The kusudama spiral, which looks to me to be less of a kusudama and more of a modular design, is created by Irina Krivyakina. The design is very similar to Tomoko Fuse's spiral origami.

In this design, the 6 sides of the cube are first assembled individually and then put together using connecting units. Each side of the cube is made up of 4 units which are folded together to form the spiral. A total of 24 units are required for the cube faces. The connecting unit is basically a bird base. 12 such units are required for assembling the cube.

3 inch squares are the perfect size for making the cube. I would not suggest a single-sided paper for the units used for assembling the cube. When using single-sided paper, while forming the spiral, I discovered to my dismay, that however I folded it, a little bit of the white was visible at the corners of the spirals. And it was very obviously seen in the completed cube :(

Model Details:

Model: Kusudama Spiral

Creator: Irina Krivyakina

Difficulty Level: High Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 3 inches

Model Size: ~4 inches

Modules: 36

Photo Tutorial: Stranamasterov

Tutorial: Youtube

The Santiago Flower Ball is an origami model by Mette Pederson, the well-known creator of the Mette Rings. I must say I love this model! It looks rather like modern art I think. Little Miss insists that it looks like a lantern and has been using it as one! If you hold the model by one of the flowers, it actually does resemble a lantern :)

I had used printer paper, which was perfect for folding it. There aren't a lot of folds, so making the individual units was quite simple. 4 units are assembled together to form the flower (blue and peach in the picture). 6 such flowers are needed. Then the 6 flowers are held together with 12 strips.

The paper size I have used is 3 inch squares for the flowers and 3 * 6 inches strips for the connector units. The resulting model is roughly 6 inches in diameter.

Model Details:

Model: Santiago Flower Ball

Creator: Mette Pederson

Book: Mette Units 7

Author: Mette Pederson

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square / Rectangle in ratio 1:2

Paper Size: 3 inches squares and 3 * 6 inches rectangles

Model Size: ~ 6 inches in diameter

Modules: 36

Update: The design is also found in the Origami Tanteidan 10th convention book.

The Scaled Octahedron is yet another modular origami that I have had the pleasure to work on, in recent days. It is not the easiest piece that I have made, mainly because of all the different size square that are needed.

The one that I have made required a total of 24 squares and 12 rectangles. The 24 squares were converted into 6 pyramids of 4 levels each. The number of levels in the pyramids can be changed as desired - in multiples of 4. So instead of 4 levels, one can also do the same with 5 per pyramid or even with just 3 levels per pyramid. The number of rectangles remain the same - these are the units needed to connect the various pyramids together.

The size of square paper for making the pyramidal modules change for each level. If we assume 'x' is the side of the smallest level, then the side of the next level is 1.5x. Followed by 2x, 2.5x and so on. So in my case, I started with 2 inches squares, 3 inches, 4 inches and 5 inches. The rectangular connectors have one side that is the same as the largest square (5 inches in my case), the other size is a quarter of this side. For me, this was 1.25 inches. A total of 12 rectangles are needed.

Folding the individual modules is fairly easy. Assembly is a little more challenging. It is better to use printer or copy paper for this model. For one - it is firmer which makes assembly a lot easier. And for another, the back of the paper is also visible, which means the white part of single-sided paper will be seen and that is not a very pretty sight for this model.

Model Details:

Model: Scaled Octahedron 

Creator: Laura Azcoaga

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Squares and Rectangles

Paper Size: 2 inches, 3 inches, 4 inches and 5 inches squares + 5 inches * 1.25 inches rectangles

Model Size: ~8 inches across

Modules: 36

Instructions: Origami Modular en Argentina

Tutorial: Youtube