Mass Production...

For this Christmas season, I made several holders, trying out new designs, and refining the old ones, and trying out new colours... It certainly felt like I'm having a little factory going on. Making a few each, for each animals. My room was littered with cardboard pieces, dust, paints, etc... Haha...

Finally finished with the turtles. Tried to have different designs. Hopefully they will appeal to different group of people. Green colour seems to be still the prefered colour. The green turtles were all sold within a couple of days after they were put up for sales. The red turtle, which I put up last, is the only one left behind.

Another new design is sheep. Both were also snapped up within a day. Was a little concerned that painting the sheep blue might not be accepted. But still, it was sold.

Also get around fine-tuning the Cat design. Added the whiskers, which were kinda tricky to glue to the face. Anyway, think they now look more like cats... Strangely, they weren't as popular as the rest...

And of course, not forgeting to make more of the previous designs of Cow, Giraffe and Bears...

The Christmas sales was surprisingly good. Most of the stocks were cleared. Leaving behind only about 4-5 of them... It was indeed a Merry Merry Christmas...

Cardboard Cards...

Also tried making some other designs for the cardboard cards, other than those for Christmas. Perhaps the next batch has to be more function-specific. I thought it's up to people to decide how they would want to use the cards. Unfortunately, many seems to prefer the function be decided or designed into the product itself...

Cardboard Cards...

Tried to make some Christmas cards using the cardboards. But I guess, as it is made of cardboard, the idea of it being a card seems to be not widely accepted. Most who saw the cards don't seems to know what they can do with it. Added a little ribbon to the card so that it can be used to decorate a Christmas tree or something. However, response was still luke-warm, though many seems to find the cards cute.

More Stationary Holders

This new batch of movable stationary holders is my attempt to make the designs much cuter, more cartoon-y. Also my attempt to simplify the making process without compromising the design.

Did 2 different piggy designs.

HOpe this Moo-Moo are cuter than my firsts...

Hope this looks like little Hippos...

Am sure these Giraffes looks much better than my 1st attempt.

Change the bear design to this...

These doggies are definitely much better looking than my 1st attempt... Hahaha...

Simpler Cars

After having displayed the toy cars I made much earlier, and seen for myself how others reacted to them. Price seems to be the major factor why none of them are willing to pay for the cars (though I did eventually sold 3 of the cars to a young boy whose parent was very generous to fork out that kinda money for the son).

I decided that perhaps I should make the designs simpler, and thus easier to make. Hence eventually I can price them much lower than I did before. And perhaps then, more might be willing to purchase them. But that doesn't mean I'll give up making the more complicated ones. Perhaps it's good to give the consumers more choices.

Having said that, I can also only hope that they can also understand and appreciate the making and using of these cardboards.

ONce again, these cars are inspired by/modelled after classic antique cars.

Cardboard Toy Cars - Completed II

Cardboard Toy Cars - Completed I

Finally managed to complete painting some of the toy cars, using the real classic cars as reference. Nevertheless, did bear in mind that they are afterall toy cars, so reserved some "kitsch-ness". Besides I do not want to paint in such a way that the material used no longer look like its original stage, that is make it look like metal. The only disadvantage leaving the raw-ness of the cardboard visible will be that the cars look kinda unfinished, unpolished or even rough. But I think it's ok as I would not want to disguise the use of these cardboard, and do enjoy that roughness, unpolished feel of these cardboard.