Once a year I run a little origami class for kids, for someone I know.  As a self-imposed constraint, I always teach modular origami.  It’s hard to find simple modular origami models that kids can do in a reasonable amount of time!

I’ve wanted to make a modular origami box, and a big one so that it can hold other origami inside.  So I bought some colored A4 paper, and looked around for a simple box design.  None of them were quite to my liking, so I made my own design.  There’s no lid for this box, because we’re keeping it simple.  I have folding diagrams if you’d like to try.

[Read more…]

Back in 2019, we had a small wedding celebration–we didn’t actually hold a wedding reception, and that’s a story that I’ve already told.  As decorations for the celebration, I made a dozen giant paper cranes (actually Tsuru Roses) from wrapping paper, and you can see a photo of those at the bottom of my story.  I also made 50 origami stars from foil paper and holographic paper, seen above.

We’ve officially reached our 5th anniversary!  I am not inclined to be sentimental, but I am grateful for how incredibly fortunate we are.

This model is created by pleat tessellations, which I discussed in another post.  It’s easier to make than it looks, since it’s just folding the paper back and forth over and over.  And over and over and over.  I’ve made several of these.

Sorry to disappoint people who were expecting a turtle!  That’s just what the model is called.  If you want a turtle, go look at this one.

This is a fairly old photo, from 2014.  I can tell just based on the photography sensibility.  I just put the model on top of the textbook I was using as a flat surface for folding, and put a tape measure in there for scale.

[Read more…]

For quite some time, I had been complaining about lack of origami books about curved crease techniques.  But now we have one!  Curved Origami by Ekaterina Lukasheva has a bunch of curved crease projects from very simple to moderately complex.  This is one of the first models in the book.

For those who don’t know, a “curved crease” is a crease that makes a curved line on the paper.  A curved crease will not fold all the way, meaning that the folded models necessarily make a 3-dimensional shape.  The typical folding method involves drawing and scoring curved lines on paper (possibly with the assistance of templates, compasses, french curves).

I really admire how simple these water drops are.  (Yeah, I know rain drops aren’t actually shaped like that.)

When I travel around, sometimes I bring some origami paper, and I take requests.  It’s a party trick, I just look something simple up and I fold it.  You can find an instructional video for this one here.

This one was for one of my younger relatives.  She was very into wolves.  Why wolves?  Because she liked SssniperWolf, of course!  Sorry, I don’t know who that is, some sort of YouTube celebrity?  She’s obviously named after a character from Metal Gear Solid, so I suppose that means you have Hideo Kojima to thank for this particular photo.  You know, back when I was her age, celebrities confused me, because adults would act like I was ignorant for not recognizing them. I’d say, “Who??” because I literally wasn’t alive for whatever made that person famous.  But it seems kids’ youtube is much more personality-focused than the media I got.