I invite you to join in on learning about Origami and folding and sharing our own paper crane!
What is Origami?
Origami is the art of folding paper with the goal to create a sculpture out of a usually square piece of paper without the use of glue or cutting. The word Origami is Japanese, ori meaning 'folding' and kami meaning 'paper'.
The art of folding paper developed seperately in different cultures.
In China, folded paper models where burned at traditional funerals. In Japan, a paper butterfly was mentioned in 1680 in a poem and folded paper also held ceremonial functions, noshi (almost looking like an envelope with dried meat or abalone inside) were attached to gifts as a token for good luck.
In Europe, folding napkins was popular in the 17th and 18th century.
There are thousands of different origami models, from animals like frogs, birds, cats, horses all the way to flowers and stars.
Let's fold a crane!
The crane is an animal with great symbolic meaning for Japan that are depicted in many works of art.
Legend says that a crane can live up to 1000 years. Because of this, there is another legend that says if you fold 1000 paper cranes, you get granted one wish.
Follow this tutorial to fold a crane!
If you have never given origami a try before, don't be discouraged if your first model doesn't turn out the way you want to. Like with everything, you need a little bit of practice.
You need: a piece of square paper, anything between 15 x 15 - 20 x 20 cm (5,9 x 5,9 - 7.9 x 7.9 inches) will work
Thinner paper will work best!
The white and green sides are the front and back side of your paper.
The purple dotted lines tell you to fold, the black solid lines are the folds you already did.
The red dots and lines tell you where certain corners and sides go in the process of folding.
Step 1 wrote:
Take your square paper with the backside facing up.
Fold it in half horizontally, make sure to fold as precisely as possible.
Open it back up and fold it in half vertically. Open it up again.
Now turn your paper around with the frontside facing up and fold it in half diagonally.
Open it up and fold it diagonally in the other direction.
Step 2 wrote:
Turn your paper around again and use your finger to press down the middle of the paper where all the creases meet. The 4 corners of your paper should now point up towards the ceiling.
Now take the left and right corners of your paper and move them down and to the middle, to meet the corner at the bottom.This should be easy to do since the creases we folded earlier will help you and guide you.
The paper in front of you should now be 1/4th of the size you started out with.
Step 3 wrote:
Make sure the open end of your square is at the bottom.
Now take the top flap on the left side and fold it towards the middle crease.
Repeat that with the top flap of the right side.
Fold the upper part of your square (that now looks like a triangle) back.
Step 4 wrote:
Now unfold the two flaps your folded towards the middle again.
The shape in front of you now looks kind of like a diamond!
Take the top layer of the corner in the middle and move it up and fold it down.
The creases made earlier will again help to guide you.
Look at the picture on the very right to see wat should be in front of you now.
Step 5 wrote:
Turn your paper around and fold the triangle your folded down earlier up again.
Now repeat the steps you just did on the other side - take the left flap and fold it towards the middle crease.
Take the right flap and fold it towards the middle crease as well. Unfold both of these creases.
Now take the bottom corner and move it up and fold it down.
In front of you should now be the long shaped rectangle, the bottom half will be split open, almost like two little legs.
Step 6 wrote:
With the split ends at the bottom pointing towards you, take the top left flap and fold it towards the middle.
Repeat that for the right side, turn your paper around and repeat that for the backside as well.
Our long rectangle will now be even skinnier.
Step 7 wrote:
Now for the trickiest part.
Take one of the legs and fold it up towards the side, this crease will be the guide for the steps following. You can decide at which angle you fold the leg (this will later be the tail or neck of your crane).
Fold the leg back down.
Now your have to flip the leg inside out basically, turning the side that was on the outside to the inside.
To do that you can put your index finger in the midle between the top and bottom layer of your paper and fold the leg inside out using your thumb. Use the picture on the very right as a guide on what it should look like.
Repeat this on the other side, so both of the legs now point upwards.
Step 8 wrote:
Decide on which side the head should go.
With another inside-out-fold you can create the crane's head.
Step 9 wrote:
The last thing left to do is to fold the wings down.
If you struggle with following the pictures and written tutorial, you can also watch a video tutorial here. Careful! This link will lead to a youtube video away from chickensmoothie.com.
And now you are done!
Congrats, you just made an origami crane!
Let's share and discuss!
It's origami crane party time!
Take a picture of your crane and post it in this thread.
Please make sure to not accidentally show anything in the photo that could lead to identify you or the place you live at.
Did you enjoy folding a crane?
Have you tried origami before? If yes, what did you create?
Here is a photo of the crane I folded!
His name is Herbert.
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