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Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Thanks, chocoATBP!

Impassioned Fruit No. 7: Photos of an abandoned OA project

I haven't abandoned this blog completely, but as with the previous lull, I haven't heard the P-word much in my interviews. Also, given some forthcoming changes at work and how I've increasingly focused on one type of craft, I think I'll have to change some of my rules for future posts sometime soon.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a little documentation of my last OA project, as well as the pertinent quotes from my most recent interview.

I guess this could serve as a sorta tutorial for anyone who wants to give OA a try. I find it really relaxing for some reason.

I usually sketch the general design that I want to make on scratch paper first. For this one, I wanted to see how many different windows I could come up with. To me, they give an otherwise plain, rectangular building some character.

After that, I make all the measurements and put the pattern on the paper. Until now, I'd been using mostly fliers and scratch paper, so I decided that I'd try regular bond paper for this project.

The next thing I do, of course, is to make all the cuts for the big shapes. This is a picture of the "right" side of the project after I'd done all the cuts but before I'd done all the folding. Sorry for the blurry take; I've fiddled with the contrast a bit so the lines are clearer.

Here, you can see a spot on the "wrong" side where I screwed up. Since no one sees this side, and it's not so obvious from a distant shot displayed on a computer screen, I sometimes cheat a little with a tiny piece of masking tape. Otherwise, I punish myself by starting over.

The fun part! I fold all the big shapes. At this point, the thing is kind of floppy, with the creases making obtuse angles, so ...

... I carefully close it and then flatten it under a book or something like that. I don't actually know how long it takes for it to become flat. Usually, I do this before work and then come back to it when I get home at the end of the day. Once it's good, though, when I open the form, everything's at nice right angles.

My last step is to make all the cutouts of the windows. I've found that cutting out windows before doing initial folds makes folding trickier, but maybe it would be better to use stronger paper. The cutouts are definitely the hardest part for me because my hand's not that steady yet, and I make a lot of mistakes.

Martin's colleague saw me working on my turtle card at breakfast one morning and said, "Ibang level iyan ng pagka-OC, a." That's actually untrue in my case, because if I were really OC, I'd be starting over more often than I usually do.

Anyway, this was the point in the project where I decided to scrap the project altogether. The type of bond paper I was using was just too rough and floppy for the final form to come out right, so I'll be starting over when I have time.

Oh, yes. Last Friday, July 8, I spoke with Leila Palma and Zoilo and Diane Andin of chocoATBP for this month's issue of BusinessWorld Entreprenews, published today. This is what Mr. And Mrs. Andin had to say about running their business on top of their day jobs:

"It's something they [clients] can see we enjoy doing ... Love mo talaga, e." - Zoilo Andin Jr.

"There has to be a bit of passion going." - Diane Andin

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I hadn't realized how long it had been since I'd updated this blog until I saw the Manila Met post. If you're interested in the rest of the popup stuff I've done so far, you can click here.