part is taken - that is, the body, as well as the head and hands. The blank is fixed on the top of the box lid, after which it is finished with kanzashi-style elements so that the rest of the decor frames the whole box like a magnificent ball gown.

In such elegant caskets, women usually keep rings, brooches, chains, pendants and other things dear to the heart.

To create a kanzashi-style box, you will need the following tools:

• tweezers with pointed and bent tips;
• sharp scissors;
• piece of chalk or remnant;
• wax candle;
• long sewing needle;
• ruler.

As for the material for the manufacture of kanzashi boxes, it is better to give preference synthetics, since the burning of its edges prevents the shedding of threads, while natural fibers are not subjected to reflow. Most often they use satin ribbons of different widths, although artificial silk or organza can also be suitable in the presence of dexterity and experience with these fabrics.

In order to make the box more decorative, you can use additional materials. Usually the following are used:

• beads, beads, sequins;
• thin ribbons and cords.

Frame for crafts, usually made of cardboard. To fix the material on a paper frame, you will need pins or hair clips.

There are many different methods for making a kanzashi box yourself. We will step by step consider working scheme on the example of the simplest master class. Per the basis take the idea of ​​making a black and white module, and if desired you can always change the color scheme at its discretion.

So, for work should prepare the following materials:

• white fabric - one circle with a diameter of 7-8 cm, as well as a small margin for the design of the sidewall;
• black fabric - two circles with a diameter of 7-8 cm;
• black satin ribbon with a width of 5-6 cm and a length of 55 cm - such pieces will need 11 pieces;
• black satin ribbon 2-6 cm wide, 1 m long - 56 pieces of these blanks will be needed;
• white satin ribbon 5-6 cm wide, 180 cm long - 34 of these elements need to be prepared;
• any decorative decoration - you can use any ready-made flower or doll to decorate the lid;
• silver or black beads - they are needed to decorate the sidewalls.

To make kanzashi-style caskets, all working tools and basic materials should be laid out on the table in front of you, a glue gun should be prepared - plugged into the network and refilled. You should not light a candle right away, you will need it later.

If not available, you can always make it yourself. For this, two circles with a diameter of 7 cm are cut out of thick cardboard - this will be the future cover and bottom of your box. Similarly, the sidewalls for the casket are cut from the same material.

Further white matter should be carefully tighten all inner sidewalls of your casket and fix the canvas with adhesive. The bottom of the casket is glued with black cloth, it can be fixed with an overlap - this will be the lower part of the craft, a drop of hot glue is applied to the edges of the excess fabric.

After that stick white cloth, in this case there is no need to overlap - try to fit the circle so that it turns out as even as possible, the excess white fabric is cut off. It remains only top cover - It is also covered in black cloth. As a result of all the work you will get the base for the box.

Further cut 11 square elements in black from a tape 5-6 cm wide. Each square is folded in half so that a triangle is obtained, and this triangle is again folded in half. After this, the edges of the resulting triangle must be carefully pulled to the center, forming an acute-angled petal. Its base is fixed with glue. All excess part should be cut off with scissors - you need to keep them at an angle of 35-45 degrees. These petals will be used for pasting the bottom row of the sidewall of the box.

After that, you need to light a candle, and bring each formed petal to the tribe with the lower part - this way you will burn the edge and remove all unnecessary.

From a white ribbon of 5-6 cm, 34 squares should be made and folded acute-angled petals in a similar pattern: 11 of them will be used for the manufacture of the lower row of the sidewall of the casket, they are placed alternately with black ones, and the remaining 22 - for the design of the upper part. All received petals should be scorched on fire, set aside for a while.

After that, from the black tape with a width of 2-3 cm, it is necessary to make 56 petals for finishing the cover: 29 of them are needed for the first row, and, accordingly, 27 - in the second.

Then you can safely proceed to pasting with petals of the sidewalls of the casket. The bottom row traditionally alternates between black and white pieces, and the top one consists entirely of white ones. Each blank is fixed to the base of the box with glue. After both rows of the box are fixed - start decorating. To do this, a little glue is applied to the base of the beads and firmly fixed between the two rows, while large beads need to be alternated with small ones - using this method you can remove all the gaps between the glued petals.

Your casket is ready, now you can safely put your favorite jewelry into it. And if you build several such boxes of different sizes at once, then you can create a very effective decor for the female corner. According to a similar scheme, it is possible to quickly and easily create a warehouse for needlework materials.

Beginners often have three questions: how to cut the tape, how to singe, and how to glue. We’ll try to figure it out.

The main thing is that all the squares turn out equilateral, only in this case you can create perfect petals.

You can cut the ribbon in two simple ways.

1. In the first case, the tip is folded 90 degrees and cut off, resulting in a square. It is applied to a satin ribbon and the same ones are cut off on it. The disadvantage of this method is the length of the workflow, but the undoubted advantage will be perfectly even squares of the same size at the output.
2. In the second case, you need to make a stencil of a suitable size, wind the tape around it several times to make an incision with sharp scissors. At the exit you will get several squares at once. Please note that you should not wind too much tape, otherwise the tape may skew during cutting. The advantage of this method lies in the high speed of operation, but there are also disadvantages - the squares do not always come out even.

In the homeland of Kansashi in Japan, ribbon petals do not melt at all, they are fixed with special rice glue - it leaves absolutely no traces and gives the products the desired shape, the material after it does not crumble.However, you still need to learn how to work with such a composition; in addition, you rarely see it in our stores.

Our compatriots most often use a candle. It just needs to be ignited, then to melt as many blanks as needed, while the hands remain relatively free. Some needlewomen use lighter, matcheseven enjoy soldering ironsoldering all slices - the choice is yours.

Ideally, the petals should be glued to the base special glue for kanzashi, in this case, the material will remain elastic and will not sag over time. However, it will also fit glue gun. And also some needlewomen recommend using "Moment gel" - it dries very quickly, without leaving any unnecessary traces, moreover, it is waterproof, transparent and holds the material firmly. The compositions “Titan” and “Moment-Crystal” have a good effect.

The following video presents a workshop on creating a kanzashi box.