I teach a lot of short, pop-up workshops where people of wildly different ages and abilities come together around one tiny, brilliant problem: how to make a little cardboard automaton that moves. Ten minutes sounds impossibly brief, but with a little planning you can design a session that feels...
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DIY Projects
I love making miniature water because it’s one of those deceptively simple...
DIY Projects
I love making small, peculiar objects that ask you to lean in. This whispering...
DIY Projects
I like to keep a small maker’s kit with me almost all the time — tucked...
Tutorials
I love the little illusion of glass in scaled-down worlds: a tiny bottle that...
I love tiny devices that make an idea feel like a small miracle. A pocket-sized thaumatrope is exactly that: two simple images that seem to animate when spun. It’s one of the oldest optical toys — Victorian parlour entertainment — and it’s a...
I love the challenge of telling a whole tiny story in a very small space — a single-minute sequence that still manages to surprise, amuse or linger. Over the years I’ve turned many of these micro-narratives into postcards: compact, tactile...
I love a simple trick that looks like magic, and this little paper automaton — a flipping bird that needs no glue — is one of my favourite quick projects to teach and to make when I want an instant charm hit from humble materials. It’s the...
I used to think collage was just cutting and sticking — a happy mess of paper and glue. Over the years I’ve learned that a handful of small, inexpensive tools can quietly transform that mess into something much more deliberate and, yes, a little...
I love a small, tactile trick — something that makes a viewer pause and tilt their head, then smile when the hidden thing is revealed. This project is one of my favourites for that exact reason: a magic picture frame that looks like a normal...
I love little tricks that feel like small, domestic miracles: a message that appears and vanishes, an ink that fades like a ghost. Disappearing ink effects are perfect for that — they’re cheap, safe (when done sensibly) and wonderfully...
I’ve always been drawn to the slightly imperfect, inky warmth of vintage lithographs — the ghostly registration shifts, the subtle halftone screens, and the way colours sit on the paper like old memories. Recreating that look using a modern...
I love small, quick projects that still feel like miniature acts of magic. This pop-up scene uses a single sheet of paper and can be made in under 20 minutes — perfect for an afternoon break, a handmade note, or a tiny theatrical surprise tucked...
I love photographing small, reflective objects — tiny painted metal robots, glossy ceramic miniatures, varnished paper dioramas — because they sit right at the intersection of craft, light and illusion. But glare and nasty reflections can...
I love the tiny, quiet moments when a small object suddenly seems larger than life. Over the years I’ve learned a handful of tricks to make miniature sculptures read as deeper and more three-dimensional than their actual thickness — and one of...