After the tutorial for making the masu box, here is the tutorial for the lid :)

The lid is made from a square the same size as the base. In spite of that, it needs to be slightly larger than the base so that it fits well. And I like my lid to be of a lesser height, so that it is easy to open the box. So with a few changes to the masu box, here is the masu lid! :)

I have explained in a lot of detail, so that all steps are clear. So though it make look like a lot of steps, it isn't very difficult to do. Please drop a comment if any step is unclear.

Time Required: ~10 minutes
Difficulty Level: Simple
What is needed: 

  • 2 squares of paper, both measuring around 8 inches.
  • Pencil or pen to make some markings
  • Paper clips
  • Glue
How to Fold:


1. The green square is the one that will be used for the lid.

2. Follow Steps 3 to 7 in the masu box tutorial, so that all four corners are folded to the centre.

3. Unfold the masu box completely and fold the four corners to the centre. The yellow one is the unfolded masu box. We need this so that we can fold the lid slightly larger than the base.

4. Place the 2 pieces face-to-face so that the folded corners are inside. We are going to align the pieces so that the folded edge of the lid lines with the first crease of the base (marked with a dotted line in the base).


5. Align the lid exactly on top of the base, as shown. Use a paper clip to hold the pieces in place. Once you get the hang of this, you will no longer need the paper clips :)

6. Turn it over so that the base sheet comes on the top and the lid at the bottom.

7. Now fold the part of the lid that is projecting out, over the base. You will notice that the edge of the lid does not line up correctly with the crease in the base. This will ensure that the lid is just a tad bigger than the base. Repeat Steps 5 to 7 for the remaining 3 edges.


8. Open up completely and place the paper so that the coloured side is facing you.

9. Fold in half so that one edge meets the other but don’t crease fully. Only crease from the edges to the next crease. Repeat for the other edge.

10. Unfold and turn over so that the white side faces you.

11. The next crease is going to be made using the 2 consecutive creases, marked in Step 11.


12. Fold and align the marked creases, so that you have a new crease mid-way between them. This will be the actual height of the box. You can play around with this fold, to make the lid a little taller or shorter than this. Repeat the fold for the other 3 sides.

13. Open up. You have now made all the creases necessary for folding the lid.

14. You can reinforce the crease made in Step 12 to ensure that the sides of the lid is sharp.

15. Fold opposite corners as shown and life up to form 2 sides of the lid. The corners will not meet in the centre, as in the base, but rather, will overlap and touch the opposite edge.


16. Now, the steps are the same as the base. Push in the the corners on the third side. The paper will naturally fold in on existing creases. Use paper clips, if required, to hold in place.

17. Fold down inside and crease well. 3 sides now completed.

18. Repeat on the 4th side. Crease the edges well. Since the sides are shorter than the base, you will need to glue down the parts that were folded in.

19. Refold your base. Cover the base with the lid, it should fit perfectly :)

When I had posted these masu boxes earlier, a friend of my mother's, a very creative lady herself, had remarked on my Facebook page that these boxes very amazingly beautiful :) Well, that gave me quite a high! And got me busily working on the tutorial that I had promised in the post.

On an aside - If you have followed my previous tutorials, I usually make them from Google's Picasa's collages. But lucky me, I found a new collage maker called 'Picture Collage Maker Pro'. I found the software remarkably easy to use and am quite fond of this new tutorial! What do you think? Is it better than my previous ones?

Well, to continue with my tutorial, today I will post the one for making the actual masu box. It is relatively simple and can be done in 10 minutes, tops.

Time Required: ~10 minutes
Difficulty Level: Simple
What is needed: 

  • 2 squares of paper, both measuring around 8 inches.
  • Pencil or pen to make some markings
  • Paper clips
  • Glue
How to Fold:


 
1. I am using paper coloured on a single side, yellow for the base and green for the lid.

2. Well, the yellow will be the one in this tutorial.

3. Flip the paper over so that the white side is facing up.

4. Fold along the diagonal and pinch the centre. Don't crease the entire diagonal. You are just trying to find a centre point.

5. Open. Fold along the other diagonal and again, pinch the centre.


6. The two pinches from Steps 4 and 5 should have intersected at the centre. I have marked it with 2 perpendicular lines. You can mark it with a pencil if it isn't very clear.

7. Fold the 4 corners to these markings and crease well.

8. Unfold 2 opposite flaps.

9. Fold the folded edge to the centre as shown.


10. Repeat for the opposite flap.

11. Open up fully and turn it over so that the coloured sided faces you.

12. Fold in half so that one edge meets the other but don't crease fully. Only crease from the edges till you hit the creases made in Steps 9 and 10. Repeat for the other edge.

13. Unfold and turn over so that the white side faces you. You have now completed all creases for folding the box!


14. Fold opposite corners to the centre.

15. Lift the 2 sides on existing creases (made in Steps 9 and 10) and push in the the corners on the third side. The paper will naturally fold in on the crease made in Step 12. Use paper clips, if required, to hold in place.

16. Fold it down inside and crease well. You now have 3 sides completed :)

17. Repeat on the opposite side and you are done!

The flaps inside the box can be glued down for a cleaner look. If you wish to do that, please hold on till my next tutorial, cos we need to undo this box a bit, to get the right side for the corresponding lid.

This wreath is from David Petty's book 'Origami 1-2-3'. I have previously tried out a few projects from this book and promptly lost the book! That is, till I found it during some house cleaning :)

This modular piece sounded interesting, so I tried it out. But as per the design, the wreath does not end with pointed ends. The ends are folded down into the neighbouring module to form a kinda blunted wreath. Check out the next picture for the actual wreath - the one in yellow is the way to go. The pointed end one is not very stable and needs to be glued in place if you actually want to use it somewhere.

I used regular copy paper, cut into 2 inch squares. It resulted in a pointy wreath measuring about 4 inches in diameter and a blunted wreath about 2.5 inches in diameter.

The most curious thing for me, about this wreath was that it requires 13 units! I have never come across another model that required 13 modules :) For the blue one, I did add 14 modules though - it was just a tad more stable with 14!


Model Details:

Model: Wreaths / Flower Wheel

Creator: David Petty

Book: Origami A-B-C

Author: David Petty

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 2 inch squares

Model Size: ~4 inches (blue one) and 2.5 inches (yellow one)

Modules: 13 or 14

I have previously made a butterfly bookmark designed by Grzegorz Bubniak. And today, I tried out his elephant bookmark, which clearly shows an elephant's head. It is quite easy to make out the ears, trunk and tusks. I like the colour change in the tusks.

The bookmark works best with duo coloured paper - grey and ivory would be the most ideal colour choice, in which case the elephant would be in grey and the tusks in ivory. I have used a 4.5 inch square which resulted in a bookmark that measured 2.5 inches from head to trunk tip and 2.75 inches from ear to ear. The size was ideal to use in books :)

When the bookmark is inserted in a book and the book is closed, only the ears can be seen outside the book end. This, I felt, was better than the butterfly bookmark, where more than half the bookmark is visible, which makes it very easy to crush it! In the elephant bookmark, since only the ears are visible, and that too a pre-creased end, we would, in most probability, end up folding the ear along those creases.


Model Details:

Model: Elephant Bookmark 

Creator: Grzegorz Bubniak

Website: GregOrigami
  
Difficulty Level: High Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 4.5 inches

Model Size: 2.5 inches long and 2.75 inches wide

Diagram: Dev.Origami

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you would know that I love making boxes :) And the easiest boxes to make are masu boxes. Masu boxes are actually traditional Japanese wooden, square boxes that were used to measure rice.

The origami masu box is made from a square paper and results in a square box. These make great gift boxes, if a lid is added to it. The lid can also be made from paper the same size. Some minor variations to the regular masu box folding results in a slightly larger and shorter lid. Tutorial for this is coming your way! So stay tuned :)

As for the box, it is fairly sturdy if made from scrapbooking paper, printer paper or gift wrappers. If you want sturdier boxes, then it is better to cut out thin cardboard paper (say, from cereal boxes) and insert them into the base and sides of the box.

Model Details:

Model: Masu Box 

Origin: Traditional

Difficulty Level: Simple

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: Any size from around 3 inches to 12  inches

Model Size: ~ a third of the paper size in width and a fifth in height. So if your paper is 6 inches, then the resulting box will be approximately 2 inches wide and 1.2 inches high.

Instructions: Origami Instructions
I have been thinking of trying out an origami composition which is an assembly of various origami, around a common theme.

The composition that I worked on was a beach with boats and houses along the beach and here is what I finally managed to come up with :) I hadn't realized that making a composition could be quite this time-consuming! Finalizing what I wanted to make was the simplest part of the process. I then had to decide on the size, then try out quite a few times to get the proportions right. Finally I set everything in place to complete the arrangement. So given the pains I took to get it done, I must say I am quite proud of it! I think it has come out very well :)

If you want to give the composition a try, I have posted on most of the individual origami earlier. So do take a look :) The composition is made up of


I love folding spirals and I think the queen of origami spirals would be Tomoko Fuse! So since it has been a long time since I folded boxes with spirals, I tried out this little 4-sided box, from her book 'Let's Fold Spirals'. This box is the second of the 2 square boxes and is a pleasure to fold. It took me about 15 minutes to complete the full box, pretty fast I think.

I had used fairly sturdy paper (4*4 memo paper) to fold it, so the end box was also quite sturdy. I like the shape - the height is greater than the usual origami boxes. The spiral also gives the impression of an even taller box. And the slanting lines add a great touch.

Altogether a delightful box to fold :)


Model Details:

Model: Square Spiral Box

Creator: Tomoko Fuse

Book: Let's Fold Spirals

Author: Tomoko Fuse

Language: Japanese

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 4 inches

Model Size: ~2.5 inches tall (the spiral adds half an inch) and 2 inches wide

Number of Modules: 4
The origami sun was one of the designs I started folding in the beginning of the month, but was pleasantly side-tracked into folding a Compass Rose, which to me, looked kinda like the sun!

But I finally got around to folding the sun, designed by Jo Nakashima. It wasn't exactly a piece of cake and I still don't think I have got it quite right. There were a lot of pre-creasings and I think I might have missed out a couple, cos the shape isn't as nice as what Jo Nakashima demonstrates in his video.

The paper I had used was a 4-inch square and the resulting sun was about 3 inches in size.

Model Details:

Model: Sun

Creator: Jo Nakashima

Creator Online: Youtube, Facebook
 
Difficulty Level: High Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 4 inches

Model Size: ~3 inches

Tutorial: Youtube
This duck origami is a traditional design and it can be folded in a variety of sizes. I folded mine in 2 sizes - 3 and 2 inches. It resulted in ducks that were around 1 inch in height. Since they can be folded into such a small size, they make great additions to cards. A mamma duck and a row of her little ducklings would make a great Mother's Day card, I think :)

Model Details:

Model: Duck 

Origin: Traditional

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 3 inches

Model Size: ~1 inch in height

Tutorial: Youtube
Beach chairs are, I am sure, great to use on a summer day and beach chairs are equally great to fold on a very hot summer day! These beach chairs are courtesy of Yoshihide Momotani, from his amazing book 'Doll Houses with Origami'. Every time I open this book, I am tempted to make one of those beautiful doll house rooms! And this time, I was able to complete these chairs, from the garden scene.

The folding is pretty straight forward. The instructions are in Japanese, but the pictures by themselves are pretty clear. There is also a slight variation to this chair, which results in a chair with a tall back.

Model Details:

Model: Beach Chair 

Creator: Yoshihide Momotani

Book: Doll’s House with Origami
 
Author: Yoshihide Momotani
 
Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 7 inches

Model Size: ~6 inches long and 1.5 inches wide
A catamaran is a boat with two structures that are joined together by a frame. It is a stable boat and quite fast as well, and is a common sight on seas and beaches, especially during summer.

The origami catamaran is a great design to fold on a hot summer day. The design is by Maarten van Gelder. The sail is in a different colour than the rest of the boat, so paper with a solid colour on one side and print on the other is great.

I had some trouble when I folded this initially, at Step 7 of the diagram, where the model is collapsed into shape. I had thought that the creases from Steps 3 to 6 were only for the top layer. I discovered, after fighting with Step 7, that the creases for the layer below as well!

Model Details:

Model: Catamaran 

Creator: Maarten van Gelder

Website: Maarten van Gelder
 
Difficulty Level: High Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 7 inches

Model Size: ~5 inches * ~4 inches

Instructions: Diagrammed Models
Summer is a hot, hot time here, with temperatures touching 100 F (~ 38 C). So I am hardly in a position to go out. The next option for me is of course, to fold something. And what is the most appropriate origami to fold, than the sun?

The first origami sun that popped up was Jo  Nakashima's sun. But before I started working on this one, I chanced upon an Origami Compass Rose (Wind Rose), made from 8 squares of paper, designed by Paolo Bascetta. When I tried it out, I thought it looked more like the sun than a compass rose, with the rays of the sun in alternating colours of yellow and orange. :)

So here is my origami sun/compass rose. I used thick paper, similar to printer paper, essential to hold the sun/rose in shape. It isn't very stable, because the fold that holds the units, is small. That is not to say that you need glue, the shape holds together without glue, but it is wise to use some if you plan on hanging it up.

Model Details:

Model: Compass Rose

Creator: Paolo Bascetta

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 2 inches

Model Size: ~4 inches

Modules: 8

Instructions: Origami CZ