There’s plenty of different designs to make planes from folded paper. Time to gather a few together and list them here.

• See also Origami and Papercraft.

On with the planes…

Plenty of Paper Planes

Paper Forest links us to a collection of over 60 different model planes – more for the looks than the flying, but they’re all supposed to fly ok too. The page is Japanese, linked through a translator, so the language is kind of interesting (“…the small papercraft which the collection is produced pleasantly…”), but there’s links to PDFs for the designs.

• Plenty of Paper Planes.

The Best Paper Aeroplane in the World

That’s the grand claim behind this plane – watch out for steps 16-18. I got the hang of it from the detailed steps he’s added, but it’s not easy to see what needs doing.

[image:1378 size=original] Colour shown – Chilli Red

The Inktense is Derwent’s latest take on the watercolour pencil, following in the footsteps of the likes of the Graphitint. The pencils are available in a range of bright, vibrant colours to work alongside the Graphitint’s more natural, muted tones.

Used dry, the pencils are just like all of Derwent’s other watercolour pencils – fairly smooth coverage, good colour, but perhaps not suited to rough/not watercolour paper. Used wet, it’s easy to see where the name comes from as the colour takes on an ink-like intensity, stronger and more vibrant than regular watercolour pencils, adding richness and depth to the usual soft, light tones.

I couldn’t help noticing how similar the Inktense is to Derwent’s Aquatone. Although the aquatones are sticks of solid colour, I wonder whether the inktense is meant to give the same results as the Aquatone, but with convenience of being in pencil form?

If you want to see for yourself, Inktense pencils should be available in the next couple of weeks. Keep an eye out on Derwent’s web site for more information.

Google have created a new beta version of their toolbar, which now allows you to add custom buttons, so we’ve created a PigPog button. What does it do?

• Menu with the latest posts on PigPog, so you’ll always know when there’s new stuff available – the button will also highlight when there’s new content – click it to reset it.
• Click the button to go to PigPog.
• Highlight a term on a page, and click the button to send the term to PigPog’s keyword lookup, so you can then look up the term on Google, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Technorati, Amazon, or even on PigPog itself.

How do you get it? Easy…

• Add the PigPog Google Toolbar Button Any feedback on this would be useful – just let us know what you think in the commnents.

[image:1374?size=small] The Hall, West Bridgford. From aftnn.org.

Wedding Rooms

On Friday we visited West Bridgford Registry Office to give notice of our wedding. Had to wade through a little red tape, but nothing complicated. Once the formalities were out of the way, and we’d handed over our money, we were shown the room where the ceremony will take place. I was impressed. I didn’t know anything about how a civil ceremony works, but I had the feeling it would be a fairly nondescript occasion – “Do you? Do you? Sign here.” – that sort of thing. The Wedding Room is nicely decorated, albeit in a colour scheme that’s made me think twice about my black/red theme. There are plenty of options available to make the ceremony special and to put our own stamp on the occasion, which is nice, but I think it’s scaring Michael a little. He’s worried what I might get him doing, and more frightened then ever that I’ll make him wear a top hat and leather trousers. Although I’d like to add a few touches to the event that will make it uniquely ours, he’s got nothing to worry about. After the Registry Office we headed up north for a visit with the people who will soon officially be my parents-in-law, Irene and Tim.

“I have a mother-in-law! No more living vicariously through my girlfriends!” – Marge Simpson

Blooms

On Saturday we took a trip out to the beautiful villages near their home. Every time we do this journey, I can never be exactly sure where we are, because all it takes is one turn off a main road and whoops, there goes civilisation, and suddenly we’re swerving to avoid sheep wandering in the road. Our first stop was Middleton in Teesdale, a lovely little village with little shops, nice little cottages and clean public toilets (a novelty where I come from). We had a wander round, and then headed off for lunch at the Moorcock Inn. I had a stilton parcel – a fillet steak stuffed with stilton. Yum.

With full bellies and a desire to get some of it walked off we then went to Barnard Castle, in search of bridal flowers. No luck finding any, as all the shops Irene suggested we looked in had shut down and moved on. We had a quick walk round, including a nosey round The Hayloft, a shop on 3 floors containing all manner of old bits and bobs, including a vintage TV set from (rough guess) the ‘60s.

When we realised that there were no suitable weddingy stores in Barnard Castle, Irene and Tim pondered several options for buying artificial flowers. Yes, artificial flowers. I’m not paying £50/£60 for a fresh bridal bouquet that won’t last beyond the wedding, when I can buy artificial blooms from several places and make my own unique weddingy thing. I like saying weddingy, it’s fun. We ended up in a garden centre in Northallerton, where I bought a selection of flowers in varying shades of pink, which may mean I have to buy another top. Ho-hum, it’s all good fun.

[image:1375?size=small] Broad Walk, Buxton from www.roseleighhotel.co.uk

Derbyshire Honeymoons

Finally, a decision! After a week of dithering over destinations like Center Parcs, Lincolnshire and York, we’ve settled on two nights in Buxton, at the Roseleigh Hotel. Looking forward to spending our first few days as a proper married couple in this lovely spa town.

More next week as I carry on hunting for fun weddingy craft stuff, and start looking for shoes. Gripping, isn’t it?

Until then, Bride-to-Be Sam “Unlike most women I hate shopping for shoes” Harris

Time for some more quick links. They’re starting to pile up…

• Pig Speakers
• Putting Bunnies in a Trance – (Via B3ta)
• Many Macs and Displays – one cool video editing setup. Lots of comments, but can be summed up in one word – ‘drool’.
• Lifehacker Pack – like the Google Pack – a selection of the best free software out there for Windows users. They miss out Antivirus, but go with AVG. Scroll down for the comments – there’s some more good tips there.
• Launching a blog the easy way – from Performancing. This is pretty much the approach we’ve taken with PigPog – as he says, you don’t have much choice if you don’t have a budget.
• SnackShotz – Dog Biscuit Launcher – imagine a gun, but it fires dog biscuits. That’s it – you just pictured SnackShotz. Sorry. Especially for the pig speakers. But it was all worth it for trancing bunnies, wasn’t it?