Orange County Fair 2011: A Winner is Michelle!

California, Crafts, Orange County, Photography

I’m not the only person I know who entered the fair this year: Michelle also entered. She’s not a photographer; she’s a crafter, and this year she decided to enter a project into the Recycled Products Paper Crafts division.

Now, I may be biased, but her project is just awesome. She saved up security envelopes we’d received in the mail, precisely cut out 4″ squares of paper from un-damaged portions of the envelopes, and then folded these recycled-security-envelope-origami-paper pieces into a kusudama, or ball origami.

A still life detailing how Michelle
A still life detailing how Michelle's recycled security envelope kusudama (ball origami) was made. In this picture the project itself is only half finished, with two additional flowers (each consisting of five individual squares of cut out security envelope) next to it. One flower is facing away from the camera, so you can see the USPS bar code from the front of the envelope its segments were cut from. Different sizes of individual squares of paper are shown below the project.

Each individual flower consists of five segments that each started as a 4″ square of paper cut out of the same pattern security envelope. These five segments were folded individually, and then glued together into a flower. The entire project is made from 12 of these flowers glued together, and then hung from leftover embroidery floss from an old cross-stitch project. This picture shows how it’s displayed at the fair:

Michelle won first place at the 2011 OC Fair for a kusudama (ball origami) project that made from recycled security envelopes. This is the way her project was displayed. Each individual unit of each flower was folded from a 4"x4" square of paper cut out from a security envelope we
Michelle's recycled security envelope kusudama (ball origami) displayed at the 2011 Orange County Fair.

Unlike with my photography entry, Michelle hadn’t received any e-mails inviting her to an award ceremony before my visit to the fair on Wednesday. So, it was with much excitement that I searched out her project in the craft exhibits, and saw this:

Michelle won first place at the 2011 OC Fair for a kusudama (ball origami) project that she made from recycled security envelopes. This is the display label for her project. (Marc C. Perkins)
Michelle won first place at the 2011 OC Fair for a kusudama (ball origami) project that she made from recycled security envelopes!

Congratulations, Michelle!

I, of course, took a ton of pictures. During this process a few groups of people stopped by to look at the project. All of them looked at it initially, thought the overall pattern was pretty, and started talking to each other about it (while I grinned happily inside). Then they started looking closer, read the description, realized it was made from security envelopes, and started to inquire about how Michelle must have done it. It was at that point that I had great pleasure to introduce myself and explain how it was made. It was a great afternoon, and a pleasure to meet so many friendly folks who think Michelle is as awesome as I do.

More pictures

To see more pictures from the fair, head to my Orange County Fair 2011 gallery.

Getting There

Orange County Fair: The Orange County Fair runs from July 15 to August 14 at the county fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, CA; they conveniently have a directions page here. Since I can just park on OCC’s campus and walk to the fair, I don’t know what the parking situation is like, sorry.

2 thoughts on “Orange County Fair 2011: A Winner is Michelle!”

  1. Pingback: Orange County Fair 2011: Action Shots | Marc Perkins Photography

  2. Amazingly beautiful! What patience you have, lady! I could never come close.
    Congratulations…
    Karoleen

    Reply

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