Folded Paper Heart Note

 
I learned how to fold these heart notes in high school.  Tho, I never gave them to anyone, I always liked knowing how to fold them.  Anyway, I ran into a folded heart a few days ago, and decided to share a tutorial of how to fold them to you guys as a last minute Valentine's day craft.

I took pictures to do the majority of the talking.

Here goes:

 

1. Start out with a piece of paper.  Fold in half lengthwise, and then again, so you have the paper folded in quarters.
2. Open up the last fold, and fold top corners to the center line.
3.  Open up the whole paper, and refold with a squash fold technique.
4. Fold up one of the edges that do not fall in the main triangle area (see picture for details)
5. Open up the sheet again, and invert the folded edge into the triangle.

 

6.  Refold the squashed triangle.  Turn over the paper.
7.  Fold in the top side edges of the paper to the center line.
8.  Fold down the top of the triangle, into the area voided by the side folds.
9.  Turn over the paper.
10.  Fold up the triangle leaves, turn the paper back over.
11.  Fold up the bottom corners of the paper.

12. Slip the folded bottom corner into the center triangle of the heart, repeat for the other bottom corner.
13.  Fold down the top leaves in a bit of an angle so it forms the top portion of the heart.
14. Fold and Slip in the tips of those leaves into the center triangle of the heart.

I repeated the pictures for these last steps, with some lines drawn on the edges for a clearer view.  

That's it.  Now you have a heart.  You can re-open it up, write your note, and refold it.  Makes a perfect homemade special valentine's note.  (The picture on the very top of this post is the back side of the folded heart.)

For information on the nylon flower in the picture at the very top of this post, there is a helpful video to show you how to make the tulip.  The one pictured is using the same technique but on a smaller scale.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone. Have a wonderful weekend.

Kusudama Flower

The kusudama flower is a modular origami flower made of several pieces of the same design. You may also see a kusudama ball that consists of several of the kusudama flowers to form a ball. Wikipedia describes the whole thing much better than I do. So, I'll leave it to them. Below is a visual of the steps to take to fold each segment, followed by the finale of putting together one flower.

Supporting Links:

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Kusudama-Flower

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kusudama

How To:

Note:

To join them together, I used tape in the picture (folded so it's all sticky outside), double sticky tape would have been better but I didn't have any. I have also tried using glue but I found it difficult to hold together long enough for the glue to do it's trick. However, I found a work around to that. I use bobby pins to hold the papers together long enough for the glue to dry. This results in a sturdier hold and cleaner display, with the tape method, you can sometimes see tape peaking out.

Try making several of these and putting it together as a kusudama ball. I'd love to hear the outcomes. :-)

Origami Iris - Revisiting an Iris Lei

So, some time ago, a friend of mine asked me if it was possible to string up the origami irises and create a lei with them. I think I said, "probably... let's try it". After we made a couple dozen origami irises, she took it home and tried it out. It turns out that the origami irises kept on fitting inside of each other making it seem like you need a whole lot more irises to make the lei.

So, recently, I decided to revisit the idea and make several on my own. I got lazy and stopped after about 9 irises, but I do believe it's possible. The trick is to put small cut pieces of straw (the kind you'd get from a fast food place, use clear in case it's visible) in between each flower. Here are pictures of my 9 strung up as the bottom part of a lei and just hanging. It looks pretty cool just hanging - not sure what to use it for tho. As a lei, I would definitely curl the petals instead of folding them down as I show in the picture. There's at least potential for something more in here. :-)

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.

Group several together to make a bouquet of the origami irises like the one shown on the very top of this post.

Update: Making an Iris lei: http://radlinccrafts.blogspot.com/2008/11/origami-iris-revisiting-iris-lei.html