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Paper toys are constructed in several ways, by folding, as in paper airplanes, paper fortune tellers or Origami, or by cutting, decorating or assembling pieces of paper with glue or tape to create a paper doll or paper model.
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Paper toys are constructed in several ways, by folding, as in paper airplanes, paper fortune tellers or Origami, or by cutting, decorating or assembling pieces of paper with glue or tape to create a paper doll or paper model.
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Paper toys date back to ancient times. The history of paper toys can be traced back to the art of origami (or-i-GA-me).The word is based on the Japanese words Ori, which means to fold, and Kami, which means paper. However origami's roots are from China and it spread to Japan somewhere around the sixth century.
The craft was for only the rich at first because the cost of paper was very high. They found useful ways to use the folded paper. For example, they would fold it with strips of dried meat or fish and this was called Noshi, which was a token of good luck. Also they would often wrap the glasses of wine at a wedding into butterfly form to represent the bride and groom. As time went by new methods of making paper were developed which lowered the cost of paper. This allowed the art of origami to be more accessible to all people.
Paper dolls have been popular toys throughout the last couple of centuries. Unlike the origami and modern paper toys these are usually flat two-dimensional dolls. Often various paper clothes and such things are used to decorate the doll. Much alike the modern paper toys they would often print dolls that resemble popular celebrities, singers, and political figures. They also would print these dolls in magazines for children to cut out and color, they would have a page for the figures and then a page of all the costumes and add-ons.
Modern paper toys can be made using paper, tape or glue, scissors and a printer. Templates for such toys can be downloaded from websites and printed.
Origami is the Japanese art of paper folding. In modern usage, the word "origami" is often used as an inclusive term for all folding practices, regardless of their culture of origin. The goal is to transform a flat square sheet of paper into a finished sculpture through folding and sculpting techniques. Modern origami practitioners generally discourage the use of cuts, glue, or markings on the paper. Origami folders often use the Japanese word kirigami to refer to designs which use cuts.
In European academic traditions, fine art is made primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork. In the aesthetic theories developed in the Italian Renaissance, the highest art was that which allowed the full expression and display of the artist's imagination, unrestricted by any of the practical considerations involved in, say, making and decorating a teapot. It was also considered important that making the artwork did not involve dividing the work between different individuals with specialized skills, as might be necessary with a piece of furniture, for example. Even within the fine arts, there was a hierarchy of genres based on the amount of creative imagination required, with history painting placed higher than still life.
A doll is a model typically of a human or humanoid character, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have also been used in traditional religious rituals throughout the world. Traditional dolls made of materials such as clay and wood are found in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe. The earliest documented dolls go back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. They have been made as crude, rudimentary playthings as well as elaborate art. Modern doll manufacturing has its roots in Germany, from the 15th century. With industrialization and new materials such as porcelain and plastic, dolls were increasingly mass-produced. During the 20th century, dolls became increasingly popular as collectibles.
An action figure is a poseable character model figure made most commonly of plastic, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, military, video game or television program; fictional or historical. These figures are usually marketed toward boys and adult collectors. The term was coined by Hasbro in 1964 to market G.I. Joe to boys.
Modular origami or unit origami is a two-stage paperfolding technique in which several, or sometimes many, sheets of paper are first folded into individual modules, or units, and then assembled into an integrated flat shape or three-dimensional structure, usually by inserting flaps into pockets created by the folding process. These insertions create tension or friction that holds the model together.
The art of paper cutting in China may date back to the 2nd century CE, when paper was invented by Cai Lun, a court official of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Japanese dolls are one of the traditional Japanese crafts.
Papier-mâché is a composite material consisting of paper pieces or pulp, sometimes reinforced with textiles, bound with an adhesive, such as glue, starch, or wallpaper paste.
Chinese paper folding, or zhezhi, is the art of paper folding that originated in medieval China.
The Tamatebako (玉手箱) is an origami model named after the tamatebako of Japanese folk tale. It is a modular cube design that can be opened from any side. If more than one face of the model is opened, the cube falls apart and cannot easily be reconstructed. The model, and the directions for creating it, had been lost for centuries and only recently rediscovered.
A paper plane is a toy aircraft, usually a glider made out of single folded sheet of paper or paperboard. A simple nose-heavy paper plane, thrown like a dart, is also known as a paper dart.
Paper craft is a collection of crafts using paper or card as the primary artistic medium for the creation of two or three-dimensional objects. Paper and card stock lend themselves to a wide range of techniques and can be folded, curved, bent, cut, glued, molded, stitched, or layered. Papermaking by hand is also a paper craft.
Wasōbon is a traditional book style in Japan that dates from the late eighth century AD with the printing of "Hyakumantō Darani" during the reign of Empress Shōtoku (764-770AD). The majority of books were hand-copied until the Edo period (1603–1867), when woodblock printing became comparatively affordable and widespread. Movable-type printing had been used from the late 16th century, but for various aesthetic and practical reasons woodblock printing and hand-copied remained dominant until much later. Japanese equivalents for "book" include 本 (hon) and 書籍 (shoseki). The former term indicates only bound books, and does not include scrolls. The latter is used for printed matter only. The most general term is 書物 (shomotsu), which means all written or printed matter that has been collected into a single unit, regardless of construction.
Paper dolls are figures cut out of paper or thin card, with separate clothes, also made of paper, that are usually held onto the dolls by paper folding tabs. They may be a figure of a person, animal or inanimate object. Paper dolls have been inexpensive children's toys for almost two hundred years. Today, many artists are turning paper dolls into an art form.
The Japanese kusudama is a paper model that is usually created by sewing multiple identical pyramidal units together using underlying geometric principles of polyhedra to form a spherical shape. Alternately the individual components may be glued together. Occasionally, a tassel is attached to the bottom for decoration.
A fortune teller is a form of origami used in children's games. Parts of the fortune teller are labelled with colors or numbers that serve as options for a player to choose from, and on the inside are eight flaps, each concealing a message. The person operating the fortune teller manipulates the device based on the choices made by the player, and finally one of the hidden messages is revealed. These messages may purport to answer questions or they may be activities that the player must perform.
The history of origami followed after the invention of paper and was a result of paper's use in society. In the detailed Japanese classification, origami is divided into stylized ceremonial origami and recreational origami, and only recreational origami is generally recognized as origami. However, this page describes the history of both ceremonial and recreational origami.
Origami paper is used to fold origami, the art of paper folding. The only real requirement of the folding medium is that it must be able to hold a crease, but should ideally also be thinner than regular paper for convenience when multiple folds over the same small paper area are required.
Paper models, also called card models or papercraft, are models constructed mainly from sheets of heavy paper, paperboard, card stock, or foam.
Bookbinding is the process of building a book of codex manuscripts from an ordered stack of paper sheets with one's hands and tools. Firstly, one binds the sheets of papers along an edge with a thick needle and strong thread. One can also use loose-leaf rings, binding posts, twin-loop spine coils, plastic spiral coils, and plastic spine combs, but they last for a shorter time. Next, one encloses the bound stack of paper in a cover. Finally, one places an attractive cover onto the boards, and features the publisher's information and artistic decorations.
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