After the round wreath made from little paper rosettes, here is another wreath - this one a red, heart wreath. I had used red/brown sheets, cut circles from the paper and rolled these rosettes before gluing them to a heart-shaped wreath base.

I had made one mistake that I will need to rectify in my next wreath. I think I should have painted my wreath base red before adding the flowers. Right now, I can see bits of the white base between the flowers.

But all in all, it was a fun project. Little Miss helped me too, so it turned out to be a time of mom-daughter bonding as well.

Model Details:

Model: Paper Rosette Heart Wreath 

Origin: Traditional

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Circle

Paper Size: 3 inches in diameter

Model Size: 13 inches in length and 12 inches across

Tutorial: Youtube

This dual coloured heart is designed by Andrey Lukyanov, an Ukrainian origamist, who has designed a whole bunch of heart/love-based origami! Using Google Translate, I gather from his website (which is in Russian), that this heart represents 2 halves of love which builds a new life.

As far as the model goes, the creator has made a detailed video on how to fold it (link below). After the initial pre-creasings, the model is collapsed on these creases. That point is not very clear in the tutorial. It took me a couple of tries to get this right. Another potential problem area is pleating the leaf. I had used 6-inch paper and the pleats are really tiny!

The obvious choice of paper is a single-sided red paper. I have used pearlized momigami paper and I love the texture it adds to the model.

Model Details:

Model: New Life Heart 

Creator: Andrey Lukyanov

Difficulty Level: High Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 6 inches

Model Size: ~2.5 inches in length and 3 inches across

Tutorial: Youtube (Part 1 and Part 2) 

A couple of years ago, I had attempted these heart boxes by Robin Glynn for the first time. While I had not perfected it, it still turned out great. So this time, with Valentine's Day coming up, I decided to give it a go again.

This time, I wanted to make it sturdier, so attempted it with thicker paper. That is, with 120 gsm from some of the paper packs that I had with me. So, in addition to being really pretty, these boxes also turned out to be functional.

The pink and white boxes are my absolute favourites. Naturally, these boxes have been duly handed over to Little Miss! She apparently is once again in need of boxes for her things!

The blue box, termed "Love is in the air", was specially requested by a friend.

And with that, we come to the end of the post :)

Happy New Year, dear readers! I hope this new year is a blessing to all of you.

So I wanted to start off the new year on the blog, with a beautiful project. I was working on a complex origami, which wasn't turning out to be much of a success! So I ended up putting it aside, incomplete for now, and instead started working on an easier (but more time consuming!) project, namely a paper rose wreath.

This rose wreath is made entirely from paper (the pages of an old book, to be precise). I have been working on this wreath for the past week, a few hours each week. And though it was a back-breaking and time-consuming work, I am delighted with the end result! And now it hangs proudly in my work room and I keep admiring it every few mins!! I know, vanity indeed!!

The purpose of the rose wreath was two-fold. One, I wanted a project for New Year and two, I wanted to try out a recent purchase of mine - the EK Success Circle Scissors. It arrived a few days back and ever since, I have wanted to do something with circles. And these roses start off as circles, so it was a perfect way to start using my scissors. And I must say, I am absolutely fascinated with the scissors! I needed to cut about 250 circles (that is how many roses there are in the wreath) and with the circle scissors, this was a piece of cake - all done in less than an hour :)

Of course, making the roses was the major work. It took me about 8-10 hours to complete. The base can be a foam wreath base. But I had made my own wreath - cardboard cut in shape, lined with bunched up newspaper then layered with tissues that are held down with a mix of glue and water. Allow to dry over night and you have a rock solid wreath base. Glue on roses, add a ribbon - red for a little colour. And voila, your wreath is ready!

I am now thinking of making a Valentine day's wreath, using red roses. What do you think, dear readers?

Model Details:

Model: Paper Rosette Wreath 

Origin: Traditional

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Circle

Paper Size: 3 inches in diameter

Model Size: Wreath diameter - 12 inches

No of Units: ~ 250 

Tutorial: Youtube

With Valentine's day coming up, the origami cube of love would make a great DIY gift 😀 It is a modular cube with a whole bunch of hearts in it! It is made from 6 units, each unit with a heart in one of the corners. The modules are made from half a square, that is, rectangles in the ratio of 1:2. They are quite easy to make. Duo-coloured paper must be used to get the contrast between the heart and the rest of the module.

The cube makes a great decoration and will make a good gift for a loved one..

Model Details:

Model: Cube of Love

Creator: Fumiaki Shingu

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Rectangle in ratio 1:2

Paper Size: 5 inches * 2.5 inches

Modules: 6

Diagram: Origami-club

Valentine's Day is coming up and this time, I thought I would try out some handmade gift bags to go with the Valentine Day's gifts.

I tend to hoard paper pack in various themes. These are essentially 160 gsm thick paper with print that is coordinated under specific themes. Though they are not usually used for origami, they are great for making paper bags!

So I broke out the Valentine Day themed pack and ended up making these bags which are about 6 * 4 inches in size.