Glass Hearts and Glass Globes (Origami Week Day 5)

Here we are at the last day of Origami Week. It's been fun, it always is.
Todays offering is another use of origami cranes, and the first usage of stars to be shown other than their awesome capacity for filling space!

These ornaments were an offering of my booth at Saturday Market this holiday season. I ended up making more of them than I could ever have imagined. People loved their fun ship in a bottle nature.

I ended up needing to find a way to organize all the colors of stars and spent a good day just getting things in the right drawers. I made them in all colors, and had a great time doing it.

My favorite instance of these ornaments was a woman who wanted a whole tree full of ornaments, well nine really. This was at the Saturday Market, so she needed them in less than half an hour. She wanted them all in purple, which is fine, but I had no purple cranes folded. Well this would be more than well and good, but that day was the one day that I decided to imbibe in some hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps.

Of course, the cranes needed to be folded just after the first wave of a buzz hit me. To make it even more fun, they were all for the heart-shaped ornaments, which are much smaller and need even more precision. I did manage to get all of them folded, and all of the cranes and stars into the hearts. It was nothing short of a miracle!

Simple Crane Ornament (Origami Week Day 4)

So here we are on the second to last day of origami week, and I have just a simple picture for you. I made these this winter and sold many of them. No real meaningful words, no explanation of how it's done, just a picture. Think it over, if you figure out how it's done, congrats.

Hello Kitty Gift Box (Origami Week Day 3)

Being that I make jewelry, I am always looking to find great ways to package my precious little gems. Being that I also can make anything in the world, I figured out that maybe making boxes would be fun. While I don't use handmade boxes in my shop, I do use them when I give gifts.

I love giving gifts, I love making them even more. I also love Hello Kitty. If you combine all of these, you get the hand made Hello Kitty gift box. If you ask really nice, I may even teach you all how to do it someday. Heh, why would I make you wait?


I found a great video online of how to do it!


I also found a great simple tutorial for those with less bandwidth.

Working on the Crane Chain (Origami Week Day 2)

Everyone learns to make paper cranes in school, well everyone I know has learned this in school. While many people forget this knowledge and just move on from this lesson, I did not. I memorized the lesson, kept it me, and have made cranes on and off for most of my life. The problem becomes, what do you do with all these cranes?

Cranes are lovely and beautiful on their own, and origami papers come in so many lovely packs, generally they have a theme: all solid, all patterned, all in one type of pattern. Well these patterns are lovely and bold, and the rainbow of solids are amazing and crisp, but you rarely see anything that uses them to their best ability.

I took the next logical step and turned my cranes into a rainbow chain to hang in my window! This is a great way to display the cranes since you get to see all the variation and color that the pattern has to offer.

More stars?!? (The Start of Origami Week)

Again I ask you... who doesn't love stars!? Stars are a great thing to play with! Tattoo artist seem to ink more stars to flesh than anything else. Nautical, puffy, flashy, they really are the "in" thing.

A few years ago I was in a Sanrio store and found the most amazing things. Little strips of paper for folding stars! Well being the fidgety person that I am. I took to these like a duck to water. I would keep the papers with me at all times, furiously folding little puffy stars! I still have a habit of doing it.

I love to go to music shows and will bring them with me. It's funny, the more stressed out I am the more I fidget, so I will take things to calm the core of me. Well... as you can see it's been a stressful week and I have been busy. I will soon show you what I make with these adorable little origami stars. So here is to the first day of Origami Week! 5 full days of origami... WOOOO! Here's hoping it's rocking!