Lets Make Origami

When I tell people that I fold origami and show them what I fold (and usually it's something geometric or modular) they often reference having tried origami at some point earlier in their lives and usually they had tried the classic crane.  Admittedly that was one of the first things that I learned, though it's a model that doesn't interest me a great deal (since it seems to be so common).  Most of the time I prefer to fold something geometric, but there are a few animal models that I enjoy folding.  There seems to be a very large variety of origami bird models.  Here are a few of my favorites:

This model is titled 'Congratulations Crane'.  I found it in Steve and Megumi Biddle's Essential Origami book.  The model's author is unknown so it's considered a traditional model.

A collection of the Congratulations Cranes that I've folded recently.

I love this particular model folded from this brown and yellow corner radiation origami paper; by folding it this way I think it looks like a turkey :)

Also a traditional model and also found in Steve and Megumi Biddle's Essential Origami book this model is titled 'Sisters'.  It's folded from one sheet of paper that is 2:1 ratio.  Since you have to make one slight cut in the paper, it technically breaks one of the rules of "traditional" origami.  In order to really appreciate this model it needs to be folded from paper that is a different color on each side.

This Bald Eagle model is from John Montroll's North American Animals in Origami book.  One of my favorite bird models, though a little on the difficult side to fold the first few times (probably not something for a beginner).  I was silly enough to purchase the book (after seeing the cover and loving this model) and trying to learn this model first.  I was still barely learning origami and as a result the final model looked little like this :)

There are a couple of other birds that I love to fold, but sadly don't have any pictures of them at the present; a simpler eagle and a celebration crane.  Since it is getting close to being Thanksgiving as the end of November approaches I think that the model that catches my eye the most is the brown and yellow Congratulations Crane; it would be a fun decoration to put on the table during Thanksgiving dinner.  I'll have to do another post about some of the other animals that I enjoy folding and include the missing birds.

Here is the links to the books that I referenced :

Essential Origami by Steve and Megumi














North American Animals in Origami by John Montroll














Both goods books. Essential Origami is more for beginners and takes it very step-by-step in the instructions, whereas North American Animals in Origami goes with the assumption that you already know how to read origami diagrams and much more difficult as a whole (although it does have a page at the front of the book describing all of the symbols as almost all origami books do). 

Try some of these out.  Feel free to contact me with any comments or questions; I'm considering doing a tutorial post one of these days (any input on what to do is welcomed :)  Enjoy!

Something I love about origami is being able to watch paper start at such a plain and basic form that we use everyday and become something so much more incredible and beautiful.  I recently decided to try my hand at something that I'd found on the Internet a while ago, Snapology.  I was surprised at how simple the technique is and how the results look.  The models don't take much time to actually fold, so before I knew it I had tried nearly a dozen of them; each one of them a little larger than the one before.  I decided to try a very large model and document each of the steps.  Here they are:

It starts with plain copier paper that you can find at any store that carries office supplies.

The paper is then cut into strips of a predetermined width (these are 1/2 an inch).

The strips are then pleated together; they look like little springs.  I remember when I was little my dad would bring home the discarded strips of paper from the old dot-matrix printers they used at work; the printers that feed the paper through them by means of holes along the sides.  You could then tear off and discard the strips with holes.  My dad would bring these home sometimes for my sisters and I to play with.  I remember constantly making these same type of "springs" with that paper.

After taking the painstaking time to make sure that all of the strips are pleated accurately (it's very important to make sure they are kept as perpendicular to one another as possible), you turn around and take them apart.  The strips now look like they've been sent through a paper crimper.

The strips of paper are then cut to specific lengths for the model that has been chosen.  At this point there are about 180 of the small strips of blue paper.

And now for my favorite part of any modular or unit origami model: the assembly.  I started with a decagon (10-sided) and attached squares and hexagons alternately to it.

From there I added 5 more decagons with the necessary squares and hexagons in between.

After that an additional 5 decagons are added for the next layer of assembly.

Finally the last (and 12th) decagon is added to complete the model.

Another shot of the final model to give a little perspective.  It's roughly the size of a softball.

The model I used is known as a Truncated Icosidodecahedron for anyone as geeky as myself that wants to know.  It's comprised of 12 decagons (10-sided), 20 hexagons (6-sided), and 30 squares.  I didn't actually clock how long it took me to cut, fold and assemble, but I estimate it was a solid couple of days total.  Obviously this is the one that took the longest because its the largest.  Something to note here is that there is no glue holding it together.  The only cutting that was done was to get the strips, after that it was just folding and assembling. 

The link to where I found instructions are here.  The site is in both English and Polish.  The instructions aren't the most clear (it's obvious that English is not the author's first language) but still sufficiently detailed and has good pictures as a guide.  The rest of the site is very impressive, with fantastic pictures of models that they've folded and lots of diagrams for other models.

Another site that has instructions about origami strip paper folding is here.  I've done another model from here that I love, the Sphere 94.  The original creator of Snapology is Heinz Strobl.  If you get curious about some of the other things that he has created simply type his name into a search engine for images and you'll find some very impressive pictures.  I absolutely love that origami can be found so plentifully on the Internet at no charge; this hobby can truly be an inexpensive one.  Having said that I still absolutely love my small collection of origami books that have taught me so much.  Enjoy the pictures.  I will post again soon the rest of the Snapology models that I folded.

So, my wife blogs. In fact she maintains two different blogs, one for our family and one for preschool activities that she does with our children. I love her blogs. I look forward to when she updates them & get excited to go visit them (even though I was present for whatever she happens to be blogging about the majority of the time or even in the pictures that she posts) and read the posts. After she started blogging on a regular basis, she set up this blog for me to share the origami that I fold with others. As you can probably see I have done absolutely nothing with it since it was created over 2 years ago :( Oops. Well, that's about to change. I'm at least going to begin by posting some pictures of old models that I have folded. I'm not going to claim that I'll post on a regular basis, or set any kind of schedule; but I will use the blog.

So, here I go. I hope anyone that visits enjoys what I share. I'll be posting some pictures soon.