How I extended our dining table with DIY cardboard leaves

We have a nice dining table that seats 4 comfortably. I needed a practical way to expand the table to seat 8 for when company comes, but with the following limitations: it needed to be easy, sturdy, and cheap. And the only power tool I've allowed myself to buy so far is a power drill (the less we buy now, the less we have to get rid of if we decide to move overseas again). Cardboard turned out to be a perfect solution. We had quite a lot of empty boxes that I saved for a purpose like this, and a friend who owns an electronics shop was happy to give us a few larger boxes. In the end, it really was as simple as measure, glue, cut, tape, and attach.

Here are the steps I followed:

1. Measure the width of the table and the new length you want to add. I didn't do this very scientifically. I just sat down in a chair off the end of the table and approximated how much space was necessary for a new place setting, given the width of the chair.

2. Gauge and glue. 

You want the thickness of your leaf to match the thickness of the table, so start stacking your cardboard layers. Figure on some compression happening. For sturdiness, the cardboard layers need to alternate direction. Cardboard has channels running through it and is always weaker in one direction. Also, it's best if your cardboard layer is all one piece, but you can use multiple pieces like I did here. Just make sure you don't have gaps lining up on top of each other or it will be too weak. A glue gun works fine to fix the layers together. I used a cheapie glue gun from a 100 yen shop, but would have preferred a better model that would heat up enough glue for one layer. You don't need to use a lot because the tape and screws that we add later will also help hold it together.

Planning the layers for the cardboard leaf. Single whole pieces are best, but you can glue two pieces close together if you're careful about it.

3. Cut. 

I just used a utility knife to cut through the layers one by one. It wasn't exactly easy, especially when I ran across the glue. It made quite a mess too, but I expected that. I rounded the edges, figuring that sharp cardboard edges wouldn't survive long anyway.

Cardboard leaf, mid-process

4. I wasn't happy with the top. It had some bumps to it. I tried to level them out with brown paper tape. It worked well enough. The trickiest part was cutting the edge that would meet the table. Our table edge angles under, so this leaf needed to match. I imagined the slope as a triangle with a base and a height, and flipped it upside down to find the part of the cardboard that I needed to cut away. Also a very messy step. Pretty sure at one point I was even using a serrated bread knife to get it done.

Nearly completed cardboard leaf, just needs the clips

5. Time to attach. Which means buying the necessary parts and getting them home by bicycle. It definitely added a layer of complexity, but I managed. Nobody died.

My ride

 

At first I tried plastic pipe, but it drooped. Thin metal pipe (often used for shelving) worked much better. At the top of the picture below is a pipe cutter, followed by the pipe clips, O-rings of various sizes to keep the pipe from slipping out, something apparently called a t-nut, screws to go into the t-nuts, and screws to attach the clips to the table.

Necessary parts

 

Ideally, each pipe will have 4 clips; two under the leaf and two under the table. Use the t-nuts on the surface side of the cardboard leaf, with screws attaching the clips from the bottom. Annoyingly, the t-nuts were sold 5 to a package so I ended up 1 short, which is why there is one clip missing on the cardboard leaf in this view. I plan to fix that eventually.

Attached leaf from underside view

I would absolutely do this project again. The cardboard is lightweight, and since the clips remain attached, all I need to do to extend the table is slip the pipes into the clips and then slip the cardboard leaf onto the pipes. It's incredibly sturdy, but also easy to pack away. Even better, the clips don't get in the way of the normal function of the table.  

Leaf in place, top view

Leaf in place, hidden by the tablecloth

Stained glass temari

If you like temari, this post is for you. If you don't, skip this one.

A few years ago we made temari as Christmas gifts for family and friends. My husband and I also wanted to make one for each other, but we sort of skipped that part. We had the balls wrapped and ready to go, but they sat on our counter, neglected. Last month I finally took it up again. My husband had wrapped it beautifully with purple, black and blue thread. I knew I wanted to make a pattern that would resemble stained glass, and after searching online and coming up with nothing, I found something that would work in our local library's temari books (I love living in a place where temari books are easily found in the local library).

Creating the guidelines was the first challenge. This ball is a compound 10 division, meaning the ball is first divided into 10 sections, and then after a slight rotation, is divided again, and then again...and it looks something like this midway through:

Two poles of 10 divisions each can be seen here, but more poles and divisions are needed before the guidelines are complete.

The guidelines are finished. Now it's time to create the main pattern.

After the divisions are finished, triangles join the pentagons at their sides. This pattern needs 20 triangles in 5 colors. Each triangle takes about an hour.

Two triangles weave together where they meet.

In the little video you can see how all of the divisions create a regular pattern of stars, diamonds and pentagons. Honestly the hardest part about this design was mapping out the colors so that each pentagon had all five colors, and each overlapping triangle was a different color. I had to plot it all out with colored glass pins before I covered the ball with triangles.

I got a little lost while trying to count my thread. The little pins are helping me keep track.

This pattern is a little tricky because each triangle needs to be wrapped the same number of times. If one triangle is wrapped 10 times, and another 13, the weave where they are joined won't work out right. I'm not very good at maintaining concentration during times of tedium, so there are a few triangles that I messed up and didn't want to go back and fix.

Half of the ball is complete.

You can see in the picture above that some of the edges are a little ragged where the two colors meet. I can fix that later by slipping my needle between the colors and pushing against the line.

Completed temari

I love stained glass, but I couldn't really find any examples that combined the look with temari, so I created my own. Bordering all the colors in black helps sell the effect. There are quite a few mistakes on this ball, but the black borders also help hide a multitude of sins :-)

The design inspiration for this particular ball came from this book, かわいい手まり (Kawaii Temari):

See the ball in the lower right corner?

Starting elementary school in Japan

The school year begins in April in Japan, but if you have a kid who will be a first grader, preparation begins in November with a required basic health-check for all entering students where their height, weight, vision, hearing and development are assessed. 

February is orientation time for parents and guardians. They gather at the local school gymnasium on a given day and time, and listen to the expectations for the guardians and the children. Forms are turned in for automatic payment withdrawal for the monthly school fees, a schedule is created among the guardians to ensure that the new students will be walked safely home for the first few weeks by someone they trust, and the parents pay for and hike home laden with bags and bags of school supplies.

Bags and bags of school supplies. Parking is sparse at schools, so most parents walk or bike all of this home.

School supplies, exploded view. Total cost was about $350.

Clockwise from upper left: 

• green box to hold art supplies
• gym clothes
• light blue placemat used during lunch
• indoor shoes (toe color is set by the school, dark green for our kids)
• disaster hood to be pulled out and used in case of an earthquake or other disaster (also doubles as a seat cushion)
• blank workbooks with a box of nendo on top (ubiquitous Japanese clay, different than play-dough)
• reversible red-white hat for gym, used regularly because they play so many red vs. white competitive games
• scissors
• pianica (piano that makes noise when you blow into it)
• packets and packets of information
• art supplies
• castanets
• and a very useful clipboard for school outings:

Clipboard used during field trips.

I really like how practical this is. Easy to carry, stores what you need, and gives you a hard writing surface anywhere.

The packets of paper outline a few things: 

• bags the student will need and the appropriate sizes for them 
• indoor shoes
• lunch bag 
• toothbrush and cup bag
• gym clothes bag
• and a carryall bag for everything else
• what self-care the student should be able to do before entering school 
• go to the bathroom by themselves
• eat the provided school lunch in 20 minutes or less
• read and write their name in hiragana
• wring out a cleaning rag
• general health and wellness guidelines such as getting enough sleep and eating a good breakfast before school.

The next step will be for us to fill out the health card and emergency contact info that will go in our child's file in school. We should have it done before the next meeting in April, where we will be given more school supplies including books and the all-important yellow hat.

The theme-less blog

Hey, it's been a while. I thought I needed to pick a theme for my blog and stick with it, but it would mean leaving out a lot of interesting stuff. So, no theme. Just me and whatever I find interesting. So some days I'll show you the latest craft I've gotten myself into. Other days it will be DIY home stuff. You'll have your random sprinkling of cool places we go, things we see, and things the kids are getting up to. It will be a total hodgepodge. You'll love it. Or you'll at least skip the ones you don't.

And now that that's over with, I'll get on with the real posting.