Showing posts with label octahedron. Show all posts
Showing posts with label octahedron. Show all posts

12/23/2015

Origami top star - or at least I tried!

Yesterdays several attempts to make a sort of oversize octahedron star to put in the top of our small and over prized Christmas tree, resulted in one star that was too soft and fragile, one that didn't stay in shape because the paper was too plastic coated, and one that was almost impossible to make, because the paper was too thick. But still, they were kind of pretty, I suppose.


The small one is the one from the other day, made in 15 x 15 centimetres paper. The white one with gold leaf paint, was the one that was veeeery hard to fold, because the paper was so heavy - it's made in 30 x 30 centimetres scrapbooking paper from the hobbyshop, because I didn't have any A3.

But the gold paint looks rather nice. If you want to decorate the tips on this kind of star, you should do it when you have done all the horizontal and diagonal folds, but before you do the last folds - like this:



This size of paper makes a star about 11 centimetres in diameter. I found it a bit too small for the tree, and started digging in my wrapping paper supplies, and found some paper from IKEA and some from the Tiger Stores, that looked festive. I made 45 x 45 centimetres squares for the large ones, and the finished star is about 17 centimetres in diameter.

These had a nice size, but upscaling origami is always hard. It is as if the larger surfaces become too heavy and pull the paper in all the wrong directions. But I managed two large stars that didn't fall totally apart:

And finally, after much wiggling and twisting - and taping a pencil to the top of the tree - I managed to top our odd looking little tree (it has clusters of crooked branches with too much air in between and was insanely expensive) with this one! 

So a merry merry 'Lillejuleaften' (= Little Christmas Eve) as we say in Denmark, to all of you out there.






12/20/2015

Christmas Origami: Octahedron Star

These are my newest origami favorites, they are really pretty, but not half as tricky to make as one might think. They are the kind you end up inflating by blowing air into them, just like the cubes and the easter bunnies I have shown here before. And they have much in common with both the cubes and the bunnies, so if you have tried them, these are easy.

This time I didn't make my own tutorial, because I found a great video, where you will learn this in five minutes, and every step is very easy to understand. So let me guide you there:

Stellated Octahedron tutorial on PaperKawaii.com

BUT - this is important: In this tutorial, they tell you to start with the pattern side down (or 'white side up' as it says) - I find that to be an error, this design should be folded, starting with the pattern side UP! Otherwise, the tutorial is great.

I wanted to make some hanging ornaments for the tree from these, and thought that some red and white would be great - and again I made a paper design that enhances the form of the finished origami: here the tips of the stars, or the folds between them. The small ones above are made from various shop bought 15 x 15 cm. papers, and I made you some 20 x 20 cm. papers with two kinds of patterns: graphic stripes and stars and another one with a kind of dip-dye design, like the red one with the faded white tips.

Download origami papers for octahedron stars: Christmas red/white stars and stripes2021: New location for downloads, go here for the red/white designs:  A  /  B  /  C


Download origami papers for octahedron stars: Dip-dye in three colors
2021: New location for downloads, go here for the dip-dye designs:  A  /  B  /  C