make: origami balloon tutorial

I meant to post this before we left on Tuesday, but in the scramble to pack and get out the door (not to mention the more-than-a-few blogging snags I ran across while trying to upload the 30-some-odd photos I needed for this- egads) it simply wasn't possible. 

So now, rather than showing you photos of our lovely two-day road trip and the photo of the creepy hotel we stayed in along the way and of the lush Aspen surroundings we're immersed in currently (I promise I'll post those soon), I instead offer you this origami balloon tutorial that I had meant to post as a sort of *gift* prior to leaving.  I get such a kick out of making these things and I hope you will too (in any case, it sure is a great thing to do while you're procrastinating cleaning and packing and stuff like that.  Plus it makes great use of all the "practice" drawings the kids leave lying around the house -  or junk mail or bills or whatever - I'd love to get my hands on one of those Japanese phone books and use that).  Anyhoo...

Cut a *practice drawing* into a 6 inch by 6 inch square (or you could just use traditional square origami paper - actually, any size square will do, it doesn't have to be 6 inch by 6 inch, that's just what I started with, myself).

There.

Now, take your square and fold it in half (I sometimes like to use my bone folder to help with those creases just because I have one and I have one and I admire it so much, but you can certainly just use your finger).

Open the paper back up and fold in in half the opposite direction.

Open the paper back up into a square and fold it diagonally like so...

Then, open the paper back up again and fold it diagonally the opposite direction.  Now leave it folded like this facing up, as if you're staring at a mountain or pyramid.

This is kind of hard to see below, but take the bottom right point and fold it up to the top point.  Do you see how I've done that below?

Let me move my hand so you can see it better.

There.  See that?  Now do the same with the other side and you'll have a square shape.

Now, I've completely blown it on photographing this step, but you basically unfold the whole thing so that it's a large 6 x 6 square again - with all those lovely folds that you just made on it - and then you fold in the sides of the square toward themselves (they will fold in fairly easily because of all the folds that you made in the paper) so that you end up with this triangular-ish shape below, see?  I hope you can see.

Then just flatten the triangle down.

You're doing great! 

Next, take that top right point and fold it down toward the center point (we're making a square shape kind of  like we did before).

Do the same to the left side.

 

Good!  Now flip it over and do the exact same thing on the opposite side and you'll have that square shape I was talking about earlier.

 

Now... take the side (point) of the square and fold it in toward that center line.

Repeat on the opposite side (as you see below) and then flip the whole thing over and repeat on the opposite side.

 

Almost there!  Now, I think I photographed this better the second time around, but anyway, you take those top two points and fold them down toward the center of the shape (see there above my fingers?).

 

Then, you fold them down again and tuck them into the little pockets there.  You do this on both sides.

 

See (below), here the left side has been done and the right side is folded down and waiting to be tucked into its little pocket, like so.

 

And here it is getting tucked into its pocket.  See?

This is what it should look like when everything's all tucked in!

  

Now, let's do the other side.  Flip it over and we'll begin.  Take the top point on the left side and fold it down toward the center.

 Here's another angle so you can see what I'm talking about (see, better photos this time around, eh?).

There!

Now do the same to the right side.

 

Good!

 

Now we're going to fold those again down toward their "pockets".  I'll just show you the left side, but do it on both sides on your own.  (See, in this photo - below - the right side has already been done and the left side is waiting to be folded and tucked into its pocket).

 

Now, fold that left side down...

 

There's the pocket I'm talking about...

 

There is the fold, about to be tucked in...

 

Almost tucked...

In!  So nice. 

Done with folding.  Good job!  Now, find the hole on one end and blow.  Harder.

 

You did it!  Wasn't that fun? 

 

Now go make more and have a very, very nice day!

Comments

[Felicia]

Great tutorial!

[willow]

Balloons + origami?! You can't get a better combination than that as far as my kids are concerned (well, unless the balloon delivered ice cream) -- I will definitely try this one. Thanks.