I’ve always loved being crafty and making new things, so I decided to try doing some origami for this post. It is cheap to get the paper and you don’t need a lot of things – just a little bit of patience and a creative mind! I got the idea to make a rose from www.origami-club.com (they haven’t sponsored me to do a post!), but there are loads of different variations and designs you can make instead.
Ideally, you should get some origami paper. This is usually coloured or patterned paper in a square shape which is 3×3 inches (kami paper). But, as you probably read during my smoothie recipe post, I don’t often have these things in the house. Also, I purposefully try to make posts that don’t involve everything but the kitchen sink as I want everyone to be able to have a go at the ideas without breaking the bank.
Therefore, I recommended using normal A4 coloured paper to start with and then cut into a square shape using the following technique. This is a great way to ensure you have a pretty accurate square to begin without having to dig out a ruler and start laboriously measuring the shape:
1. Start with an A4 piece of coloured paper (I used red for the rose petals, but you could try white, creamy yellow or pink roses instead). Fold one corner into the opposite side to make a triangle and rectangle shape.
2. Cut the rectangle shape off and open out the triangle to leave you with a square shape to begin the origami.
Right, so now you are ready to start the origami…
1. Fold the square in half and open again. Rotate the square and fold in half the other way and open again, so you end up with the original size origami square with a cross of folds like so…
2. Fold in each corner into the middle until you get a diamond shape.
If you are with me so far, nice work!
3. Fold in all of the corners again into the centre of the diamond shape in the same way as before.
Now, here is the twist…
4. Begin to fold in the corners again just as before, but this time fold the paper back on itself half way up the triangle. Hopefully the picture will make this clearer! These should look like petal shapes.
5. Then, go back to all of the loose triangles of the rose shape and fold them out half-way up the triangle in the same way…
And there you have the petals for the rose all done!
Now if you want to make the rose that bit better and more realistic, I can show you how to make the leaves.
1. Start as before with an origami square but in green paper this time.
2. Fold it in half and open again (if you used my technique at the top for making the square, the fold should already be done for you!)
3. Fold one side in to the centre of the fold ending with the corner, to form half of a kite shape. You can use the fold to guide you and to keep the line neat.
4. Do the same the other side, so you have a kite.
Now, this bit might sound a bit tricky, so have a go and be sure to look at the pictures!
5. Fold the right corner of the kite into the middle so that the edge lines up with the middle of the kite.
6. Repeat on the left corner of the kite.
7. The shape you should have now (see above) is like an squashed down rhombus. Rotate the shape so that the longest points are facing top left and bottom right and fold in half downwards.
8. Fold the left side of this shape downwards to create an upside down ‘V’ shape, or with a little imagination, your rose leaves!
Finally, arrange the rose to the leaves and voila, you have your rose!
I’ve continued to experiment with different colours so please do give the instructions an go and let me know what you think!
Marriarty 