I can’t stop making these stellated icosahedra! (Alice, it’s all your fault!) I’ve been casting about for different papers to make them from, with some interesting effects.

I just finished this one made from an origami pattern that I downloaded and printed onto regular paper – I wanted to review the paper for Folding Trees (you can now see that review below), and when I coincidentally ended up with 30 squares of the paper, it seemed like a sign that I should make them into a stellated icosahedron (the exact number you need to make this shape):

And my Easter egg this year was a box of mini individually wrapped chocolates. The wrappers were such pretty colours, I decided to trim them into squares and make them into something… It took me a while to eat all 30 chocolates, so I’ve only just finished it! The result wasn’t quite what I expected – the outside looks like a Milka advert:

All the bright colours ended up on the inside of the star, where nobody will ever see them (except in this photo):

I still like the end result though – and Milka does make lovely chocolate, so there are worse things to inadvertently advertise 🙂

Here’s my modular origami collection to date:

(Joanna, the top left star uses some of the Japanese papers you gave me – thank you!)

Next, I think I need to find some different designs to fold…

Review: Print Your Own Origami Paper

This review originally appeared on my old papercraft site, Folding Trees.

I’ve come across several sites that offer printable origami patterns. Origami paper can be expensive and/or difficult to find, so to be able to print your favourite designs on demand sounds like a great solution. But what’s the print quality like? And how does it hold up to being folded into origami? Let’s find out…

In progress

First impressions: looks good! Although it doesn’t have the texture or richness of the best origami papers, the pattern was distinct and the colours were lovely. The pattern I downloaded was a 8.5×11″ pdf file, so it filled an entire sheet of paper when I printed it onto regular white printer paper.

I decided to cut it into smaller squares, and I calculated that I could make 30 (5×6) 4cm squares from one sheet of printed paper – what a bargain! (Tip: a paper cutter is invaluable to speed up this stage!)

After cutting it into squares, it still looks great, but the real test is in the folding. I like to strongly crease my folds with my fingernail, and I thought this homemade origami paper might develop white lines along the folds after creasing…

Finished piece

No problem! No white lines, and the paper stood up well to folding. The paper was probably slightly thicker than regular origami paper, but it still came together well.

Verdict

Print only the designs and colours you like, on demand, at any time.

Notes

I folded all 30 of my 30 squares into one stellated icosahedron – I’m addicted to making them!

Level of difficulty

 to print the paper (I’m not rating the folding as that’s not the point of this review!)

Time

Cost

 – as long as you already own a printer, this is essentially free!

Links

Here are some free patterns that you can use for all types of printing projects. And here are some sites with origami paper patterns available to download and print:

• Canon Chiyogami patterns (I printed Akikusa-mon in blue for this review)
• thekhans Origami Papers
• Origami Club: Japanese patterns

It’s finally time to unveil the first of my secret projects! Folding Trees is a new international collaboration that I have set up together with Eve in New Zealand (also my co-conspirator in the Crochet Along).

There is a huge variety of crafts that can be made from a humble piece of paper: origami, paper art, quilling, papercutting, recycled paper crafts – to name just a few. Our aim with Folding Trees is to collect the best tutorials we have found on the net, inspire people by highlighting amazing paper creations from talented artists and crafters, and share our own paper crafts and tutorials.

On the site today, I am sharing a tutorial to make these puffy origami lucky stars from strips cut from magazine pages:

We invite people to share links to their own tutorials or point us to inspirational paper crafts they have seen. Everyone is also welcome to join the Folding Trees Flickr group and share photos of all their crafty paper projects with us! We will feature some of the submissions on the site.

Eve and I hope you’ll like our new project, and we’re looking forward to seeing you at FoldingTrees.com!

I was out looking for some new origami papers last night, when I saw a pack of paper strips for making Lucky Stars. I’ve always wanted to know how to make them, and I thought I couldn’t go far wrong for under a dollar.

They are actually really easy to fold – if you want to make your own, the hardest part would be to cut the strips of paper (although even that wouldn’t be much hardship with a paper cutter/guillotine).

Each 25 x 1cm strip made one 1.5cm star. I strung them into a garland with seed beads as spacers. The finished result (sorry about the backlighting) makes a really cute window decoration:

Click for larger image

They would also make a nice tree garland! If you want to make some yourself, here are some instructions, and a video that shows how easy it is to make one.

PS – While I was out, I couldn’t resist picking up this pen pot featuring Elephant and his ‘Favorite’ upside-down monkey friend, who apparently like bananas very much. You can’t argue with random cuteness like that 🙂

Okay, I’m officially hooked on modular origami. Making the multiple units and then slotting them all together is really relaxing. I made this stellated icosahedron (thanks to Alice (futuregirl) for the idea) from 5 different patterns of origami paper.

I found this Youtube video showing how to make the Sonobe module. 30 modules later, plus some coaxing to fit them all together, and this is the result:

There was almost a disaster this morning as my cat decided it was a new toy for him and got hold of it before I had a chance to photograph it! Luckily the modules weren’t damaged, they had just pulled apart, so I just had to reassemble most of it before taking this shot.

Does anyone know of any other interesting modular origami shapes/tutorials I can try? Let me know in the comments!

Jess of How About Orange posted an inspirational round-up of 3D paper holiday ornaments. I have a nice stock of pretty origami papers that I never get around to using, so this seemed like a sign…

I decided to try the many pointed star – the tutorial is in the form of a video (really useful because you can pause and rewind to re-watch the tricky parts). Wouldn’t this star look great hanging on a Christmas tree?

Technically, this is an example of modular origami, because one star is made from six sheets of paper, although there is no cutting or gluing involved. I used six 3″ squares of origami paper and the finished star is about 2.5″ at it’s widest points.

I got stuck at one point in the folding sequence, but I watched that part of the video a few more times and once I’d figured it out, it was all plain sailing from there. Assembling the star was quite easy too. It’s quite time-consuming to make, but watch a DVD at the same time and the time will fly by!

PS – Apologies to any mailing list subscribers who just got this post e-mailed to them! Slight technical glitch…