I have been trying out more of the star earrings.. Those are the easiest earrings to make I think and I love making these tiny little stars! :)
I have been trying out more of the star earrings.. Those are the easiest earrings to make I think and I love making these tiny little stars! :)
When we were kids, we used to make these bracelets and use them as Friendship bracelets. Unfortunately we didn't have access to colourful paper, so we used to make do with paper torn out of our notebooks (very naughty I know!), or paper from comic digests or magazines that we managed to get hold of.
So anyway, after many, many years, now my daughter wanted me to make something for her friends. There are 3 of them in her gang and these 3 are very close, even though they are all of 4 years old! So when she wanted me to make something for her friends, I thought of these bracelets :) I needed to really wrack my brains to get going, I had more or less forgotten how to make them! But I finally managed to do that. And made some really colourful bracelets for her friends, in their favourite colours too!! I am not their favourite mom-of-friend! :D
Since I needed to put in a lot of effort to recollect the instructions for making the bracelet, I figured it made sense to make a tutorial, so that later on if my daughter wanted to make them, she could give it a go. So, stick around.. A tutorial coming your way soon!! :) And my first too..
Model Details:
Model: Paper Bracelets
Origin: Traditional
Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate
A traditional origami tried out by many is the frog. It is made from, surprise, surprise, the frog base! And as with most traditional designs, there are numerous sites with instructions on the net on how to make it.
Frogs are best tried out with thin origami paper, since there is a lot of folding involved and a thicker paper will not hold these folds. Try them out with a green paper to make your frogs more realistic :)
Model Details:
Model: Frog
Origin: Traditional
Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate
Paper Ratio: Square
Paper Size: 6 inches
Tutorial: Youtube
An origami hyperbolic parabola, called be various other names such as saddle and hypar, is made by pleating a square of paper along the diagonals. Plenty of pleats will give a parabola looks really intricate and delicate.
It is also possible to form modular units from the parabola. This is done by gluing individual units to form various shapes. Such modular, closed models are called Hyparhedra. Another such model can be formed by gluing 60 hypars together. This forms a dodecahedron structure, with 12 pentagonal faces.
The creator of this model is not known but John Emmet is considered to be the rediscoverer of this model.
Model Details:
Model: Hyperbolic Parabola
Creator: John Emmet
Book: The Complete Origami Course
Author: Paul Jackson
Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate
Paper Ratio: Square
Paper Size: 8 inches
Tomoko Fuse's 'Home Decorating with Origami' was my choice of book for the day. I tried out the Hana. As described in the book, this is an abstract flower made from a square of paper.
The pleating is similar to the Balalaika and the thinner the pleats, the better it looks. She suggests that you start with a 6*6 inch square and that is what I did. She also suggests that it is possible to make the Hana with 5, 6 and 8 sides.
Model Details:
Model: Hana
Creator: Tomoko Fuse
Book: Home Decorating with Origami
Author: Tomoko Fuse
Paper Ratio: Square
Paper Size: 6 inches
A very simple modular origami is the fluted diamond by Molly Kahn. In addition to being simple to make, they can also be used in many places. They make beautiful decorations, make them small enough and you can turn them into earrings or pendants or even bracelets or maybe mobiles.
These are made from 2 squares of paper, from the square base. The units have pockets and flaps and are assembled using those. This can be a bit tricky at first.
Model Details:
Model: Fluted Diamond
Creator: Molly Kahn
Difficulty Level: Simple
Paper Ratio: Square
Paper Size: 4 inches
Modules: 2
Instructions: Origami Resource Center
The origami lily is a popular traditional origami. It is easy enough to be tried by a beginner. Placing one lily inside another gives an appearance of a whole lot of petals.
And there are so many different things that you can do with the lily. These look good as single flowers; if a stalk and leaves are added and a bunch of lilies are gathered together, they would look lovely in a flower vase; It is also possible to form a lily kusudama.
Model Details:
Model: Lily
Origin: Traditional
Difficulty Level: Simple
Paper Ratio: Square
Paper Size: 4 inches
Instructions: Origami Instructions
The sampan is a traditional Chinese fishing boat. And the sampan origami is also a traditional origami which is easy enough to be tried out by kids; probably for a rainy day..
The sampan can be made in a couple of ways and like most traditional origami, there are plenty of places you can get both the instructions.
The one featured above is one kind of sampan, the only difficult part here is turn the model inside-out! :) But once a couple of these sampans are completed, it is pretty easy to do!
This is a slightly more complicated one but again, doable by kids. There are also lots of beginner origami books which give instructions for both these sampans..
Model Details:
Model: Sampan
Origin: Traditional
Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate
Paper Ratio: Square
Paper Size: 7 inches
Instructions for the first sampan: Origami Instructions
Tutorial for the second sampan: Youtube
The curler units by Herman Van Goubergen are deceptively easy to make. In fact the basic units are easy to make since they involve creating a water bomb base and curling the 4 arms towards the centre. But putting them together into a ball takes time.
The curler units can be assembled into different spherical structures. A cuboctahedron (12 units), a rhombiccuboctahedron (24 units), an icosidodecahedron (30 units) are various structures that can be made from the curler units.
What I have tried out is the Icosidodecahedron, made of 30 units i.e., 12 pentagons and 20 triangles. Each pentagon is surrounded by 5 triangles and each triangle by 3 pentagons.
The curler unit assembly looks good whether it is done in a single colour or in an abundance of colours. I did mine with a mix of colours. I got bits of all possible colours that I have with me and made my curler units. And I really liked the colourful end result :)
Model Details:
Model: Curler Icosidodecahedron
Creator: Herman Van Goubergen
Difficulty Level: High Intermediate
Paper Ratio: Square
Paper Size: 5 inches
Model Size: ~4 inches in diameter
Modules: 30
Instructions: British Origami
Tutorial: Youtube
I still am fascinated with shells and spirals and Tomoko Fuse's shell/nautilus (am not really sure of the difference between the two!) from her book on spirals (Let's Fold Spirals) is a good place to start.
The spiral sea shell A which I tried, turned out to be an interesting origami to fold. The diagram is clear and makes the folding quite easy. The shell is quite realistic if done in the right colours.
Model Details:
Model: Shell/Nautilus
Creator: Tomoko Fuse
Book: Let's Fold Spirals
Author: Tomoko Fuse
Language: Japanese
Paper Ratio: Square
Paper Size: 7 inches
The origami balaika is created by Tomoko Fuse and is detailed in her book 'Home Decorating with Origami'. She describes it as an objet d'art in the book :) The design looks intricate and delicate and the more pleats there are, the better it looks.
Well, I managed to do the objet d'art and as suggested in the book, made two of them and glued them at one of the edges. It looks very difficult to make but the instructions provided are very clear and quite doable. The biggest problem was making those squashes after the pleating is complete. But after I had done an initial couple of practice ones, I was able to do that also reasonably well :)
Model Details:
Model: Balaika
Creator: Tomoko Fuse
Book: Home Decorating with Origami
Author: Tomoko Fuse
Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate
Paper Ratio: Square
Paper Size: 8 - 9 inches
I had this pretty wrapper paper that was great for this model. But it looks equally good in solid colours. Thin origami paper might not hold the shape well.
Model Details:
Model: Jitterbug Icosidodecahedron / Christmas Tree Ball
Creator: Tung Ken Lam (creator of jitterbug units)
Difficulty Level: High Intermediate
Paper Ratio: Square
Paper size: 4 inches
Number of modules: 20
Diagram: Nick Robinson's site
Tutorial (for the jitterbug icosidodecahedron): Youtube
The twister or an Origami Medial Rhombic Triacontahedron is a mouthful to pronounce! The design is by Miyuki Kawamura and is made from 30 rectangles of paper, in the ration of 2.5:1. The design was published in Origami Tanteidan Volume 5. This is one of my most time-consuming origami to date. It can be held together without any glue, but I preferred gluing it in a few places so that it didn't come undone easily.
Model Details:
Model: Origami Medial Rhombic Triacontahedron / Twister
Creator: Miyuki Kawamura
Book: Origami Tantedian 5th Volume
Language: Japanese
Difficulty Level: High Intermediate
Paper Ratio: 2.5:1
Paper size: 7.5 by 3 inches (Ratio 2.5:1)
Number of modules: 30
Tutorial Link: Youtube
The origami star box is a simple container, made from a single square of paper. It is also a practical box, quite useful to store little clips and things.
Thick paper should be used, if a sturdy box is required. Duo coloured paper works well, since the star flaps are formed from the other side of the paper than the rest of the box.
Model Details:
Model: Star Box
Origin: Traditional
Difficulty Level: Simple
Paper Ratio: Square
Tutorial: Youtube
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