One of my hobbies is making greeting cards. It is a hobby I've enjoyed for about 18 months as I discover, learn and apply new styles and techniques in paper craft. You can read all about in 'My Other Blog'.
One of these new styles (well new to me, you understand) is an exploding card. It is a card for special occasions like weddings or milestone birthdays which also doubles as a box in which you can place a gift. I am in the process of making my first one.
The internet is not my only source for learning about making handmade cards. There is a wide selection of magazines and books on the subject but my favourite method of learning is through watching good crafters demonstrating. There are TV shows on QVC and a specialist channel Create and Craft which is also live online. The internet is without doubt the major provider of a wealth of instructional videos and I used this one to learn how to make an exploding card.
The Wonder How To website describes itself appropiately as 'The How To Anything site'. It is a one stop site for instructional videos on topics from Arts and Crafts to Science. I would add a word of warning as I saw some thumbnails for videos which were on dissecting. Not for the faint hearted and certainly not for anyone other than medical students, pathologists or the fascinated! I watched the video above on Wonder How To and embedded it directly from YouTube.
Many but not all of the videos are gleaned from YouTube so you will find videos from New Zealand as well anywhere else in the world.
If you are using the Firefox web browser you can also download a sidebar which will offer a choice of videos relating to the subject within your current webpage. You have the option of closing the Wonder How To sidebar and it is simple to re-open from the task bar.
There are over 1600 videos under the subject Education with subcategories of Humanities, Legal Issues, Math, Science and Teaching. There are some useful videos like the one following and there are some dubious ones which I hope examiners are aware of as they reveal secrets that help people to cheat at exams! This one however gives some useful tips on preparing to take exams, something that many students, all over the world are currently engaged.
For personal development I think Wonder How To is a very useful resource and I shall be using it for my own hobby development. Not sure I would recommend this for institutional use though.
