Transcript

So these are the instructions for the origami penis and balls. So the first step for the origami penis is we’re going to make a book fold, so it’s going to start with the white side up. We want to take the bottom edge up to the top edge, make sure that it lines and precisely, and then make a good crease fold. Open that up and then do the book fold, just like this.

What we’re going to do is we’re going to make an 8 x 8 grid all the way across. So the next step we’re going to fold the bottom edge into the center like that and we’re going to do it on both sides, and try not to make these put on top of each other at all. Make it so that they come right up against each other without overlapping. We’re going to open it up. Now in order to get this one to go in half, we’re going to take the bottom edge and we’re going to take it up to the quarter line up on the top.

We’re going open that one up, and then take the bottom up to this line, this one-quarter line. And you’ll see how we divided the bottom half into fourths, we have equal eighths right there. I’m going to rotate it over and do the same thing up here. Make sure that when you do it on the other side, that you’re just going up to the fourth line and not that eighth line.

Fold that one in half and then fold this one up to the bottom like that. Open it up and then we’re going to rotate it to the side, and now we’re going to divide this into fourths as well. So go ahead and take the bottom edge there, fold that up to the middle, and then open it up. One more time there, that’ll give you the fourth line.

Then in order to cut this one in half, try and take note of where the halfway line is right there, and sort of see if you can get it to connect. You see right there how those two lines are on top of each other, and then rotate it over until they’re right on top. You can see right over here, as well. We’re going to get these two edges to line up together, just like that.

All right, next we’re going to fold this one up and make that one leave. We fold the bottom edge up to the center line. We leave that one there and flip the model over. Now we’re going to make a diagonal fold that’s three blocks in. So take the bottom edge right here, fold it up to the top of the this line right, so there’s still five units on that side. Fold that one over and do the same thing on this side like that.

And then we’re going to open those two up, flip it back over, and then open this up. This V right here is the line that we’re going to use. I’m going to fold three units over, and then use that V, fold that up and squash it down like that. So I’ll show you again from here. We’re going to use this line right here, this line right here, and this line coming across.

We’re going to take three units, we’re going to come over. We’re going to use that diagonal to fold it up and that’ll squash down like that. Next we’re going to use this line right here on the one-third line, and we’re going to inside reverse fold it, back this way. So fold it over like that, so it starts over here like this, and then it pushes through and folds over like that.

Now we’re going to repeat the same thing on this side. So if this was over we’d take the three units over, fold those three units over like that, using that fold and that crease folds over. Then the one-third line right here is going to inside reverse fold back the opposite direction. And if you’ve done that correctly, what’ll happen is these two edges will line up right next to each other.

Next we’re going to fold this top unit down, and the way this works is go ahead and pinch this whole square right here, go ahead and pinch that whole square. Fold the whole thing down over the edge and then this side panel will swing over in response. Go ahead and do that on both sides. Fold this one down as well and that will thin the top like that.

Next we’re going to fold the top up, after this has come down, and we’re going to use both of these little squares, we’re going to fold those triangles down, and fold the whole thing back down. We’re going to do that on the left side, also the right hand side, and this will come down like that, as well.

After that we’re going to take the bottom edge, fold that up to right about here, you can see how it lines up with the next line right there, and then we’re going to fold this triangle flap, fold that down on both sides right over the top. And then once we have the triangle flap folded over, open it back up and then turn that into a squash fold, and that’ll give you the full shape on the front.

Open it up there on the other side there as well like that. And then after you have that, you have a little bit of shaping that’s left to do. So instead of having these sharp corners, we’re going to round these, so that they will be more spherical on the top, the left, and the bottom. All the way around and then at this point, like it’s those set up properly, and then we’re going to work on the top. Go ahead and make just a little pleat fold right there, about one unit down, and then as tiny a little pleat fold as you can.

We’re going to fold that over and then flip the model over, and thin this edge over a bit. It’ll stretch over, and it’ll make a little bit of a stretch fold of a squash, and that’ll thin the center, so that the tip has a little bit more thickness to it like. Then shape to taste like that. There should be just a little bit of an action right there, for the origami penis and balls.

Transcript

These are the instructions for an origami elephant. The first step for the origami elephant, take out your sheet of paper and we’re going to make a diagonal fold. So start with the white side up, take the bottom corner and fold it all the way up to the top. Try and get it where they touch as precisely as you can. And then once you have that locked down, go ahead and slide your finger down and hold it in place so it’s nice and flat, and then go out to the left hand side and then out to the right hand side, just like that.

We’re going to open it back up and do the diagonal fold. So the bottom corner all the way up to the top corner like that. Next we’re going to open everything back up again, and we’re going to take one of the corners, it doesn’t actually matter which one. We’re going to fold it into the middle so it touches right in where that X is. So right in the middle of that corner. It’s a single blintz fold. Next we’re going to do two kite folds.

And the kite folds are going to start at this point right here and they’re going to connect all the way down to the bottom point. So I’ll show you, we’re going fold this over, see how I’m getting it where it goes right up to there and then I’m lining it up so it goes all the way down to the bottom, as well. So you fold that over on one side. I’ll show you how that makes that crease line right between those two.

I’m going to fold that over that, and I’m going to do the same thing on this side, where I fold this side over it’s going to touch the top point and then it’s going to come down and meet right at the bottom like that. Next we’re going to make the ears on the elephant. Go ahead and fold this panel out and out to the side. So it’s going to go right up to this point, then slide out to there, and the same thing on the left,and fold that one out as well.

So those are going to be the ears. And then next we have a little bit of a pointy part here at the top, so I’m going to fold this down about that far, not too much, it just sort of rounds the corners off like that. Finally go ahead and flip it over and see a little bit and there is the elephant face. And now the fun part about this one is the trunk.

What I like to do is fold it up and then pleat it back down a little bit and then do that all the way down the trunk, so you have some nice ridges on the elephant trunk. You can go up and down, and up and down, and then I make a little fold right at the bottom, so that the trunk doesn’t have such a point on it. And you can see here, you’ve got some nice ridges there. So there is the origami elephant.

Transcript

So these are the instructions for an origami dolphin. The first step, we’re going to take a sheet of paper. We’re going to start with the colored side up and we’re going to make a book fold. So go ahead and take the bottom edge, fold it all the way up to the top, and make sure that you have it nice and lined up, so that there’s no extra color showing. Just get it to where it’s perfectly lined up, and crease down at the bottom.

Go ahead and open that back up. Then we’re going to the other book fold. We’re going to do the other direction as well. Again, try to be nice and precise, so when you open it up, you’ll have a really nice plus sign right there. Flip it over. Now we do a diagonal fold, so take the bottom corner, fold it all the way up to the top, just like this. Slide your finger down so it’s nice and flat, and keep your other thumb down there to hold its place, slide out to one edge and then slide out to the other.

Open those two up and now take the bottom and fold it all the way up to the top like that, again being as precise as we can. Now just go ahead and leave that flat. What we’re going to do is go ahead and pinch right here at the bottom of this line, on either side, and we’re going to rotate our hands close together, so that all of these will come together. We can make a nice triangle base.

Let me show you that. This is called a water bomb base, so take both of your fingers right here, right up against the edge, and we’re going to rotate them up together and when they come together there, that’s going to help us make what’s called a water bomb base. You have two edges on either side, we’re going to flatten the paper down like that.

Now that’s not using any new creases. That’s just using all of the creases that are already there. We’re just changing the way that they’re folded together, just like that. Now the next step we’re going to take one flap and we’re going to fold it over, so now we’re going to have three flaps on one side. Three flaps on one side and one flap on the left side.

We’re going to now take this one flap, the extra flap and we’re going to do a kite fold. We’re going to fold this edge, this leading edge right there, it’s going to come down and it’s going to lie right on the middle line, just like this, okay? Next go ahead and rotate it over. So now it’s facing the opposite direction. Next we’re going to take this top point of the whole triangle, we’re going to bring it down to this spot right here.

You can also think about it as taking this edge, and bringing down to the bottom edge, and cutting the whole thing in half. So just like this, when we fold this down, it’s going to thin the tail all the way down to a point like that. Next we’re going to fold up the dorsal fin. So this fold right here, this top of this triangle that’s going to turn into our dorsal fin.

So we’re going to fold it up enough so that you could see it, if you were to flip it over, so you can still see that fin poke up right there just like that. Next step we’re going to take this edge right here, I’m going to fold it in half and that’s going to thin a little bit of the flipper. And if you want to have a nice pointed flipper, you can leave it all the way down there.

And you can also fold it down, just like this, so that if you look at it, it just sort of thins it a little bit, but still keeps a nice little flipper aspect to it, just like that. Next I’m going to take– you see how there’s a skinny triangle right here at the top. What we’re going to do is we’re going to fold that skinny triangle over.

What happens when this triangle comes over is it wants to bring all of this paper right here with it. That’s okay, we’re going to bring that over too. So go ahead and when we fold this over all of this is going to come with, and take note of what kind of a shape I’m making right here. I want to thin this down, not all the way to a point, but enough to right here, this is the bump at the top of the head right like that.

Okay, so the next step for the origami dolphin, we’re going to fold the front of the head, we’re going to fold it back like this and then right back out again. That’s a pleat fold, and that’s so we get a nice nose, sort of like a bottle nose dolphin, just like that. So it’s a pleat that goes back and forth.

And the next to finish it off, we’re going to fold the flukes of the tail. So go ahead and open this up. There are two sheets in here, two sections of paper. Go ahead and open it up and inside reverse fold one bottom section down. You can see how I open it up and push it down, just like that.

And then if you want, you can even open it up and then fold this section up as well, in the middle as a crimped fold, so it would come down and then back up. And that gets you that full tail section right there, for the flukes on the dolphin and then when you flip it over and have a look and that is the origami dolphin.

Transcript

This is a video for an origami fish.

The first step for the origami fish is to pick out a sheet of paper. We’re going to start with the white side up, and we’re going to make a diagonal fold. Go ahead and fold the bottom point up to the top point. Just get it so they line up perfectly, so it’s not off to one side either way. Just get it right on the center, nice and precise. Hold it down, and then slide your finger down so it’s nice and flat. Then hold it in place with your other finger and slide out to one corner, slide out to the other corner.

Open it up. What we’re going to do is 2 kite folds. The kite fold, is taking this edge right here and folding it into the middle, just like this. You see how this edge is going to come up and touch right into that center line that we just created. We’re going to do it on the left-hand side and also on the right-hand side. Both of those are going to come down, and that is going to make a kite base. We’re going to open those 2 back up. Then we’re going to do the same thing on the top of the paper. This time, these kite folds are now going to go into the center from the top edge, just like this. It’s going to make a nice sharp point there at the top again. Right like that. Like that.

The next step is called a rabbit ear fold. A rabbit ear fold, what happens is we folded it this flap over this way and we unfolded it. Then we folded this flap over this way. What we’re going to do is we’re going to fold both of those flaps down at the same time. This one comes in and this one comes in. They both come in simultaneously, right at the same time, and that’s going to work its way up to make this little extra flap right here; this little fin right there. Make sure that that lines up to a nice sharp point there, as well. Then fold it up to one side. We’re going to do the same thing on this side, so we fold this flap in and this flap in at the same time. As they work their way up, that’s going to make that extra fin, just like that. This is actually called the fish base because a lot of origami fish come from right here. That’s what we want right there.

We flip it over. We’re going to take the bottom point and fold it up along that line, a little bit less than halfway. Halfway would be right up here. I’m folding it down from halfway, like that. Next step, we’re going to fold it half from the left-hand side over to the right-hand side, all the way over, like this. This gives us most of the body for the fish. If we hold him up this way, you can see that we’ve got the little fins right there for the fish, and then we’ve got a tail right here. What we’re going to do is we’re going to fold the tail up. Just take whatever corner you want, whatever angle you want, just fold it up at that angle, like that. That’s going to be a regular valley fold right there, but we’re going to open it up from the top and do an inside reverse fold, where we’re going to open this up and push the bottom of that tail up through the inside of the body. Instead of the tail folding in front, or even if it was going to fold behind, what’s going to happen is it’s going to open it up and this is going to go in the middle. When that goes up in the middle, it reverses the spine of the paper right here; this spine which is now folded out like a mountain fold is now going to switch into a valley fold when it goes up like that. That’s the tail. The last step is we’re going to fold this down for these fins. We do that on both sides. That is your origami fish.

Transcript

My name is Ben Friesen. I am an Origami artist from Brooklyn, New York.

I’ve been folding since I was at least five years old. My mom got me a dinosaur origami book. I was one of those kids who was very ADD and she wanted to find something that would keep me still and quiet for more than five minutes at a time and I loved dinosaurs so she got me a dinosaur origami book and I’ve been folding ever since.

It started with very simple stuff and then you work your way up to some of the more complex things. In 2009 I started my own little origami company, Friesen Folding, and I’ve done lessons, corporate events, birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, wedding decorations, Christmas ornaments, you name it. Anything that can be folded with paper people are interested in, but the thing I love the most is teaching people.

I’ve been doing lessons for about five years. I’ve got students who are from three years old up to about ninety three. It really does run in a very large range. My favorite thing that I’ve gotten to do with that is I’ve gotten to work with the New York Times, I’ve worked with vogue.com.

The New York Public Library had a really exhibit I got to help them with and the Central Park Conservatory had an event that I got to help them with, as well, so I’ve done a bunch of things.

The best thing so far, though, is I did an ad campaign with the AdCouncil that actually aired during hurricane Sandy, for recovery relief funds, where they took dollar bills and they folded them up into different origami shapes. So, I got to do some fun stop motion animation with that. It was nice to see my work actually be helpful in a way that I didn’t think it would be, before. I assumed it would be for some tsunami or hurricane in some other part of the country and lo and behold I lived through hurricane Sandy in Brooklyn right near Guana’s and got to actually see my work help people through that, which has been great.

But, to be able to take something that’s as simple as a square sheet of paper, I mean, everybody’s got it in their office, on their desk, everyone has this available to them, and to be able to turn it into something without scissors, without glue that is something much more impressive. So, the best way to reach me, if you have any interest in events or lessons or parties is at friesenfolding.com.

And now I’d like to show you how to fold a few origami models.

Transcript

These are the instructions for an origami owl.

The first step for the origami owl is, we’re going to take a sheet of paper. We’re going to start with the colored side up, and we’re going to make a diagonal fold. So go ahead and take one corner, bring it all the way up to the other corner, and make sure that it’s nice and precise. So put it exactly on that spot where the two of them meet, and then slide a finger down. Keep it nice and flat. Hold it in place, and then go out to a corner and then out to the other corner. Open that up, and then we’re going to do the other diagonal fold. So this, again, try and be as precise as you can, nice and exact. So then open it back up again. We’re going to flip the paper over so we have a nice X right there.

Next, we’re going to fold the bottom edge all the way up to the top edge. This is called a book fold. Again, precision is key. So we fold that up and we make sure that there’s no extra white. Unfold it, and then go up the other side as well, out to the side. Now, go ahead and leave that last one folded down.

What we’re going to do is I’m going to put my fingers right here. I’m going to pinch right on the corner, on the bottom half of this diagonal line. And what I”m going to do is I’m going to rotate all four of those corners so that they touch, right in the center, together. And what’s going to happen, that’s called a square base. We can flatten that down. And this is a square base or a preliminary base when this is flattened out. And we haven’t made any new creases. We’re just using the creases we already have. And we’re using those creases we already have to create that new base. Now, the important thing here is we want to make sure we know where these openings are because these flaps need to be at the bottom, pointed towards you.

Next step, once we have all these flaps pointed towards you, we’re going to take these bottom edges on both sides, and we’re going to fold them up towards the middle. And this is called a kite fold, where they’re going to go, and they’re going to lie right on that center line that we can already see. So we do that on the left-hand side, and we also do that on the right-hand side as well.

Next, we’re going to fold the top triangle, we’re going to fold that down, over the top of both of these two flaps, just like that. And once that’s folded down, we flip the whole thing over and do the kite folds on this side as well. So both sides, on the left-hand side, we’re going to make a kite fold, and on the right-hand side, we’re going to bring that edge into the middle, just like that.

Now, we’ve done most of these folds here just so that we get the creases. We’re not actually going to leave them there. These are called preliminary folds. So we’re going to unfold that flap and unfold this flap so that we can get access to this one sheet of paper right here. We want to pick that up and make sure that it’s not the whole model, just that one sheet of paper. And we want to open up all the space on the inside here.

And once we open all of that up, we’re going to pull it all into the top, stretching it all the way up and flattening it onto the table. And what happens is when this comes all the way up, these two outside edges are going to want to push in, which is nice because we’ve already made this crease when we folded this over right here. So use that crease we’ve already made, and use it, you can start at the bottom and work your way up, or you can just flatten the whole thing down. And this is called a petal fold.

And I’ll show you, once it’s nice and flat and it lies down pretty happily, but it started down here like this, and we picked it all the way up and flattened it down. We’re going to do that same maneuver on the back side. What’s going to happen is I’m going to open up that triangle and open up these two flaps, fold the triangle back down, and then pick up just one sheet of paper, fold it all the way up, and then flatten the whole model down. This creates what’s called a bird base, where you’ve got these two little splits right here and the flaps on the top.

Now, once we have this, we’re going to fold down this top flap on the front, flip it over, and then also do the exact same thing on the back. So all of those are now face-down. Once we’ve folded those two flaps down, we’re now going to make another set of kite folds. We’re going to fold this edge right here down into the middle line. And also on the opposite side, we’re going to fold this down into the middle line as well. Do that on the front, flip it over, and then we do the exact same thing on the back. We fold that over there, and we fold that over on the other side as well.

Now, the next step, we’re going to get the wings out of the side flaps right here. So we’ve got a front flap on the bottom and a back flap. But the important part right now is we’re going to work with this side flap. So keep the whole model flat to the table like this. And we’re going to take this side flap, and I’m going to do what’s called an inside reverse fold, in which I’m going to pick it up and reverse the crease along the spine of the paper. I’m going to slide it out, like this. So this is the shape that we’re looking for for the wing. So it started down, right in here, and I picked it up and sort of rotated it out so it has a nice side flap for the wing. Do that on both sides, just like this. And that’ll give us the two wings.

And then next, we’re going to fold this tip down, not too far, right about here. Fold it down so that the top comes down to these two points right here, so that those two touch. And this is going to be a pleat fold. So go ahead and fold it back up, about that far. And that’s going to be a beak that we’re going to use right there. And then, fold the whole flap down below where we made the pleat fold. So when that whole flap comes down, right there, once we get that done, you’ll be able to see the face of the owl, just like that. And the paper wants to maybe pop up a little bit, and that’s all right; just go ahead and give it a good flattening.

And the last step, we’re going to fold the bottom up just enough so that we have two little sets of feet. Because there’s two sheets of paper there and you can see how the two little feet sort of emerge right there on the back from the tail. And that, we got all those folds. That is the finished origami owl. And if you want, it even has the wings that can fold down for when he’s resting.

So that is the finished origami owl.

Transcript

This is a video for an origami jumping frog. The first step for the origami frog is to pick out a sheet of paper and now we’re going to start with the white side up and we’re going to fold a book fold. So take the bottom edge and bring it up to the top just like this. You can see how you get it nice and lined up, so you don’t want it so it’s a little askew, it’s a little off. You want to get it as precise as you can, so it lines right up there. Slide it across and now we’re going to do a diagonal fold.

So the diagonal fold is going to come from this top edge is going to go up against this side edge. So we’re going to fold it over like this, and then the important thing, you want to have a nice sharp point here at the top, too. So when I’m folding this over I’m getting both of these two edges to line up. Do one side, open it up and then we’re also going to do the opposite side. Now there’s two sheets of paper here and it might be on either side, but go ahead and fold both of them at the same time.

We’re going to fold this one over, and again, a nice sharp point right there at the top, so it’ll make a nice X here at the top of the paper. Next we’re going to flip the whole paper over and take the top edge of this X and we’re going to fold it down to the bottom edge of this X. If you see where these two points are right here, we’re going to fold them down to these two points, which are the bottom of the X. So fold it down right like this all the way across.

So if you open it back up again, you can see how the line that we made went straight through the middle of that X when we folded this. Now flip is over, we’ll have little bit sort of like a ski jump going on right there. So fold it over so it looks just like this. Now what we’re going to do is take our finger and put it right on the center of the paper. So put it right in the middle of that X and push down, and there’s a moment where the paper is going to pop right there.

See how it went from it started over here like this, and then the paper is going to pop, where these two edges are going to pop up. So now we’re going to fold these two edges in, and as these two edges come in, the top part sort of comes down as well, and go ahead and flatten the whole thing down. It makes what is kind of a water bomb base right there at the top. So it starts up like this, you fold it down, bring this top edge down while these two triangles come in. It sort of looks like a house shape, a nice shape of a house right there.

Next step take the bottom edge and fold it up to right here, the bottom edge of that triangle, fold it right up there just like that. After that we’re going to take these two corners, there’s these two open flaps that are sort of available and free right here. We’re just going to take those two flaps and put them right to the top of that triangle on the left side and also on the right side like that.

Then after that step we’re going to take both of these two edges and fold them into the middle. It’s very close to a cupboard fold where you see how I fold both of these edges over, it’s sort of like a cabinet or cupboard doors. You see how they open up and close just like that. So once those have been folded over, go ahead and squish them good. There’s a lot of paper here, so we’re going to use some pretty hard squishes right here, some hard folds.

Then take the bottom of this and fold it up to right about here, right where the triangles have their biggest point right there at the top. Fold it right up to these. That’s the first fold and then fold it back down to bottom edge. Make sure it doesn’t go past the bottom edge. It’s okay if it’s even a little bit less than the bottom edge, because you want to have that under enough for the spring on the frog.

So now I’m going to show you when you open up these two legs and you flip them over, that’s the finished frog, but it’s really important you have a nice little S curve right here. It’s a really nice S curve, that’s the spring that you’re going to use to help make him jump. This is a jumping frog, and the way it works, just put your finger right on top of the frog and pull back, and then let it slide off your finger, and once it slides off your finger he should jump pretty well. It depends on how much of that spring you have, but try not to just push and squish him, and squish him flat. You sort of have to slide your finger off the back, and that is the origami jumping frog.

Transcript

This is a video for creating an origami boat.

The first step for the origami boat is we’re going to take a sheet of paper and we’re going to start with the white side up, we’re going to make a book fold. So go ahead and start. We’re going to take this bottom edge and fold it all the way up to the top edge. Again, try to make sure that everything lines up nice and perfect so there’s no extra white paper showing. Get it nice and precise right up there and then make a nice crease fold on that.

Now open it back up. What we’re going to do now is we’re going to fold both of the outside edges into the middle. This is called a cabinet fold where these two outside edges are going to come right into the middle. Right like this. Crease that down.

The same thing on the other side. They should butt right up against each other. Try not to have them overlap. They should be nice and happy. And you see how they open up like cabinet doors. That’s why it’s called that.

Next we’re going to fold down all four corners. There’s four corners on here and we’re going to fold each of them down into the middle. Think of this edge right here lining up against the center. Fold that one down. And this one as well. And then also these two at the bottom. Again, we will try and make sure that none of them overlap, we want to have them meet up right against each other, like that.

Next we’re going to do two kite folds. We’re going to fold these two edges of the triangle down. We’re going to keep folding them until they go right up into that center line again. We do that on the left. And we do that on the right. Like that.

We’re also going to do that on the bottom two sides, the bottom left and the bottom right. But what happens here when we do these is that it’s going to overlap a little bit with this other spot. That’s Okay, that’s all right. We’ll let that happen. So go ahead and fold that next one over as well. You see how they do overlap a little bit there.

Next we’re going to take these two points, these outside points and we’re going to fold them into the middle. So it’ll come down like that. The second one will come over and meet the other one right at the same spot. This is the base to start off with for the boat.

Next we’re going to fold the whole thing in half backwards. So go ahead and break it in half and fold it down the halfway line. In that direction, just like this.

There’s a couple of different flaps in the middle. What we want to do is open it up to one of the sides. You can either have it, where there’s three flaps, you can have the center one on the left or the right. It doesn’t really matter. So go ahead and open it up so that where you can see all either color or no color. In this case it’s white. All like that. What we’re going to do is we’re going to keep that flap flattened on the side and we’re going to pop this whole thing inside out.

What I like to do, if you look at it from the bottom, go ahead and take your thumb, or some other finger, and push on this point. You see how it’s sort of got a little bit of a bump right there? Go ahead and push on that until it pop inside out. Just like that. Do that on the top and the bottom. And then these pop inside out.

Now when you collapse the boat again, this time it’s white with the color on the inside. And then for the last step, what we’re going to do, if you look in the center of the boat there’s a couple different flaps of paper. There’s these two little triangles, what you want to do is with the left hand side go ahead and grab one sheet of paper and the triangle, leaving the big white flap behind. We’re going to grab those two and then on the other hand we’re going to pinch these two flaps right here. I’m going to pull them apart like this and then push right here on this spot, this spot is pointed out and just like when we flipped it inside out the other way, we’re going to flip that inside out on that side and then also on this side.

That creates the origami boat. Here’s the finished origami boat.

Transcript

These are the instructions for an origami car.

The first step for the origami car, get a sheet of paper and start with the white side up. What we’re going to do is we’re going to fold the bottom edge up to the top edge, and this is a book fold. Make sure that it’s nice and lined up so that there’s no extra white showing. Get each of those to line up as nice as you can and then make a good crease, and then open it up.

Next, what we’re going to do is we’re going to do two cupboard folds. And a good way to do this is to think of you’re taking this outside edge into the middle, but we’re actually going to go about halfway, just like this. So you see how it’s nice and it’s lined up, it’s equal, it’s parallel with this line right here, but go about halfway up.

Next, fold this back in half so it comes up to here. And then so we can make the two sides equal, take this white section and fold that down over the top of the first half. And then when you open that up and bring this up we can then use that crease, and we fold this in half again and these two sides, they will now be equal, just like that. Open this back up. You have both of those two sides.

And we’re going to fold this corner down. And you’re going to do this on all four corners. These are going to be the wheels of the vehicle, so try and fold them so they come straight down. And then do that on the front and the back. We’re going all the way up to that point, like that. And then just so that they’re not pointy wheels, we’re just going to make a tiny little triangle fold right there and a tiny little triangle fold right there. That’ll keep them a little bit more round. Then we’re going to rotate it over and do the same thing on the other side. So go ahead and fold this down to make another wheel and put a tiny triangle right there. Then fold this one down and fold up a little triangle right there.

Next, we’re going to fold the entire thing in half like that. And then choose one of the sides to be the front and one side to be the back, and go ahead and fold this triangle point, fold it backwards so that you have a windshield. So go ahead and fold it behind so you can’t see it.

And that is the finished origami car.

Transcript

This is a video for an origami bookmark. The first step for the origami bookmark is we’re going to start with a sheet of paper with the color on top, and what we’re going to do is we’re going to make a diagonal fold. So go ahead and take one corner and bring it all the way up to the other. Make sure that it’s right on top, so that it’s not off to the side one way or the other, but right there. Go ahead and hold it in place, slide your finger on your other hand down, and then hold it in place with your thumb, slide out to the edge, and then slide out to the other edge. That should give you some really nice sharp corners.

Open that back up and then we’ll do the other side. Take the bottom all the way up to the top for the other diagonal. Open that up, flip it over, and now we’re going to do two book folds. So the book fold, the bottom edge is going to go all the way up to the top, again, try and make it as precise as you can, hold it in place and then squish it down on the bottom. Open it back up and then do the other one as well. So we’re going to have both of the book folds, squish that down.

Now this last book fold go ahead and leave that in place, and you’re going to put your fingers right up on top, near the top of the corners of the paper. What we’re going to do is we’re going to put all four corners of the paper together at the same spot right at the top. We’re going to fold that down and that’s going to make what’s called a square base, and the square base doesn’t use any new folds. It’s just using all of the creases that we already have. It’s just re-positioning them.

So go ahead and lock that down. You want two flaps on each side, so that you have its equal on both sides. And now we’re going to take one flap of paper, there are a bunch of flaps here at the top. Go ahead and just take the top flap and what we’re going to do is we’re going to rotate it and put it inside the paper. You see how I’m not folding it down over the top. I’m actually folding it back the other direction, back inside the model and just push it all the way up, until it gets as high up into the model as you can, and then squish it flat just like that.

And we do that on the front and then also on the back, so go ahead and take the next sheet, rotate it back, and put it all the way underneath, pushing it up as far as it’ll go and then squishing it down. Then go ahead and find whatever you’re working on or whatever you’re reading and the squarish corner and then this right here is the origami bookmark. It’ll slide and it’ll fit right there on top and it’ll hold your place, wherever you are; the origami bookmark.

Transcript

These are the instructions for an Origami Samurai Helmet. For the Origami Samurai Helmet, we start with a regular sheet of paper and with the white side up.

So, with the white side up, we’re going to take the bottom corner, I’m going to fold it all the way up to the top corner. This is a diagonal fold. So, make sure that there’s no white showing. Try and get the entire thing lined up so that it’s in the right spot.

And then, lock it in by sliding, with your other hand down, using your thumb to hold the place and then going out to the corner in either direction, just like that. Gives it a nice good diagonal crease.

Next, we’re going to take both of these corners and fold them up to the top point. So, go ahead and get it where it lines up exactly right on it. Fold that over and the same thing here. What you don’t want to do is have these overlap at all. We want to have them where they’re right up against each other, but they don’t overlap at all.

We’re going to fold the top point. We’re going to fold that down. And, that’s going to go right to here, right to the bottom point now, there and also right there.

Now, I’m going to rotate the entire model around. This is going to be the top of the samurai helmet, right here on the top. So, these two are going to be the horns. I’m going to take this point right here. I’m going to rotate it and point it out to the side, just like that, on one side and also on the other side, both of those in opposite directions. And that gives the horns.

Next, we’re going to take, there’s two sheets of paper here at the bottom. I’m going to take just the top sheet, and I’m going to fold it up to about the middle of the triangle, so right about there. That’s good. And then, go ahead and crease it.

Next, we’re going to take this bottom edge we just created, that crease we just made, and I’m going to roll it up. I’m going to roll it all the way up, as high as it goes, so I have a little brim to the hat, a little white brim at the bottom and a little triangle right there. Give that a good crease.

And next, you’re going to have to pick up the sheet a little bit. This is, sort of, a 3D step. I’m going to take the next sheet, the back sheet, and I’m going to push it all the way inside.

If you look at it from the top, there’s this pocket right here. There’s a pocket right there. I’m going to take this sheet, and I’m going to feed it all the way inside the model. So, I’m going to push it all the way up.

Just take your fingers and, sort of, roll it up. Roll it up as far as it will go so it goes all the way up into the top. You can open it up again, and that is the Origami Samurai Helmet.

Another fun thing about the samurai helmet, if you push on these two edges until they collapse, it turns into a goldfish.

These are the instructions for an origami shark.

The first step, we’re going to take a sheet of paper. We’re going to start with the colored side up. We’re going to make a book fold, so go ahead and take the bottom edge and fold it all the way up to the top. And make sure that you have it nice and lined up, so that there’s no extra color showing. Just get it where it’s perfectly lined up, and crease down at the bottom. Go ahead and open that back up, and we’re going to do the other book fold. We’re going to do the other direction as well. Again, try to be nice and precise. When you open it up, you’ll have a really nice plus sign right there.

Flip it over. Now we’re going to do a diagonal fold, so take the bottom corner and fold it all the way up to the top, just like this. Slide your finger down, so it’s nice and flat, and then keep your other thumb down there to hold its place. Slide out to one edge, and then slide out to the other. Open those two up, and now take the bottom and fold it all the way up to the top like that. Again, being as precise as we can.

Now, just go ahead and leave that flat. What we’re going to do is, go ahead and pinch right here at the bottom of this line on either side. And we’re going to rotate our hands close together, so that all of these will come together. We can make a nice triangle base. I’ll show you that. This is called a water bomb base. Take both of your fingers right here, right up against the edge, and we’re going to rotate them up together. And when they come together there, that’s going to help us make what’s called a water bomb base. You have two edges on either side. We’re going to flatten the paper down like that. Now, that’s not using any new creases; it’s just using all the creases that are already there. We’re just changing the way that they’re folded together. Just like that.

Now, the next step, we’re going to take one flap and we’re going to fold it over, so now we’re going to have three flaps on one side. Three flaps on one side, and one flap on the left side. We’re going to now take this one flap, the extra flap, and we’re going to do a kite fold. We’re going to fold this edge. This leading edge right there is going to come down, and it’s going to lie right on the middle line. Just like this. Okay. Next, go ahead and rotate it over, so now it’s facing the opposite direction.

Next, we’re going to take this top point of the whole triangle. We’re going to bring it down to this spot right here. You can also think about is as taking this edge and bringing it down to the bottom edge, and cutting the whole thing in half. Just like this. And we fold this down. It’s going to thin the tail all the way down to a point. Like that.

Next, we’re going to fold up the dorsal fin. This fold right here, this top of this triangle, that’s going to turn into our dorsal fin. We’re going to fold it up, enough so that you can see it if you were to flip it over you can still see that fin poke up right there. Just like that.

Next step, we’re going to take this edge right here. We’re going to fold it in half. And that’s going to thin a little bit of the flipper. And if you want to have a nice pointed flipper, you can leave it all the way down there. And you can also fold it down just like this, so that if you look at it, it just sort of thins it a little bit but still keeps a nice little flipper aspect to it. Just like that.

Next, you see how there’s a skinny triangle right here at the top? What we’re going to do is, we’re going to fold that skinny triangle over. What happens when this triangle comes over is, it wants to bring all of this paper right here with it. And that’s okay. We’re going to bring that over, too. Go ahead, and when we fold this over, all of this is going to come with it. And take note of what kind of a shape I’m making right here. I want to thin this down. Not all the way to a point, but enough to right here, so this is the bump at the top of the head. Right like that.

Okay. The last step of the shark, after we’ve folded this down, is we’re going to now split apart the tail. You see this tail section right here? We’re going to fold this flap, we’re going to fold it down. There’s two flaps in there; go ahead and take one of them, the bottom one, and fold it down however you like. You can fold it with an inside reverse fold. You can also fold it just flipping it over like that, just sort of pulling it down. Whatever works to split it apart. Like this, and that creates the flukes on the back side. And then flip the whole thing over.

And that is the origami shark.

Transcript

This is a video for an origami turtle.

Let me give you an example of one right there. That’s what we’re going for. Grab a sheet of paper. We’re going to start with the colored side up and we’re going to make a book fold. So take the bottom edge, fold it all the way up to the top edge of the paper. Make sure it lines up nice, so that there’s no extra color showing. Just get it right up on top, and when it’s right up on top, just squish it down and flatten that out. And we’re going to open this up and do another book fold, so both of the book folds. And when you’re done with those you’ll have a nice cross right there in the middle; a nice plus sign.

Now flip the paper over and we’re going to do a diagonal fold. So the diagonal fold is going to come from the bottom point up to the top point. Just like this. And again we want to be as precise and as accurate as we can. Hold in place, slide my finger down, and then go out to the edges, like that. And that’s one diagonal fold. Open it up and now we’re going to do the other diagonal fold. So again, nice and accurate, we’re going to fold that over. And go ahead and leave that last diagonal fold and squish it down.

So go ahead and take that, pick up the paper like this. And I’ll show you where to put your fingers. We’re going to pinch right here, just below this line right here on both sides. Put both my fingers right there and I’ll show you. We’re going to rotate the paper up, just like this. And see how it makes this little flower figure almost? This is a water bomb base. Where all of these points are going to meet and then we’re going to flatten the paper down and it’s going to make this four sided pyramid figure. And this is called the water bomb base.

And once we have that, and to make this water bomb base, we’re not going to change any of the folds. We’re going to use the folds we already have, we’re just repositioning them in a new way to collapse down into this base.

Once we have this we’re going to take one corner on the left hand side and we’re going to fold that up to the top. Make sure that you don’t take both corners, there’s two there, just take one corner. We’re going to do that on the left hand side and we’re also going to do that on the right hand side. So both of those are going to go up and touch the top. Once you do that, go ahead and unfold those two and fold the top point down all the way to touch the edge of the bottom of the paper, like that.

So those three folds, we’re going to unfold all of those and what that does is that’s going to make a little spot here for what’s called a petal fold. A petal fold is where we’re going to pick up one sheet of paper, one flap, there’s a couple of different flaps under here, we’re just going to take the top layer and we’re going to fold it up right along this edge of this crease right here where we folded back down. That’s the crease that we’re going to follow; that we’re going to fold that up. When we fold that up these two flaps pop up and we want to fold them down so that they go and they land right here, on that spot. So when this goes up, you see how I’m going to take this corner and put it right on that spot. Same thing over here, this is going to flatten down and bring that corner right down to that spot. That is a petal fold.

I’ll show you right there how it starts, like this. We pick it up and these all flatten down like that.

Now, we’re going to flip the paper over and do the exact same thing on this side. So start at the beginning, we’re going to fold up this flap and this flap. Unfold them, go ahead and fold one flap back down again. There’s two flaps there now. And then I’m going to take the top flap, pick it up, bring it all the way down so that those two points match and flatten it down like that. So I’ve done this now on both sides. Great.

Now we’re going to take this flap that we just put down on that spot. I’m going to take it, I’m going to pick it up and I’m going to bring it all the way up to the top of the model. And when that happens, when I pick this up, use this mountain fold right here that’s along this line, when I pick it up there’s going to be a little squash that happens. You see how this paper is going to push in and flatten down, just like that? And that’s what we want, so we want that to happen on this side as well. I’m going to pick this up and as this squashes over it takes this point that was right here and brings it right up to the top point, like that. Flip it over and we’re going to do the same thing on the back. We’re going to pick those two flaps up and bring them up to the top. Just like that.

Now, next flap, next step, we’re going to take this little flap right here and we’re going to fold it over. We’re going to fold it over to make a little flipper for our turtle. So it’s going to have a little bit of an angle. Try not to keep it too far down here. We want to keep it pretty high up in the air. You can think about having this edge right here sort of be the halfway point between here and here. So that’s about the right spot. You do that on both sides. Like that. And then flip the paper over and then do it again over here. This flap comes over and this flap comes over. And now we’ve got the two flippers set up.

Next, we’re going to fold one flap down that’s got both of the flippers and the one of these triangles. Fold that down and then very easily, what we’re going to do next, we’re just going to fold it into the center. And fold that, this point right here, is going to go exactly into the center. Next we’re going to fold this flaps right here on the top. We’re going to fold it all the way to the bottom. And we’re going to do the same thing with this flap, we’re going to take this point and fold it down into the center. Like that.

Next, we’re going to pick up, put all of this back up. So flatten it back all the way up, where all the flippers are going up to the top. And we’re going to take and we’re going to make a kite fold. So the kite fold is again going to happen on this outside edge and it’s going to get folded into the middle, like that. And we’re going to do it on the left side, the right side, the front, and the back. So these two like that, flip it over and now we’re going to do this side, as well.

Okay. Now we should have two little open slits right here at the bottom. This is going to be the head and the tail for the turtle. What we’re going to do is we’re going to fold them up as far as we can, up to right here so the point lands right about in that spot. We’re going to do that on the left hand side and the right hand side.

And then once we’ve got those two guys, we’re going to unfold them and then we’re going to inside reverse fold them. So instead of folding them in front or folding them behind, if we fold over one flap you’re going to see there’s a little channel here; there’s a little spot. We can take this flap, we can pick it up, we can put it inside, just like that. You see now, that the point is sticking up. It’s not in front or behind, but it’s in the middle of those two flaps. We do that on the front, or we’re going to do that on the one side for the head and we’re going to do it on the other side for the tail. And that gets us the entire base. We are all set now.

To the last step for this turtle. This is the fun one. What we’re going to do, and it’s important to see where your hands are on this one. You see this little pocket right here? That pocket, which is behind these two flaps and also behind the flippers right here, that’s where I’m going to put two fingers. I’m going to put these two fingers, my thumb and my pointer finger, I’m going to put those two right here. And in the same spot on the other side, I’ m going to put those two fingers, too. And what I’m going to do is I’m going to very gently, because you don’t want to rip the paper, I’m going to pull apart. I’m going to flatten those down a little bit. And you see how the top just sort of flattens out, creates this nice little bubble right there? And that is going to make the turtle shell. And you see how the flippers just went off to the side, and you just have to decide what’s the head and what’s the tail. I’m just going to make a tiny reverse fold there, to fold the head down.

And that is the last step for an origami turtle.

Transcript

This is a video for an origami snake. The first step for the origami snake is a diagonal fold, so go ahead and start with the white side up and we’re going to fold one corner to the other. Make sure that it’s nice and precise. We want to be as exact as we can. Get those to line up right there, slide your finger down, lock it in place and make it nice and flat, and then fold it over to one side and then all the way over to the other side. Then open that back up.

After we have a nice diagonal fold, we’re going to go with a kite fold. So the kite fold we’re going to take this outside edge right here and this outside edge right here, and we’re going to fold both of those into the middle, so they’re going to line up right on that crease that we already made. So you can see how this one fits right on that crease. It’s going to make a nice sharp point at the bottom. We’re going to that on both sides right like this, like that.

Next we’re going to fold the top parts down, we’re going to do the exact same fold on the other side. So right here this is going to fold down and then right there. These are two more of the kite folds. See how those equal out, just like that. Now we’re going to thin one more time. We’re going to pick one of the sides, and we’re going to thin one more time with another kite fold, right here. Then fold that down, and one more right there to thin that down.

Now this right here is going to be the regular base that we have for the snake. What we want to do is we want to fold it in half. Fold it in half just like that. So we’re going to use the front part right here, this is going to be the head of the snake and this is going to be the tail, all the way down to the edge here. So what we want is we’re going to make a series of pleats.

So go ahead and take the paper and we’re going to fold it up and over for a head. When we do this, these are preliminary folds, so they’re not actually going to be folded that way and stay that way. We’re just going to use it so that we can make those creases right there, so we can use those later. So what’s going to happen, go ahead and open the model back up to right here, and you can see those V’s that we’ve made. That’s where those preliminary creases are.

What’s going to happen here is we’re going to close it back up, but this time pushing this in the middle. So this is called an inside reverse fold. So I’ll show you this from a few different angles. We’re going to push it up from the bottom, and it’s going to reverse this spine right here, which is right now a valley fold. You see how it makes a nice little valley.

When we push this up right here, it’s going to reverse and now it’s going to become a mountain fold, where it sort of points up that way. Then we push it under that way and then the same thing over here, we’re going to push this down and that’s going to give us the head, the head of the snake right there. I like to make a little fold right here, so he doesn’t have such a pointy nose. For the snake just sort of fold that backwards inside and that gives it more of a blunted head.

Now there are a few different things you can do now with the snake. If you wanted you could even curl the tail like this, you could curl it around, and that could be your snake. That could be the entire tail or you could even make another series of pleat folds and inside reverse folds. So you could fold it up and fold it back down, like this all the way down the model.

And I’ll show you what that looks like. I’m going to fold these up and down just like this, like that. And now once we open it up, we could do that same thing where we make these inside reverse folds. So it comes up like this and then back down, and then back up and back down all the way down the model. Once we have that that’s a way to make a nice tail for the origami snake.

Transcript

So these are the instructions for an origami water cup.

For the origami water cup, I’m going to grab one sheet of paper.

The first step is going to be with the white side up, we are going to fold a diagonal fold, so take the bottom point and fold it all the way up to the top point. Make sure that it is nice and precise so that there is no white showing. Get it as exactly as you can and hold it in place with one finger and use your other hand to side the finger down.

Then use your thumb to hold your place for you and as you go out to the corner on one side and also on the other side. Just like that. That’s a good diagonal fold.

Next we are going to do a kite fold. We are going to fold this edge right here and we are going to fold that down all the way to the bottom.

Now the only thing we actually need here is to get it to line up and then find this point right here. You can fold it all the way down across if you like, but the only thing that we actually need is that spot right there. So go ahead fold that and unfold it.

Now we are going to take the bottom left hand corner, and we are going to fold it and put it exactly on that spot that was I was pointing to. That spot where that crease hits this side edge of the paper right there.

Fold that over and now we are going to take this corner and fold it over to this spot right here. Like that. That gives us the front and now there are two sheets of paper right here, I am just going to fold one sheet down on the front. Flip it over and then fold the other sheet down on the back.

Then open it up and that is a traditional origami water cup, and yes it does hold water.

Transcript

These are the steps for the Origami Butterfly.

For the Origami Butterfly we’re going to take one sheet of paper, start with the colored side up and we’re going to take the bottom edge going to fold it up to the top edge, this is called a Book Fold. Now go ahead and make sure that their nice and lined up so there’s no extra color showing. Nice and precise, crease it down. Go to the left, go to the right, and then open it up and do the same thing on the other side. So this is going to be both of the Book Folds. Then open it up flip it over and now we’re going to do diagonal folds. This is going to be with the white side up and we fold these diagonal creases and, again make sure they are nice and precise. Lock it in by sliding your finger down and then using your thumb to hold it in place and then go off to the side on either side. Open it back up and then we’re going to do the other diagonal fold so both diagonal folds.

Now go ahead and leave that last diagonal fold there. We’re going to pick up the paper, and right below these crease lines right here I’m going to put my fingers, my thumb and pointer finger. I’m going to put them both right there, I’m going to pinch the paper and then rotate the paper up where all four fingers come in to touch each other. When that happens I am going to squash the paper down and that’s going to create the base that I’m going to use. This is called a water bomb base in Origami. Make sure that you have two flaps on either side. So two on one side, two on the other side, just like that.

Next I’m going to fold one flap at the bottom, the bottom corner. I’m going to fold it up not all the way up to the point though, just a little bit off, about that far off. Not both flaps, just one flap. On the other side I’m going to take one flap here too and fold it up about the same distance apart, just like that.

Next, flip the whole thing over and I’m going to take the bottom point of the paper. I’m going to take that bottom point and I’m going to fold it up. You see how there’s that spot where it doesn’t want to go any farther? I want to go a little bit past that point. So I’m going to pick it up, and what’s going to happen when I go up a little bit past that you see how the bottom points start coming up with the paper. That’s alright, as we work our way over you can sort of get, this is called a gusset, this little extra piece of paper right there. It’s going to develop like that you stretch it apart you can flatten that down. So, as we work our way over and sort of stretch it apart and flatten that little triangular gusset down, just like that.

That’s all the wings on both sides of the butterfly. Go ahead and flip it over. I’m going to fold that whole triangle , that whole large triangle. Fold the whole thing down , and then go ahead and bring it up again but not as far as you folded it down. That’s a Pleat Fold, where we fold it down and then back up, just like that.

Next we’re going to fold the whole thing in half. Take this whole side and bring the whole thing over to this side. There’s a lot of paper in there so you might have to push a little harder than your used to but that’s Okay.

Next, this is the last step. I’m going to pinch right here, this is the head of the butterfly. I’m going to pinch right here, I’m going to fold the wing over and what I want to do, the line I want to make is going to go from the edge of the head down to this point right here. So, that’s the crease I want to make all the way over. The same thing on the other side. The two should match up and if you flip it over and look at it. That right there.

That is the finished Origami Butterfly.

Transcript

These are the instructions for a origami penguin. First step for the origami penguin is to start with a sheet of paper. We’re going to start with the white side up and I’m going to go a diagonal fold. We’re going to fold the bottom corner up to the top corner. So go ahead and make sure that it’s nice and lined up, so it’s not just off to the side or it’s not just close, you want to be precise. You want to be right on there, just like this. Go ahead and slide your finger down and fold it all the way to the side on that way and the other way.

Then go ahead and open that guy back up and next step is going to be a version of a kite fold. Now a kite fold normally would be where you would take this edge and you’d fold it all the way into the middle, but what we’re going to do it we’re going to fold it about halfway, instead of all the way. Okay, so what’s going to happen is when we fold it over, you see how from this point right here, this white section? You want that to be about the exact same distance as the black section or the colored section.

So just like that, I’m going to fold that over, so it’s close to a kite fold, but a kite fold we would’ve folded this all the way in. This is just out about that far. You’re going to do that on one side, and then also on the other, we want to make mirror images of each other, just like that. Okay, good. Next step we’re going to go ahead and flip the penguin over and now we’re going to fold him in half from the left hand side over to the right hand side.

Go ahead and pick up the whole sheet and flip the paper over and hopefully, you can find that same crease line that we made on the first step. Go ahead and fold that back in the other direction. So I’m going to fold that over like that. Next we’re going to take this bottom corner and we’re going to fold it up along this line. So go ahead and fold it where it lines up so this edge is going to line up along itself. It’s going to line up on that own edge right there.

And make sure that it sticks out enough, this is the length of your tail, so if you want a really small tail, you can fold it where it comes out a little bit. If you want a bigger tail, you could fold it up a little bit farther. But right about here is good, for what I use. There we go. Now we’re going to open that up and instead of having it be just a valley fold, we’re going to make what’s called an inside reverse fold.

So go ahead and open the model up to right here and you’ll see that V right here. That peak is what we want to make mountain folds out of, so go ahead and keep this crease. The left hand side crease will sort of already be going in that direction, but the right hand side, it’s going to want to fold that way. But we want to change the crease and fold it back the opposite direction.

So now we’re going to make the other side as a mountain fold as well, and when we do that, you see when we refold the model back down, we flatten it back down, what happens is this little triangle section has now been pushed inside and it’s now coming out the other end. And you’ll see that little black tail stick out right there.

Great, next we’re going to make the head. So go ahead and take a little bit of the paper and fold it over enough where you have a beak for where you want the head to stick out from the penguin. We’re going to do the exact same thing. We’re going to make a reverse fold. This one’s called an outside reverse fold, where when you open it up, we’re going to bring this forward, so that when it re-collapses, the head is now completely colored and it’s covering on both sides.

So I’ll show you that one more time. Instead of just folding it over like this, we open it up and we find that V again, and we make both of them pinch this direction, and when you do that it’ll fall back together when you flatten it in half, and that makes the point. Now for the penguin to make the beak less pointy, you can fold in just a little bit of paper like that or if you want you could even have a pleat fold right here, where you go back and forth and that it’ll make it even more prominent of a little beak.

And you can open it up and then move that, you can zigzag that forward and back, and that gives you a little beak right there for the penguin. Another thing you can do if you’d like is you can make little flippers here. Like to fold these out, and then fold them back down, make a little pleat fold right like that, it sort of gives him little arms or wings. And the same thing on this side, sort of to however you think it looks good. You can shape him to taste and that is an origami penguin.

Transcript

So these are the instructions for an origami panda.

So for the origami panda, go ahead and grab a sheet of paper. We’re going to start with a book fold. So go ahead and start with the color side up, and we are going to fold that one side of the bottom all the way up to the top. And make sure that they’re nice and lined up so that they’re even and there’s nothing extra on there. And then flatten it out and give it a good crease. And then we’re going to open it up and rotate it over.

And what we’re going to do is we’re going to fold this top edge down along that center line. And we’re going to do that on the top side, on the top left, and we’re also doing it on the top right. So go ahead and fold this down, right where it meets the center. But the one thing we want to do is to make this so that there’s a tiny sliver of color in the middle. So I’ll show you what this looks like when we get done. It’s going to look like this. So there will be an intentional little black sliver right there, and that little bit right there, that’s going to be the nose that we’re going to have. So it’s important that we have it where it’s a little bit apart but they both meet right on that line.

Go ahead and flip it over. And then we’re going to take these other two corners, and we’re going to fold these down exactly onto that center line. So this is where these, there’s going to be no extra spot here. That’s going to fit right into the center, right up against each other, just like that.

Next, we’re going to flip it over, and we’re going to fold this edge right here into the center. And what happens is, you’ll notice, right when I was doing this, that black panel’s going to pop out. And that’s all right. We want to leave that panel out. So go ahead and fold this right into the center line and leave that panel coming out. So I’m going to fold the same thing over here, where this comes over into the center. And there’s just a little bit where they meet right in the middle; there’s no extra space right in there.

Next, we’re going to take this top point, and we’re going to fold it all the way down. And what it’s going to do is it’s going to divide this whole square in half. Fold it down like that. Next, we’re going to fold this triangle. Fold it down so that this edge right here, this flat side right here, is going to lie on that line. And it goes up to that spot where this triangle forms. We’re going to do that on both sides.

And then we’re going to open those back up, and we’re going to do what’s called a squash fold. We’re going to open this flap up so that, using these creases, we’re going to make this a mountain fold right here. And it squashes the whole thing down. So it started over here like this, and we squash this down along those lines. So open this up again, over here, and we’ll do the same thing on this side. And push it down where it squashes over to that side, just like that.

Next, we’re going to fold it up, like that. These are going to be the ears. We’re going to fold these two up on both sides, just like that. Next, we’re going to unfold this entire flap. So we had it down here like this with the ears. We’re going to unfold the whole thing, and now, we’re going to make a little kite fold. We’re going to fold this edge over. And it’s from this center line, right here, where we folded this down, that’s where that starts. And it comes down, and it just gives us enough so that this line right here, think about that as being in a straight line across the edge. So do that on the left side and the right side, like that.

And now we’re going to make a little tuck. We’re going to take that little bit, and so it’s not so pointed, we’re going to fold it behind, just a little bit. And that’s going to make the eyes of the panda, just like that.

And once we have that, we’re going to refold this back down. And you can see the ears pop back up again, like that. Flip the entire panda over, and then fold this top bar down as far as it goes so that you still have this top point sticking up. We just fold this down from corner to corner. That’s how far down it’s going to go, like that. And flip it back over.

And next, we’re going to fold the bottom up about to there. There’s no exact spot, but we fold it up to there, and then, when you bring this back down, that’s where you’ll see the nose come out on the panda. And what’s nice about this is if you can get this to tuck under. That’ll keep that panel locked in underneath the nose, like that.

And the next step, we’re just going to round the face a little bit. So go ahead and fold this backwards a little bit. That’ll lock in the face, and that’ll also make it a little bit more round. We’ll do that on the left-hand side and the right-hand side, just enough for however it looks good for you, however you like it.

And that is the origami panda face.

Transcript

This is a video to make an origami bunny box. The first step for the origami bunny balloon is a book fold. So we’re going to start with the color side up, go ahead and make a book fold, so it’s going to go from the bottom edge up to the top. Make sure it’s nice and lined up,and it’s very precise, and then squish that down. Open it up and then rotate it. We’re going to do the other as well, the other book fold. We’re going to have both of those book folds.

Open that up, flip it over and now we’re going do two diagonal folds. So take the bottom corner all the way up to the top, and again, be as precise as you can with these. Slide your finger down and then go out to the edge, and out to the edge this way. Open it up, and then finally do the last diagonal fold, slide your hand down out to both sides like that. Now keep that last one folded down and then pick it up in the air, and put your fingers right here right at the top of these creases.

And what we’re going to do is we’re going to take both of these creases and we’re going to bring them up together, so that all four of your fingers touch right here at the top, and what that does is that makes a water bomb base. And you can see once you get right here, you can just flatten everything over. So as it comes up right here like this, you can flatten it where two flaps are on each side, and squish it and flatten it down like that. We’re not making any new creases.

We’re just taking the folds that we already have and we’re positioning them in a different way then they were before just like that. Once you have this on the top side, the front side what we’re going to do is we’re going to take this corner. We’re going to fold it up all the way to the top just like that, and do the same hing on this side. Make sure that you don’t get both flaps, just get one. Just take that top flap and fold it all the way up.

Next we’re going to take the outside corner of this little square right there. We’re going to fold it into the middle. We’re going to do that on the left and also on the right like that. Next there’s these two extra flaps right here. We’re going to fold them down, so that that top point it also goes exactly into the middle of the paper. Let’s get both of those flaps right into the middle of the paper. Then next we’re going to pick up that little triangle flap.

Make sure that you don’t let this open up all the way out to there. We want to make sure that this stays flattened down. We’re going to fold it over this triangle flap, just fold that little tab all the way over, and we’re going to do that on both sides. And right now I get to show you way we did that. What’s going to happen, this is actually going to be a tab that’s going to go inside of this pocket. You see that little space right there, between those two sheets of paper?

That’s where we want to take this tab. We want to feed right in there in between those two, and push it all the way in and flatten it back down and it secures it. It makes a really nice lock right there and the same thing on the other side. This is going to hold a lot of things down. So both of those sides are now locked in, tucked inside that tab right there.

Next step we’re going to flip the paper all the way over and we’re going to do two kite folds. We’re going to take this edge right here, the two top points of this pyramid we’re going to fold them down to line up on the middle line like so. So both of these are going to come down the left and the right like that, and these two flaps, these are going to be the ears for the bunny.

What’s going to happen we’re going to take this and we’re going to fold it up and out, and there’s’ a couple of landmarks that I want you to take note of. First of all when we fold it up, we don’t fold it up just like this. We want to fold as much of the paper as we can, without ripping that little corner right there, this one right here, so fold it up pretty high. Then the other landmark is we want to make a perpendicular right angle.

You can see here with these lines that I’ve got here on the grid, you see how these two angles, that’s the angle we want to add. So not higher up like this or not too much farther down like that, but right where they come at a right angle right there, and do the same thing on the other side like that. Finally we’re going to take this edge, this point right here, and we’re going to make a kite fold with it going into the center line as well.

So this whole flap is going to come up and go into the middle. You see how that edge right there, that’s the part that lines up on the middle, and we do that on the other side as well. Give that a good squish, and now, we’re going to inflate the balloon. So the way we do that, open it up, if you look at it from the top you can see how it’s making a plus sign right there.

Well, you want to make sure that you don’t pinch it flat like this or there will be no place for the air to go. So you want to make sure that you have it open, so that you have space for the air to go into from this side and this is the front of the bunny. You can see sort of right here right now, that’s where the front is. So that’s the spot that has the opening and that’s where you want to put in the air.

So go ahead and pull it aside and very gently put some air inside of the bunny. It might take a couple of times to sort of inflate him all the way, but try to make sure that you don’t just blow at it from over there. You actually have to put your mouth on it and then put the air inside the balloon.There we go, and then once you have that, it’ll pop open. We have a ice little bunny box just like this and that is the origami bunny box.

Transcript

These are the instructions for an Origami wallet.

So for this Origami wallet, I’m going to use 6 inch paper, but if you want one that’s more life size, you might want to use 12 or even a little bit larger. This will be a smaller version of the wallet.

The first step, go ahead and pick a sheet and then start with the color side up, and we’re going to fold a book fold where you want the bottom edge to go all the way up to the top edge. And make sure they line up nice and precisely. So once they get right on the right spot, go ahead and make a good crease across the bottom, and open that up.

Now we’re going to do the other book fold as well. So go ahead and take the bottom edge on the other side, and fold it up. That’s going to give us a good plus sign in the middle of the paper. We can find out exactly where the middle of the paper is.

Next we’re going to flip it over, looking at the white hand side, and we’re going to fold two corners at the top. We’re going to make two blintz folds where those two corners are going to come exactly into the middle of the paper. Again you want to be nice and precise, as accurate as you can be, so that they’re right up next to each other, but they’re not overlapping at all, like that.

Next we’re going to take the bottom edge right here, and fold it up to meet those corners right up like this. So there should be little to no white showing. You want all the colors on top there.

Next open these two flaps up, right like this, and we’re going to now fold those two flaps into the middle, just like this. They’re going to lie right on that line that we created when we folded this down. So we open it up,fold it down right onto that line. Do the best you can to try and make this so that they don’t slide over too much, just try and get them where they come straight into that center line.

Next we’re going to do a kite fold, so go ahead and take the top edge right here, and right here. We’re going to rotate that over, so that it lines up, right on that line we created with the blintz fold. So fold that down, come over to the other side, and fold that one down as well, just like that.

Next step, we’re going to rotate those down one more time. They’re going to come down on both sides, like that. That’s usually in the crease we already created.

Next, flip the entire wallet over and we’re going to fold these two points, these two edges right there. We’re going to fold those into the middle. Go ahead and rotate that over. Fold that down, see how it lines up right on that middle line, like that. Right over like that.

Next step, after we fold these two guys in, we’re going to take this bottom edge, and we’re going to fold it up. And there should be a good line right there already developed, we can fold that right on and it should end up right at the base of this triangle right there.

And then lastly we’re going to fold this triangle down over the top. Just like this, there’s a couple of flaps of paper there, but that’s alright. Go ahead and fold that down over the top of it. And what that’s going to do, once that flap is down there, we’re going to open up these two flaps right here and tuck that triangle inside those two flaps of paper.

Once that happens you can see, we’ve created an entire billfold. You can fold it in half. It makes a nice little wallet, just like that. It opens up, and that’s where you’d put the bills.

And that is an Origami wallet.

Transcript

So these are the instructions for making an origami flapping crane.

For the origami flapping crane, we’re going to start with a sheet of paper with the color side up. We’re going to begin with a diagonal fold. So the diagonal fold, we’re going to take the bottom corner. We’re going to fold it all the way up to the top, and make sure that it lines up so that the points are right on each other instead of having one a little bit off to the side either way. Just make sure it’s nice and exact, and hold it down with one finger, and then slide down to the bottom so that it’s nice and flat. Hold it in place with your thumb, and then slide out to one corner, and then slide out to the other corner. And that should give you nice, sharp corners for a diagonal fold. Open it up, and then we’re going to do one more diagonal fold in the opposite direction, like that.

Next, flip the paper over. We’re going to take the bottom edge, and we’re going to fold it up to the top edge. This is called a book fold. So with this book fold, again, we want to be as precise as we can before we make a nice crease. Open it back up, and then we’re going to do the other book fold as well. And after we get that last book fold, go ahead and pick up the model. Leave that book fold there. We’re going to pinch right on the top point next to these diagonal lines right here. We’re going to hold it, pinch it right there, and then we’re going to rotate the model up so that all four corners touch each other at the same spot.

And once that happens, go ahead and flatten the model down. This is called a square base, or a preliminary base, in origami. We haven’t made any new folds on that at all. We’ve just reorganized the ones we’ve already made. So go ahead and flatten that down, and find the spot that’s got the extra flaps, like this. There’s one spot that’s going to be locked in, and that’s the top of the model. We want to look at where the bottom is with the open flaps and have that towards you.

Then we’re going to make two kite folds. We’re going to take this edge right here and this edge right here, and we’re going to fold both of those into the middle of the paper, right up against that middle line, on the left side, also the right side. It should terminate right down to a nice point right here at the bottom. Right there. And fold the top point all the way down over the top of them, just like that.

We’re going to rotate. We’re going to turn the entire model over. And now we’re going to fold these two kite folds into the middle here, as well. So again, both of these going into the middle line but not overlapping like that.

Now, all those folds that we just made, those are preliminary folds so that we can do what’s called a petal fold. So unfold these two flaps, and what we’re doing is we’re going to try and isolate this one flap of paper, just the one sheet right here, and I’m going to use my other finger to sort of lock the other two down on the table, on the flat surface. And we’re going to pick up this flap all the way up to the top. And as you watch when I do that, these two outside edges naturally want to move in, which is good, because we’ve already made this crease right here, so we have a crease for them to just fall naturally into.

And when this happens, we can flatten the whole model while stretching this top flap all the way up so it lies flat on the table. This is again called a petal fold, and it starts down here like this, and we pick the whole thing up and then flatten the model down. And we’re going to do this petal fold also on the back, so flip it over. Pick up that triangle. Open up these two flaps, and fold the flap back down. And then pick up just one sheet of paper, and pick it all the way up to the top, again, stretching it all the way up until the other two sides want to come in and flatten down. And this is called the bird base that we’ve got right here. It’s got these two open spots. This is going to be our head and our tail for the crane.

So this right here is the bird base. What we’re going to do is, now I’m going to fold one flap from the right hand side all the way over to the left hand side. Just like that. You’ll see now this triangle shows up here in the middle. After we do that, we flip the whole thing over and then do it one more time. So we take one flap from the right. We fold it all the way over to the left, and that’s going to give us these two flaps here at the top, and then two flaps on either side on the bottom.

Next step, I’m going to pinch right here on the model, so that I can isolate this flap. And see how I can get that to move back and forth a little bit, and it rotates all the way across? I’m going to pinch this, and I’m going to rotate it over just so that it lines up along this line. So it’ll line up right here with the bottom of the wing. So I go ahead and pinch on this side now. I’m going to do the same thing over here. I’m going to rotate this over, and when I get it right where I want it to be, I’m going to flatten it down. So I had it up here at the top, and then I’ve rotated it down and squished it flat.

Next, I’m going to pick up both of the wings. So I pick one up on the front side, and then flip it over and pick one up on the back side, like that. Next, I’m going to pick one side to be the head and one side to be the tail.

On this model, I think I want to use this side as the head, so what I’m going to do is I’m going to take my thumb, I’m going to open it up. There’s two flaps in there. I’m going to open it up, and I’m going to push down until it goes all the way through to the bottom and reverses the fold. That’s called an inside reverse crease. So I’m going to push it down. It comes all the way down, just like that. So that’s the entire base for the flapping crane.

Next, we’re going to curl the wings, and the really important part is when we take the wing, we want to curl it towards the head. So don’t curl it just straight down. Try to curl it over to the side towards the wing. So I just pinch the wing right here, and I twist it over towards the head, and I sort of pull it over towards the head. Don’t go farther than this point right here, or else you might rip it a little bit. But it’ll have just a nice little light gentle curve towards the head, and I want to do that on the front and also on the back. So both of these wings will have a curl towards the head. And if you look at it from the head on, you can see how it’s go the wings just a little lightly curled towards the head.

After that, I’m going to pinch right here where at the base of the head and the neck, and it’s going to have a little bit of a wing pinched right there. I’m going to grab the tail. Now, in order to make this work, you might have to pull a little bit harder than you think you want to, and it might feel like you will rip the paper, but if you do it really carefully, you shouldn’t rip the paper.

So in order to make the crane flap, what we’re going to do is, we’re going to pinch right at the base of the head where the wings are curved towards, and then we’re going to grab the tail, and I’m going to pull the tail out of it’s socket this direction. It’s not just going to rotate up and down. We’re actually going to pull it out of it’s socket. And you may feel like you might rip the paper, but do it as slow as you can and really careful until it establishes itself, and then the paper will be fine.

Just go ahead and take this and pull it just a little bit, just like that, and see how it popped out? And then after, make some tiny adjustments. And then after that, you can pull it up as much as you want, and you have a flapping crane.

Transcript

So these are the instructions for an origami lotus flower.

So for the origami lotus flower we’re going to start with a blintz fold. In order to get the blintz fold we have to find the exact center of the paper.

So, we’re going to fold a diagonal crease. So, make sure that it’s nice and exact where you can see the two points are right on top of each other and just make a little tack right here. You don’t’ have to make the whole crease, just make a little mark so that little crease shows up.

I’m going to do the same thing on the other side. Go ahead and find the other diagonal fold, get it nice and lined up and then just make a little crease right there. The only part that’s important is right where they intersect. That’s the exact middle of the paper.

Now we’re going to take all four corners and we’re going to fold those into the center of that intersection.

So, go all the way around and fold up to the center of the intersection.

And this is a blintz space when we fold it the first time.

Now, we’re actually going to do a second blintz space as well. So, we’re going to take all four of these new corners and fold them into that center and work that all the way around.

This is called a double blintz space. Just like that.

Now after you’ve done that, the next space is a triple blintz space. So we’re going to do it one more time.

Go for all four corners, fold those into the middle. Again the papers going to start getting a little thick here but that’s okay.

Go ahead and get that all the way up.

It is helpful if they don’t touch so that they don’t overlap on the edges. It’ll make it a little bit simpler for you, like that.

And now flip the whole thing over and we’re going to do one more blintz space and this is after we’ve folded the paper over. So it’s going in the opposite direction.

So that is the fourth blintz space that we’ve done on that sheet of paper. And it does get a little thick here and it does get a little tiny.

So after we’ve done the fourth blintz space, we folded those all up, we’re going to fold one corner and this is the hardest step here. It really doesn’t want to do it. Just fold one corner down about halfway. This is not going all the way into the middle. This is just coming down just about that far. And the papers not going to be too happy about it. But this will still work, just like that.

Now when you flip it over, you’ll see these four shapes and these are going to be the petals for the lotus flower.

Now the step that we’re going to do, if you’re not careful you can actually rip the paper. So try and be as careful as you can with this. We’re going to flip them all inside out. We’re going to wrap them around the other direction.

And the way this works, it’s helpful to push and provide pressure on these two points right here as you try to flip it around. So go ahead and give it a shot.

We’re going to push on both sides and once the paper comes around, you get it around that corner; it’ll turn around like this. Just like that.

You can see, you can push in a little bit and pull out some of that paper that’s tucked in under there and you see how that comes up and that creates that nice petal right there.

Now there’s’ a couple ways you can do that just by rotating and pushing it all the way through. You can also unfold a couple of these things. Its’ a little bit more complicated and then sort of wrapping it around and re-maneuvering it back, like that.

Whatever works for you. So try and be as careful as you can so that you don’t rip the paper.
So, we’re going to do that eight times all the way around the model, just like this. Pick it up, push it through, wrap it around.

Sometimes it’s too hard to try and unfold some of the paper so you sort of have to get this all to flip inside out as carefully as you can.

Okay, so those are the four to start off with.

Then for the next set of four, what can be helpful is to fold it in half a little bit so that you lessen the amount of stress around the outside and when you do that it’s easier to pull it around to the top, like that. I’m sort of pinching right here in order to lessen the stress for getting this to wrap around and turn inside out.

So the second set of four a little bit easier then the first set of four.

Wrap that around, and then the last step, go ahead and open this up on the bottom and that’ll give you a little bit of some leaves on the bottom. You flip it over and these are all the petals so you can curl them as much as you want in any direction.

But this is the origami lotus flower.

In order to get a colored version of the lotus flower just start with the paper the opposite direction and then do all the same folds.

This makes a white one as I showed you on the back side.

Transcript

This is a video for an origami box. To start with we’re going to use one sheet of paper that’s going to be with the white side up and I’m going to use a diagonal fold. So just go ahead and get all the corners to line up here, so the top two corner where it’s not to the side, but right on top of it. Go ahead and make a diagonal crease all the way across, nice sharp corners there. Open it back up and then do the other diagonal as well.

What this is going to do, is this is going to tell us where the exact center of the paper is. That X right there, should be nice and calculated to the center of the paper. So what we’re going to do now is called a blintz base. We’re going to take all four corners of the paper and we’re going to fold them into that exact middle, and you want to be as precise as you can with this one. So get each of those where they line up right on there, as best you can. Try not to bother the neighbors as we say, so that you don’t have the paper folded up on top of each one. It should be just butted right up next to them.

Do that on all four corners and that is called a blintz base. Now after you have that we’re going to do what’s called a cabinet fold. We’re going to take both edges of the paper and we’re going to fold them into the center. I’ll show you what it sort of looks like the way cabinet or cupboard doors open up, once you get both of those edges to butt up right into the middle, sort of like a cabinet door just like that. Now once we have that we fold it, and then unfolded it, and now we’re going to open up the top and the bottom flaps.

So go ahead and keep the left and the right in place, and then once we open this back up fold this two back in, using the same crease line we just made just like that. Great, the next step we’re going to do two diagonal folds that are going to line up right on the edges of this white square. So you see how the white turns into the blue right there. I’m going to fold this over right along that line, and when you do, what should line up is this edge right here, this crease should line up right along that center line. And this point right here, where it changes, should line up right along that top line.

We’re going to do it one way, open it up, and then do it the other way as well just like that. We’re going to do that on the left side and then also the right hand side. So we fold it over, as far as we can right up like that, and then the other one comes up as well. All right, so all those creases give us everything we need to make the box. What’s going to happen is I’m going to take these two panels that were the cupboard doors. We’re going to pick them up a little bit, so that they come up at a 90 degree angle, so that they come right up straight up into the air.

And now I’m going to take this back panel and I’m going to pick it up into the air just like this, and you see how we’re using these creases that we already made, it makes a little panel right here, this little flap and we can fold that down right over the top, and that’ll lock all the folds we made right into place. And we do the same thing on the other side. So what happens is these two spots right here, these two triangles sort of fold down, as we bring this panel up. You see how everything lines up there nice and even.

And then we fold this panel right over the top, and try to get as much paper folded over the top of it as you can, to lock it into place. You should have most of the creases you need, in order to make that happen, so follow all the creases you already have and that right there gets you a easy origami box. And what you can do to make it a gift box is make one with just a little bit of a smaller sheet of paper or just a little bit of a bigger sheet of paper, and the two will fit right on top of each other, and that’ll give you an origami box.

Transcript

These are instructions for an origami bow. The first step on this is we’re going to make a diagonal fold with the white side up and then the color will show. Make sure that you get it exactly on that corner, so that it doesn’t go off to the one side. You can’t see the other side of the paper, just make it where it’s precisely on there. Slide your finger down and then go out to the corners, and that should give you a really nice diagonal fold. Open it back up, rotate it, and we’re going to do the exact same thing one more time, so this is both of the diagonal folds, it’ll give you a nice cross right there in the middle.

Go ahead and flip the paper over and now we’re going to do a book fold. The book fold is where you take the bottom edge of the paper up to the top edge of the paper just like that. And this will be with the white on the outside this time. First one, open it up and then do the opposite one, so if you went from the top to the bottom, now we’re just going to go side to side just like this. Nice and lined up like that. Now once you have that last one, go ahead and leave that fold there. What I’m going to show you is a step to make a square base or a preliminary base as it’s sometimes called.

And it’s right on this edge I’m going to pinch right here near the top of the corners, and then what we’re going to do is we’re going to rotate those corners together, so that they all touch. And then using the creases that we’ve already made we’re not going to be making any new creases at all, go ahead and flatten the paper down. And if you look at it from the top, you can see how it’s two flaps on each side, so instead of having three on one side like that, you have two on each side just like that, great.

Now working on the next step we want to make sure that these flaps are at the bottom towards you, so these are the open parts and then there’s this one part up here at the top here that’s closed. What we’re going to do is we’re going to take that closed point, and we’re going to fold it down. Now there’s no actual mark for this. I’d say right about that far, so it’s not all the way down here and it’s not just a tiny one, but it’s enough to go about that far. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to sink this triangle right here.

And the way you sink is instead of folding it in front or folding it behind, we’re actually going to fold it inside the middle of the paper. It’s actually going to fall down into the center of the base. So the way to do that, we’re going to open all the folds back up, and look at it from the top, and what you can see is there’s this nice little square that we’ve made by that fold. Go ahead and make each of the lines of that square, give it a good pinch right on that line. It’s called a mountain fold, because the way the paper’s oriented it’s going to make that peak. It’s going to make a mountain.

So find each side of that square and fold it down a little bit, and now what we’re going to do is we’re going to recreate that square base that we made, when we put all the corners together like that. We’re going to recreate it while pushing down on this center, and you see how I’m going to sort of pinch with my fingers, and bring those two sides together and the whole thing collapses down with that corner on the inside. You can see right here, how it’s been pushed inside that base just like that. Next step we’re going to take this edge and bring it into the middle.

So the way that works is like this. This is called a kite fold, so this spot right here we’re going to take that edge, and it lines right up onto that middle line, right like that. Do that on all four of these flaps, the two on the front and the two on the back. And you see how it’s also making a nice parallel line right here, so we’re not going to fold it where it gets a lot thicker at the bottom or where it gets really thin up to the point. It’s nice. It’s the same thickness all the way across.

So we fold it there, flip it over and here as well, and these should match up with the ones right behind them just like that. Great, now the next step, one of my favorites this is going to be an open squash. What’s going to happen is we’re going to take this top panel right here and while holding, there’s two sides. It’s equal on both sides, because it’s symmetrical. It’s got this one and this one, they’re exactly the same. Take one side and keep it flat on the table. Take the other side, we’re going to pick it up all the way up, and flatten it down at the top.

And you see what happens is it spreads out this little square here at the top, right in the middle of the entire model, that little square opens up once we flatten it. So it was down here like this, and we picked the whole thing up and we flattened that little square right in the middle. The next step is we’re going use some scissors. So go ahead and grab a nice pair of scissors and we’re going to make a few cuts. Now it’s really important to know exactly where we’re going to cut on this. It’s going to be on this edge right here, but not all the way into the middle of the paper, just right up to where my finger hits it.

So this edge right here, up against there, we’re going to cut that. We’re going to cut that the same thing on the other side. So I’ll show you with the scissors, you can kind of see how the paper zigzags back and forth right there? Right at the top of this first zigzag, that’s what we’re going to cut. Make one little snip into the middle. We’re going to do that all the way around. So it’ll be four cuts total, all the way up to here and on the other side.There we are, go ahead and put the scissors aside.

What we’re going to do is this flap now becomes free, after we’ve cut it open like that. Go ahead and fold it down just like that. And you can see how both of these are now open and sort of flapped in the air like this. What we’re going to do next is we’re going to make two kite folds. We’re going to make it right here on the top edge. Take it about this square right here the white square, we’re going to make two kite folds, with these outside edges into the middle. So go ahead and take this outside edge, fold it up into the middle like that, and then on the other side as well.

And if you do all that on the left, then we’re going to do that on the right. Now the last step we’re going to use with the scissors, is we’re going to take the scissors and we’re going to cut both sheets of this paper. These are the bows on the outside edge, we’re going to make two ribbons that are right here. Cut them all the way from the bottom point, up into the middle of the paper, and try to do it right on that line, get it right up, to right there.

Next step we’re going to fold these over and it’s about like this, there’s no real guideline for where that’s going to fold. But take both sheets of paper fold them over about halfway, so it’s not all the way up to the top, it’s about halfway up. Do it on the left, also on the right, and now flip the entire thing over. You can start to see a little bit of how the bow’s going to look. We’ve got one more step though. What we’re going to do is we’re going to thin this outside edge right here.

And the way we do that, I’m going to pick up the paper a little bit and you see how I’m folding from the bottom edge right up to the top edge? That’s going to make that nice and thin, and then this extra paper that’s right here, I’m going to fold it up to this top point right there. So the paper started out like this and you see how all those lines right there, sort of lead together where this is going to get pushed up like that. It’s a swivel fold. See how the paper swivels underneath and then tucks under, up to that spot to give you that look on the bow, and do the same thing on the other side.

So we’re going to pick it up just a little bit. Fold that flap over to the outside edge, we’ll line it up to the top, squash it back down, and that gets us all set for the last step. We’re going to take these two corners of the bow, get them nice and round and we’re going to tuck them into that little pocket right there underneath. There’s a nice little pocket in the center of that square spot, and once those two get tucked in that creates the final bow right like that. That’s the origami bow.