Rad Linc Crafts: Origami Iris

The origami iris is both beautiful and also easy to learn. For this origami you can use pretty much any paper that’s cut into a square. For the iris in the picture I actually used wrapping paper that I cut into small squares. Some wrapping paper (in this case, Hallmark) even have a guide in the back that have the squares... makes it easy to see where to cut. One thing I’ve noticed tho, is when I use this paper as oppose to the origami paper, it’s hard to curl the paper in the end. I found the plans to this online.
http://dev.origami.com/images_pdf/trad_page2.pdf

The rest of the database is also cool.
http://dev.origami.com/diagram.cfm

The pictures are done pretty well in the pdf diagram. Just watch out for the valley folds and the mountain folds. Long dashes are valley folds ( you fold in to make a valley), and the lines with the long and short dashes are mountain folds (you fold out to make a mountain). I recommend trying out the diagram and taking a look at my pictures for additional guidance.

Here are the pictures I took along the way.

Once you’ve made your iris, you can either roll the petals with a round object like a pen or you can fold it down as the diagram shows. When using wrapping paper, it might be easier to just fold it down, as I had some trouble getting the curl to stick. (I did contemplate on trying to use a curling iron, but I was too lazy to get it and try it. If someone does try it, let me know how it goes).

Now that you have a beautiful iris, you can use floral stems and floral tape (buy it at any craft stores, or any place that sells flower arrangement stuff (I bought mine from Walmart, then found out they had them at the dollar store... doh). The floral stems I’ve seen always seem to be a bit too long, so I usually cut it in half (maybe 1 foot in length).

I use pliers or sometimes just my fingers to bend down about half an inch of one side of the wire as shown in the picture. I’ll take the non bent side of the wire and stick it in the iris and poke it out thru the point in the bottom of the iris. Pull the wire all the way til the bent part catches in the iris.

Now you’ll want to cut a piece of the floral tape ( I use 3/8" width tape). A couple of inches should do unless you’re making a pretty big iris, then you may need bigger. Floral tape is really cool to work with because it sorta mends together without any sticky adhesive. You wrap it around the base of the flower where the wire and flower meet, then you kinda squeeze and roll where the floral tape is wrapped, which will help it sorta stick together.