I’m exhausted today after spending the last few days sharing my work and talking with people at Vancouver Mini Maker Faire. This year I had two tables set up, one to display my work, and a second as an activity table with books for people to work on.

I taught a few people how to make paper flowers on the first day, then switched to encouraging book page folding on Sunday. By the end of it there were four books on the go that became collaborative projects with pages folded by many different people. A few people started their own book and took it home with them to complete.

I really loved seeing parents sitting down with their kids to try different things with the books or pages, like this little girl and her father. I showed them my new favorite paper cutting technique and they made a tiny lantern from a book page.

A few kids did origami with the scraps of book pages. I was really impressed with the paper crane folded by a young girl, as it’s a fairly complex set of folds that I find difficult to do. She made it look easy.

These final four photos are the collaborative altered books folded by many hands. They’re a wonderful mishmash of different folds, cuts, and sometimes crunched up pages. The books I had on hand were a donation from the librarians at Bull Housser, as they’ve been in the process of decommissioning some of their law books.

I love being part of Maker Faire because it feels like a celebration of community and creativity that breaks down the silos. I will definitely continue to be a part of this event every year, and look forward to watching it grow.

A HUGE thank you to Boris, Monique, and James for their support and assistance in running my booth over the weekend.