Zoe’s Swirl (Design by Ancella Simoes)

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Zoe's Swirl (Design by Ancella Simoes)

Zoe’s Swirl (Design by Ancella Simoes)

I had taken a rather long break from folding origami and I hope to be back more regularly this year. We had a baby girl in September 2019 and my husband and I are absolutely thrilled. As you can imagine, with a baby, paper folding was on the back burner for a bit.

This model – Zoe’s Swirl – is one I have designed myself and named after my daughter. I came up with this design playing around with post it notes, which has now become a habit of mine in my very less spare time that I have.

It’s folded from 8 sheets of square paper and I have used Japanese Washi Paper which you can find on Amazon. This paper is plain on one side and printed on the other which makes a nice contrast when folding this design. The size of each of the sheets is 4 inches and completed model is around 5 inches in diameter. Since the folding sequence involves a sink, I have marked it as intermediate. However, the rest of the folding steps are relatively easy.

Butterfly – June Sakamoto (Design by Michael G. LaFosse)

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Butterfly - June Sakamoto (Design by Michael G. LaFosse)

Butterfly - June Sakamoto (Design by Michael G. LaFosse)

This is yet another model I folded this weekend. It is from the book – Origami Butterflies – which has a lot of different types of butterfly variants; the best part about this book is that there is a section devoted to designing your own butterflies based on the elements / proportions of various folds. The overall folding sequence remains about the same though, irrespective of the little changes you might make. With the right kind of paper, whether duo-colored or single-side colored, one can come up with a multitude of combinations which will make for a very pretty wall decoration or gift.

Paper to use:
I used a 6 inch square sheet of single-side colored kami paper to fold this model. You can also use your own kind of paper, provided it is not too thick as the center or body of the butterfly will become too thick to fold.

How to fold this model:
The diagrams to this model are in the book – Origami Butterflies or you can follow this very detailed video I found on youtube where the presenter has shown the details in folding this butterfly very nicely.

Najma (Design by Ancella Simoes)

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Najma (Design by Ancella Simoes)

Najma (Design by Ancella Simoes)

It’s back to folding for me after another hiatus and this time I started off with a design of my own. The model is slightly 3D which I quite like and is folded out of 8 sheets of paper.

For this particular design, I wanted to use duo-colored paper since I wanted both tones to show up on the front of the design. Each of the units is quite easy to fold and I think the only ‘complicated’ fold in this whole sequence is the division into 3 parts in the beginning of the sequence.I used traditional Kami paper measuring 3 inches in size which are white in color on one side (single-side colored).

This is my first rendition of this design and I am planning on refolding it with a better color combination, soon so as to bring out the color-blocking / dual tones strongly.

The geometric star shape you see in the center came about quite by accident. I noticed this design appearing once I started putting this model together. Hence the name ‘Najma’ which roughly translates into ‘Star’ in Arabic.

Starburst (Design by Ancella Simoes)

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Starburst (Design by Ancella Simoes)

Starburst (Design by Ancella Simoes)

I have been fiddling around with this design for quite a number of days, trying various folds in order to take advantage of duo colored paper and bring out a geometric design while I was at it. I came up with this design in the end and I am quite happy with the outcome.

This design of mine is folded using the traditional waterbomb base and has a pretty simple folding sequence. Since I used single side colored kami paper which is most commonly found, the color change at the center of each unit came about quite easily. I used 8 square sheets of single side colored kami paper measuring 3 inches each. The overall size of the completed model is approximately 4.5 inches in diameter.

Mandala Piratininga (Design by Falk Brito)

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Mandala Piratininga (Design by Falk Brito)

Mandala Piratininga (Design by Falk Brito)

This is a simple mandala design I chose to fold this weekend. I wanted to make use of the kami paper I had purchased from Daiso a couple of years ago and thought this design would be a good choice for it.

I deliberately selected a larger sized paper for this mandala, instead of the usual smaller 3 inch sized paper – just to see how it would turn out. I am not disappointed at all with the outcome.

Paper to use:
Since this is an easy model to fold, you can use any kind of decorative paper of your choice, including wrapping paper. One point to note, however, is that the paper you select should be colored differently on both sides to take advantage of the color change in between. So, simple kami paper, which is white on one side or duo colored paper will work well. Usually, mandalas are folded using smaller paper measuring approximately 3 inches or so. But you can select a size of your choice.

How to fold Falk Brito’s Mandala Piratininga:
Falk Brito has published the diagrams to this pretty design on his blog and they are quite easy to follow. You can find them here.

Additionally, Mariela Recinos of Origami Maniacs has created and shared a nice tutorial, with the permission of Falk Brito, on the folding sequence of this model. You can take a look at it here: