Sea star Kusudama

I thought I had made a post about this one on my blog, but guess what?? I just forgot to do so (blame it on some level of laziness :-p). Well, now it's time to make up for it, so may I present: the sea star kusudama! :-D

I guess I don't have to explain why this kusudama is named after a sea star. I particularly like mine not only because I had a heck of a time to assemble this ball (will I ever learn not to use the tiniest seize paper?!) but because the yellow star makes such a nice contrast with the two colors blue. It reminds me of a star in a perfectly blue sea. So nature like! :-D

A family of Sonobes

I consider the sonobe to be the most easiest modular origami to make. The units are easy to fold and the assembling is not that hard comparing to, well.. uhm.. some other modular origami, like the five intersecting tetrahedra. ;-)

My very first sonobe is the big yellow/orange/purple one, consisting of 30 units made out of paper seize 5 by 5 cm. For the smaller y/o/p sonobe and the largest colorful one I needed only 16 units, therefor it has less spikes.

All the other sonobes in the pictures are made with paper seize 2,5 by 2,5 cm. I started the red series with a 30 unit-model, the next one has 16 units, followed by one with 4 units (as you can see that makes a square) and the tiniest one has only 3 units. Don't they make a cute family together? :-)

Blue Kusudama with a touch of fuchsia

When my sister saw the yellow kusudama, she wanted one herself.
As requested, I made a blue one for her. But I didn't like an all blue one, so I 'sneaked' in two fuchsia-colored flowers :-) Luckily she liked this variation (as if she had any choice! :- D)

Butterfly Kusudama

Own design! The beads, that is! :-p

This is a butterfly Kusudama. The paper I used has red edges with a white heart and a touch of black between. I cut the paper in four so I got both red and white edges. Half of the kusudama is made with the red edge as the outer corner and the other half with the white as the dominant color. Instead of a standard tassel made of threads, I made mine of beads. This way I can design my own tassels so none of my Kusudamas are alike. I love Kusudamas! I plan to make a lot more of them! :-D
This one I donated to one of my sisters by the way ;-)

Lily kusudama made of tea envelops :-D

If you happen to have colleagues who drink a lot of tea, then naturally you get a lot of empty tea envelops. And true to my creative nature: I turned some of those tea envelops into a few pieces of origami art work :-D

My best work at the moment is this kusudama made of lily's, glued together to get the ball shape.

And because the envelops contained cinnamon-flavored tea, my kusudama comes with a nice smell too :-)

Lucky Stars

A couple years ago, I went shopping for some Christmas presents. I went into this boutique that sells bijou and stuff. I don't exactly remember what I bought that day, but I do remember I got a package of paper strips to fold lucky stars as a bonus with the purchase. Of course I started to fold once I got home and the result can be seen on the picture on the right. :-)

Unfortunately the package contained just enough paper to put a bottom in the glass bottle these lucky stars are now stored in. I hope to find the same paper one day so I can fill it up to the edge :-)

Chrysanthemum Icosahedron Kusudama

If I ever happen to play the game hangman and I would use the name of this piece of art, I am most certain no one would guess it correctly. Except for the ones who read my blog or are into origami as well. :-)

A beautiful, but difficult name for a ball that looks like it consist of a lot of two-sided arrows. But together, the 30 arrow-like units make this lovely ball. And best part: no glue needed to keep the units together :-D

Oh, and it's really easy to fold and assemble. So no excuses here about 'too difficult' whatsoever to avoid getting started with it :-p

Oxi Model

When I finished this Oxi model, I thought I did a great job. Just similar to the one in the folding instructions. As it turned out, my eyes have deceived me while folding the Oxi model. Somehow I miscounted the number of cubes so instead of a combination of 6 cubes and 4 cubes, my model has 5 cubes all around. But that doesn't make my creation less spectacular. :-)

Five Intersecting Tetrahedra

Sometimes you come across an object on the internet that makes you want to have it yourself. My reaction when I first saw the Five Intersecting Tetrahedra: Wanna wanna wanna!! Second reaction: how on earth am I gonna make one???

Thanks to this helpful tutorial and this video on YouTube I managed to assemble a F.I.T. :-D

It took me two hours to cut and fold the paper in the 30 units needed to make one and about two frustrating weeks to figure out how the triangles should be weaved in each other. The first two triangles are easy to weave, the third and forth triangles proved to be the challenges. The fifth and last triangle is a piece of cake once you've got the other four in correct place.

But I've done it! Without cheating by using glue! After the first F.I.T., I've made two more of the same seize (I used paper seize 15x15 cm). And because of my love for all things that are small, I made a F.I.T. using paper seize 5x5 cm. This one I did have to glue or else the triangles would fall apart. Looking at the mini F.I.T. I'm still amazed I pulled that off... :-)

Micr-o-rigami

Some like it big, some like it small. Me? I prefer micro :-D

The tinier, the cuter! And the more difficult to fold. It takes quite some skill to pull off something like this. Which, more or less, I have (yep, no sign of modesty here :-p)

These are the smallest cranes I have ever made. It's not folded very neatly, but you can still recognize the shape of the crane :-). I've put them on a 10 euro cent coin so you can amaze yourself with the seize of them. :-)

Thinking about the frustrations while trying not to fumble the tiny miny piece of paper I don't think I will expand this family of micro cranes anytime soon... :-s

Electra Icosidodecahedron

Electra Icosi- what?? That's exactly my reaction when I saw the name of this piece of art. Luckily this modular origami ball is much easier to fold than to pronounce. It only takes some time to assemble it. Especially when you make two of them, one smaller than the other.

There are 30 units needed to complete one ball. I used paper seize 4 x 4 cm for the outer pink ball and a seize 2 x 2 cm for the inner yellow ball. Inside the yellow Electra there are some red beads on a thread. I thought that would make a nice contrast with the yellow. And it would, had I made the Electra's a bit larger so you could actually see the beads :-)

Velvet rose

It seems like I'm in a sort of origami-competition here. My youngest sister once surprised me by telling me her boss is also into origami. His favorites to fold are flowers and bugs/animals. She showed me a picture of an origami bouquet he made that now adorns his office and from to look of that I was quite impressed.

I made her a mini K-rose (like the one in the Birthday-bouquet) to give to her boss to show him what I am capable of. In return he gave me the rose pictured below. It's made of velvet paper in a pretty shade of red and when I first saw it, I thought it to be a real rose :-).

Unfortunately this picture does not show the best side of the rose. In real it's much nicer.

I sacrificed a kusudama as a sort of a thank you for the rose. After my sister gave it to him she told him she now expects him to come up with something spectacular to 'beat' my kusudama.


Well, I don't have an origami bug... yet... ;-)

Old and New Kawasaki

It may not be a surprise now how big a fan I am of the Kawasaki Rose after reading my last posts. So when a colleague of me asked me if I could fold a Kawasaki Rose new style I was surprised at first, because I thought there's only one way to fold it. After founding a diagram on the internet that shows you how to fold the K-rose new style, I at first didn't dare to get started with it. Because the instructions seems to be above my skills and I couldn't quite figure out how to fold the last steps.

Well, I tried it eventually and indeed I couldn't finish my rose properly because I got all messed up while following the last steps. It took me at least three more tries before I figured out the trick.

This style definitely has it's own charm, but I prefer the old style: to me that one is much easier to fold :-)

Birthday Roses

A short while ago it was my fathers birthday. Because I find it difficult to come up with a 'perfect' birthday gift (regardless whoever birthday it is), I made him a bouquet of mini Kawasaki roses. I made 12 of them including a paper stem and leaves and I arranged them in a small pot of glass, filled with tiny lucky stars. Fortunately I had made the lucky stars in a far earlier stadium or else I wouldn't be able to finish the gift in time. :-)

The bouquet is now an unique decoration on the family altar at my parents home.

My very first Kawasaki Rose

I don't remember precisely when I got interested in origami. It could be when I happen to come upon the Kawasaki Rose on the internet when I was surfing without a purpose. I was immediately intrigued by the ingenious way of folding a piece of paper so that it looks like a rose. Of course I knew of the art of origami long before that, I just wasn't aware of the extent of it. Until then origami was only folded lilies and cranes to me. Only lilies and cranes... now see how limited I was in my knowledge? :-)

After seeing how lovely a folded Kawasaki Rose is, I had to try one myself. And tried I did! I found this very clear instruction on Youtube that helped me made my very first one. Back then I didn't have 'real' origamipaper so I used ordinary college paper.

This has been a few months ago now (that short period?? It actually feels like I've been folding for ages! :-D). Since then I have 'mastered' the skill of folding the K-rose. And I plan to make many more of them! :-D :-D