Hands At Work: Papercraft

Origami

I've been playing with origami since I was a wee one. My first projects included the ever-popular paper planes, the banger, the newspaper hat, shirts and pants, Japanese-style covered boats (called sampans, if I'm not mistaken), frogs for hopping contests, and the waterbomb (except we - that would be my sister, our horde of cousins, and I - never put any water in our "bombs," we just puffed them up by blowing air into them). So in many ways, origami today is as much a hobby for me as it is a quick fix for nostalgia.

I made these recently, as "trial runs" for a few potential would-be Valentine's Day card decorations for Ryan. (Don't worry, there won't be be any spoiled surprises. He's already seen them. In fact, I've already given them to him.)

Materials:

1 piece double sided origami paper for each project

This is why I regard origami designers as geniuses. Who looks at a piece of paper and goes, I'm going to turn it into this - and bam! - here we are.

What the back looks like

Did I mention that this was made with just ONE piece of paper? In this case, leopard print on one side, blue on the other. No cutting, no gluing....just a whole lotta folding. I gotta say though, the instructions for this were pretty horrid, and they made me thiiiiiiiiiis close to just crumpling up the paper and calling it a day more than a few times. The designer (Francis Ow) is still a genius though. ONE piece of paper!