Flat Fun Friday

As you know, I'm very fond of making Fröbel Stars, so much in fact, that I dedicated a lot of hours, trying to describe and demonstrate as many variants as I know, in this post, an absolute go-to spot for Fröbel enthusiasts. 

Because I like making them, I buy lots of those ready made strips, that are so abundantly available in the Christmas season here in Denmark. They come in so many pretty patterns and colors, and I have amassed quite a boxful. 

So, I like to play around with them, and come up with alternative ways of using them. These Flat Weave Stars I originally made in 2013. Back then I made special color/pattern strips for them (you can still download and use those, of course). 

The ones in these photos, I made last night, from some of the different Fröbel strips I had. Because a Fröbel star needs four strips, you eften end up with 'leftovers' in certain designs, and these are just made from a mix of whatever was there.

For each of these you'll need eight half length strips. 

Here is the original post from 2013, with a photo tutorial on how to make them. Fun and easy!

The tutorial explains the very simple principle, and the easiest way to make them (the folded strips laid out flat on the table and then woven, hence the name). I made them with 2 x 4 strips, but you could make them larger, smaller, or not even square - experiment, and have a happy Advent 3rd!

Update - I made this last one, seen below, and I thought it might be nice to add that image as well.

As you can see, this was made with 2 x 6 strips, and you could make them very large, as long as the number is even, and the strips have a little extra length for maneuvering. They're quite fun to make!

It's Concertina Friday!

Today's blog throwback is all about concertina folding, as I like to call it. Something I like to do, even though it can be a bit fiddly to turn into a flat, round ornament - but with a bit of patience and practise it is super easy. It's perfect for gorgeous flowers and stars, I think, and it doesn't involve a lot of thinking or complicated folding sequences - all you have to do is make a whole lot of really, really sharp and even folds. 

The Solino Stars (top) and the Dip Dye Flowers (middle) are both from 2013. They both include a perfectly finished design to download, which you only have to print, cut and fold. Both blog posts have a few bits of practical advice on the how-to.

The Gold Stars (bottom) post from 2016 is a kind of tutorial in itself, explaining the easiest way to make something like this - tried and perfected by me, and it involves making a little tool for super quick and accurate folding. These gold ones are made from thin, glossy gift wrap, which I find particularly suited for this kind of folding.

Have a lovely weekend, everybody!

Japanese Quilt Stars

The Christmas project for you this weekend, are these cool stars. I named them Japanese Quilt Stars, because they look like the stars often used in traditional quilts - and I made you special print-and-cut paper sheets for these, with lots of Japanese vibe. 

They are surprisingly simple modular (6 unit) origami stars - not made from square papers, but from rectangular ones. I have made you some very easy to use sheets for printing and cutting, crop marked for your convenience. With my sheets a star like this is about 18 centimeters across.

My sheet-designs are for printing on both sides, because this design really displays both sides of the paper (and they have a very pretty and completely different looking backside....)

To print these sheets (four small sheets per A4, and you need six units for one star) on both sides, set the printer to print 'page 1 only'. Then grab your sheets from the 'out'-tray, turn them over, put them in the feed tray blank side up, and print again, this time set to 'page 2 only'. I do this all the time, because of my obsession with designing my own origami paper, which - of course - is so much nicer with print in two different designs.

Download my designs right here. I mixed them a lot, as you can see from the backsides, but just one pattern can be varied, in alternating between which pattern you face outwards, in the first fold. 

2021: I have a new location for my downloads, and they are now to be downloaded one page at a time, but for results like in my images, pair the designs like I have, one for the front, one for the back.
A: red waves and dots:  FRONT  /  BACK
B: blue arrows and squares:  FRONT  /  BACK
C: pink stripes and triangles:  FRONT  /  BACK
D: blue waves and diagonals:  FRONT  /  BACK
E: red snow and waves:  FRONT  /  BACK
F: blue stars and dots:  FRONT  /  BACK

Last but not least: the stars are really not hard to make at all, if you have just a little bit of origami experience, but I have not produced my own tutorial for these, since there is no way I could explain them as well as this patient Indian gentleman on YouTube. 

Go to the video tutorial on YouTube.

Happy folding, and have a great weekend.
 

Teeny Tiny

Anyone struggling with the Fröbel Stars, I wrote about the other day?

I just found these in a matchbox in one of our boxes of Christmas tinsel. They most likely are made by my husband's brother, who is not quite like most people, when it comes to doing crazy complicated things with paper and scissors. His Easter letters and woven Christmas hearts are also really something else! I simply cannot imagine how he managed to finish those little tips....??

Star Parade on December first

The Fröbel Star is a Christmas classic in Denmark (but comes from Germany, read about it here), and although actually a bit complex, it is something most older kids and almost all the rest of us - who haven't given up on such frivoluos pursuits - can actually make. The procedure is a bit mind-boggling, and I must admit that every year I have to at least peak at at tutorial, and then my fingers seem to remember the rest. 

It is a brilliant little construction, and it's made from four folded paper strips. Basically you lock them into a four legged wheel, and then you fold four tips from one side, turn over and fold the four opposite tips from the other side. Then you fold the middle 'knot' - also consisting of four tips, then turn over and fold the middle knot on the other side. So the work has two processes, that you repeat twice, once on each side. When you know what you are doing, a star takes you about five minutes. 

I will recommend that you get some of the pre-cut paper strips we always use in DK. They are available from craft/DIY/hobby webshops internationally, and are a flat pack little product you could order cheaply online to, I would guess, almost anywhere in the world. They come in all imaginable colours and prints - and the ones I have used here are 15, 20 and 24 mm. 

I did a little Google search for you...

So, that was a lot of words. And here's the thing: I have tried so many fun variations of these, that I decided to do this blog post dedicated to the Paper Strip Stars - in all the varieties I have tried.

First I will show you the Fröbel Star variations, and I will include links to the best tutorials and videos I have found, and they have all been tested. The examples I have folded for these photos, are made with only one middle knot finished, that way they are flat and easier to photograph. Such one-sided stars are, of course, also great for decorationg the table, gifts etc. - and you make them by simply not doing the middle bit on one side, and just cut off the excess strips.

THE BASIC FRÖBEL STAR

I posted something about these some Christmases ago, and included a rather poor tutorial - but I think I have found a much better one: It's from a place called www.danishthings.com and if you click on the image, you have a high res, very thorough photographic guide. Find it here.

If that one doesn't do it for you, I can recommend this one from Starfolds.dk.

FLAT FRÖBEL STARS

These I know in three variations. A: with the straight crossed middle / B: with the diagonally crossed middle and C: a fun variation, that looks different on each side.  

Starfolds explains A and B - in Danish, but with photos, and probably very google-translatable simple written instructions. 

The Craftables shows the C variation in English and with photos. 

FRÖBEL STAR WITH ROSEBUD MIDDLE
 

This very pretty variant, I have found on a danish blog as well - and there is a very detailed series of photos, but it's a slightly more tricky way to do the middle. Pay close attention to what happens in the photos, and you will get it right. I did! 

Find it here on www.papirfoldning.dk

FRÖBEL STAR WITH PYRAMID MIDDLE 

Actually the simplest way you can finish the middle tips, and almost considered cheating! But it looks nice too. Find the tutorial right here.

//

In the top image you may have noticed some stars that didn't quite look like the Fröbel Stars. I have included them, because they are fun, and you make them from the same pre-cut paper strips we all use in Denmark.

  

SOFT BOW STARS

These are made with three strips, and are very easy. See a great video right here!

BOXY STARS

These are a kind of variation of the ones above, but they come from a copyrighted e-book, so I won't share the tutorial here - BUT warmly recommend that you spend the 60 dkr / 10 dollars / 8 euro it costs, as I believe in supporting my fellow paper enthusiasts. It's in Danish but the tutorials are very well presented, and easy to follow.

Tina Dalbøge: Sløjfestjerner, Gavestjerner og Pynteæsker (e-book)

//

So, hoping I haven't exhausted you utterly already, I hope you are ready to get to work.

A great bit of advice, is to be patient at first - and remember that the principle of the Fröbel Star is such, that you sometimes happen to make a 'reversed' star (it depends on how you lock the first strips in place) - so if you can't seem to make the tutorial work, sometimes you simply need to reflect or flip the image (whether in your head, or in Photoshop) and try again. Did that make sense?

Now try for yourself! They are addictive and fun.

Golden Stars for a New Year

I made some golden stars for our New Year's Eve dinner table, and I made them from a scrap of very shiny, golden gift wrap that I had left. Thin, pliable gift wrap is just perfect for such zig zag folded stars, and if you follow my tutorial, I promise you, you can make a glamorous looking centerpiece like this (I made six large stars) in an hour or so. 

With these golden stars I wish you a truly happy new year, and thank you so much for visiting my blog. May peace and health be with you, may your boat sail on not too rocky seas.

And may stars twinkle for you and the ones you love!

Let's make it a fantastic 2017. 

Two in One origami Stars

I made you another little Christmas project. This year the paper DIY projects won't be as many as the other years (I'm busy with work deadlines etc.) - but I think that these clever origami stars are more than festive, and hope you will bear over with me!

I tried making these stars for the first time, not so long ago, and just liked how they have an outside and an inside - and decided to play around with that a bit. So I made these special papers, where the pattern is divided on the diagonal (see photo further below), so you can make two very different stars, from the same design. 

It is all explained in the tutorial I made - you can get that right here:  page 1  /  page 2  /  page 3

The stars you see here are made from the papers I made, and in some of them I have just mixed the different designs up. You do your own versions - download my papers right here!

 

2021: I have a new location for my downloads, please go here:
Design 1  /  Design 2  /  Design 3  /  Design 4  

The patterns look like this, and you will probably get the idea of how they work as insides / outsides, when looking at the pictures!

Hope you like them, and have some fun with them.

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.

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

Origami flashback: Katrine's tree

It has been a madly busy December for me - I started a new job just a few months ago, and that has been a great experience, but also something that has had the most of my attention, obviously. I do, however, sit in the evenings and empty my stressful head with origami. And tomorrow, fourth Sunday in Advent, of course I have another little DIY project for all of you out there, likewise inclined to find it detoxing, de-stressing and just plain cosy to sit and fold pieces of pretty paper. And tomorrow it will be more origami, because that is my favorite paper thing at the moment!

My fondness for origami started with an English teacher, Ellen, who laid the foundation for my love of the English language, who taught us that when in Australia you should always check your shoes before putting them on (for deadly spiders etc.) - and how to fold the classical crane, the tsuru.

For years it was the only origami I knew how to do, but the lately have I just started to browse for cool little origami things, that would work well as Christmas and Easter decorations, and that has been just such fun. It has turned into several things you can pick up here on this blog - check my full list of DIYs or my Pinterest paper design board.

Last years obsession was definitely these - and my friend Katrine really took that craze to the next level! She literally made hundreds of them, and made them in a very nice way, putting a bit of wire and some pearls through the paper form, a very pretty way of hanging them.

Let me show you her fabulous tree, dedicated to only origami, even the top star - and stay tuned for tomorrows origami project!

Think XXXL

I've been walking the streets of Copenhagen and Malmö these last few days, and have seen a lot of holiday decorations in the public spaces and in all the shop windows. I have some absolute favorites, and as I was checking them out in my camera roll, I saw that they have something in common: they use some little ordinary thing, and just blow it up to XXXL!

Check the paper loops in Cph dress maker Stasia's shop - they are just brilliant, I think! Paper loops are like a low ranking Christmas tinsel variety: any kid can do them (and does). I still think they are kind of cute, and in giant size and gold foil, they just look plain glamorous.

After the loops: Enormous baubles (the big ones are crazy big - like almost a meter in diameter!) outside Cph department store Magasin. The one insanely big lamp, that sits in the middle of Malmö's small square every Christmas - and in the last photo: giant, gleaming nylon stars filled with air, in Malmö's Central Station. Beautiful.

Superstar

The last four days have been non stop activities and driving around for visits and shopping, but now all we need to do is trim the tree and sleep late and eat a slightly unhealthy breakfast in our pajamas. And here is what I made last night.

If you have some time over for a little crafting project today why don't you make one as well? It's a stripey superstar! I made a woven top star for the tree a few years ago, which have been used since, but we have a really giant tree this year, so I felt like making a new, slightly more outrageous one. And I just looove red/white stripes.

You download these two designs - one for the star center and one for the star beams.

(here you see all the beams plus the center bit unfolded, and how it looks when it's folded and glued)

You need to make 20 of the pointy things (so print 5 copies of that design), and one center bit - and then you simply glue the 'beams' - as I have decided to call them - onto the center, which is easy and quick. As usual I would say it pays off to cut very precisely, and trace all the lines lightly before folding them. Simply drag the tip of a sharp knife or a needle lightly along the lines (use a ruler), don't cut through the paper of course. And the folding will be so easy! If you make this a top star for a tree, leave out one of the pointy bits, and gently cut a hole in the center bit instead. And the star sits just fine on the top branch. Of course you could make it a big hanging ornament, or a standing paper sculpture as well! 

The finished star is approximately 25 centimeter in diameter. It took me a bit more than an hour to make it, and it is not at all complicated, just a little bit boring to make those twenty beams - but it will be worth it! I recommend printing on 90 or 100 g paper, as the more common 80 g will be too soft.

Have a lovely December 23rd...

Easy Little Paper Wheels

Here in Denmark, Fröbel Stars are a very popular Christmas ornament, and I love making them, especially since the pre-cut strips now come in so many colors and patterns. I used to cut strips myself, to be able to make stars in crazy colors (strips used to come in white, silver and gold only), but no more. I have also painted them and decorated them in different ways.

I didn't start making these slightly complicated stars before I was all grown up, I never had the patience for them as a kid, and they are not for beginners. You can try them yourself, and you could get started with this tutorial! You can find several videos on YouTube, as well.

But back to the pre-cut strips, so widely available here in Denmark. I wanted to come up with a little simple ornament to make from these, so easy that my son (aged 5) could make them - and ended up with these rather cute little wheelie type things.

You make them from exactly two star strips, and a fun thing is that you can play around with how you hang them, as you can see above - either string them as beads, put a ribbon through the hole, or punch a hole for a thinner string in one of the folds.  

They derive from a very traditional ornament: Musetrapper in Danish or 'mouse ladders', or even 'cats ladders'. They are one of the the simplest types of garland you can make - if you need an explanation there is a fine tutorial here. 

To make the little wheelies, you make one small 'mouse ladder' from only two star strips, and trim the ends with glue. When that is dry, you press together the two square ends with a little more glue, to make the wheel. Voilà.

I made these with the different store bought strips I had, and here are their measurements if you need to cut some yourself: 25 x 860 mm., 15 x 500 mm. (the most common kind) and some 10 x 500 mm. for the tiny red ones (a bit to long for a good wheel, so trim these a bit). These super handy strips can be bought in all kinds of online DIY material shops, and are a must if you like to make Fröbel stars, and now wheels! Google for 'stjernestrimler'. They are inexpensive and will save you looots of time measuring and cutting - plus they have print on both sides, which is what you want for both stars and these types of folded things.

Musetrapper will often be the first kind of Christmas finery children in Denmark make. Along with the classic and universal paper ring garland. Here is a page from one of my old Christmas books:

What you often do, is have the children make lots and lots of the shorter bits, and then your kindergarten group or class will put them together to form a very long one, to hang across the entire classroom, or something like that (The photo above is from Gl. Estrup Herregård, from an attempt to make Denmarks longest 'mouse ladder').

This last image (from the Danish blog Reklamejam) is interesting. It is from last years Christmas season in Berlin, and taken in the &Other Stories shop (a favourite of mine, by the way), where these enourmous paper garlands were a part of the Christmas theme. They look very intriguing, like a kind of 'mouse ladders' but somehow... hexagonal? If anybody knows what they are, please let me know!