Sunday, December 07, 2008

handmade christmas: stackable oragami stars tutorial

I saw these oragami stars on the Zen Crafting site (via Craftzine), and was immediately set on adding them to my oragami Christmas decorations. Unfortunately, I could find no tutorial. But instead of giving up, I persevered, devoting a good chunk of time to fiddling around with oragami paper, and finally got the process figured out. Turns out they're so very easy to make, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity for a first tutorial from yours truly. Try it out!



You will need 5 pieces of oragami paper. Any size will do.


Fold each paper in half and then into quarters.


Now fold each into eighths, by folding down the open corner diagonally.




You should end up with 5 triangles.



Open one of the open corners, and slip the open corner of another piece inside. The two pieces will now share a fold. This step isn't as complicated as it might sound -- just fiddle around with the papers for a while until you get something that looks like the picture below.



Keep adding pieces in this way. When you get to the fifth piece, insert the open corners of the first piece into the open corners of the fifth to close up the star. You can add a dab of glue to the open corners to keep them from flapping around.

2 comments:

  1. Oooh, your stars turned out so beautifully!! What kind of paper did you use?

    I'm sorry that you weren't able to find the tutorial I posted, but it looks like you found a much simpler method! The folding instructions I followed were much more complicated. Check them out at http://zencrafting.blogspot.com/2008/12/origami-star-tutorial.html.
    I got them from the Aitoh Origami paper pack. I'm definitely going to try your method. I also saw a way to fold the stars with one sheet of paper in a book I thumbed through at Borders. The rectangular paper should be in the proportions of 1 to 3 (e.g. 1 in by 3 in, 4 in by 12 in, etc.), and it's folded into triangles basically the way you did it.

    Thanks for visiting my site and linking to it!!

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  2. Dear Michelle,
    The Xmas Stars are so cute, I love them!!!
    Thanks for your tutorial!!!
    Kind regards,
    Carine

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