Pleated Paper Cupcake

Pleated and and v-folded paper forms this 3D papercraft cupcake.

Add a paper candle or flower and wish someone a Happy Birthday.

It's not quite origami, but it reminds me of origami baubles or origami Christmas balls.

Easy to hand cut, or download file set to machine cut.


How to Make a Pleated Cupcake and Icing

3D Twisted Origami Tree

Here's a nifty papercraft, an origami Christmas tree made from a map.

The base is square and the folds spiral around, tucking in at the top.

I looked through a discarded atlas to find a map with a lot of green.  You can boost the color by sponging some green ink on the map if you need to.  You will see a tiny bit of the back side of the paper at the very tip of the tree (the beige part on my tree).

The finished size of the tree depends  of course, on the size square you start with.  I used a 9" square of atlas page and ended up with a 3" tall tree.

The origami tree fold was designed by Jannie van Schuylenburg.
Link to folding directions by Leyla Torres.

I've made a bunch of other projects from one discarded atlas--the Dutch apple sliceform, and this rolled rose wreath.  (THAT took forever to assemble, but I love it.)

Five Pointed Origami Star Cutting File

I have created a new cutting file set for the five pointed origami paper star made from a pentagon. This is an older project that previously had only a PDF printable pattern.

You can cut it from plain paper, double sided paper, sheet music, book pages, wrapping paper....

Here are some origami stars I made.  The blue and red are double sided origami paper.  The next one is cut from a Where's Waldo book, and the last one is sheet music.

Download file set: Silhouettte Studio, SVG, DXF.

Files download for free; pay what you wish for the tutorial and to support this site. Suggested contribution for this project is $1.00.

File can be scaled to fit any paper size.  Adhere your paper to your cutting mat with the right side up!  Note that the file is mostly score lines so it does take a while to cut.

Follow the directions from this origami star post.  It's much easier to fold with the crease lines started for you! 

 

Extreme Cards and Papercrafting: pop up cards, movable and mechanical cards, digital crafts and unusual papercrafts.

Coldplay Origami Paper Stars

Have you seen the Target ad with Coldplay folding these five pointed origami stars for A Sky Full of Stars? Heck, we just missed the giveaway, but click through for a tutorial on how to make your own origami star from a piece of paper pre-cut into a pentagon. 

Extreme Cards and Papercrafting: pop up cards, movable and mechanical cards, digital crafts and unusual papercrafts.

Favorite Christmas Projects

Here are a few seasonal projects you may have missed.

 I'm hard at work on my Christmas cards!

Sliceform Christmas Tree Pop Up



Sheet Music Origami Star



Photo Snowglobe



Kaleidoscope Snowflakes



Carolina Snowflake (Finnish Star)



Tunnel Book



Woven Heart Ornament



Heart in Hand Snowflake



Extreme Cards and Papercrafting: pop up cards, movable and mechanical cards, digital crafts and unusual papercrafts.

Where's Waldo? Origami Star

As I was working my way through a pile of discarded books the other day I started thinking that pages from a decrepit Where's Waldo book could be made into a fun origami star, if I could somehow work it so Waldo was visible on the front of the finished star.

I made up a plain paper star and scribbled across the front of it.

Unfolded, I could see which parts of the template would be visible when the star was folded.

The hardest part was finding Waldo on the pages! I'm really bad at this, it seems. Once I found a Waldo, I laid the template so the colored-in portion was on top of him.

Then all I had to do was trace, cut, fold, and challenge people to find Waldo on the stars!
Important! As you follow the directions, notice that the right side (the side with Waldo) should be face down as you start folding the star.


If Waldo doesn't float your boat, try cutting the star from a magazine page, placing the template so a meaningful piece of text is positioned on one of the star arms.

Extreme Cards and Papercrafting: pop up cards, movable and mechanical cards, digital crafts and unusual papercrafts.

Bitty Books

What crafty librarians do in their spare time....

The other day my co-worker was stuck in the middle of the wordless origami diagram for this mini-book. You know that place. You're cruising right along and then suddenly it seems like several steps are missing in the directions. Anyway, we finally worked it out, and over the last couple days I've been folding and unfolding little books, trying to simplify the process.

It's definitely easier to make with paper that's white on one side and patterned on the other.

Begin with a square piece of paper. Fold it in half, then in fourths. Do this both directions. When you are done the folds will divide the paper into 16 squares.

Folding on the creases you've made, flip the bottom quarter strip of the paper up and glue it, with glue stick, to the strip of squares above it.

Cut along the folds dividing these white squares. These will be your pages.

Turn the paper over. The pages should be closer to you and the uncut part away from you.

Fold down the top quarter strip of the paper along the crease line.

Crease the top corners diagonally and then unfold.

Grasp the left hand loose corner and pull it to the center of the paper. Do the same for the right hand loose corner.

Flatten the piece sticking up in the center, using the vertical creases already made.

Flip paper over.

Fold in the two sides.

Rub a bit of glue stick on the triangular fold on the left side.

Grasp the left hand pages and pull them up and toward the right, opening the triangle fold at the top left.

Flatten.

Turn the pages to the left.

Dab a little glue on the right hand triangle. Grasp the right hand pages and pull them up and to the left, opening the right hand triangle. Flatten.

Turn these pages to the right.

Close the book and crease the spine well.

Try making really tiny books from sticky notes. I used the sticky part to glue the pages. The tricky part is setting in the creases without sticking the wrong parts together! (Position the sticky note with the glue horizontally across the bottom, glue side down. Crease the Post It in half horizontally by pulling the top of the sticky note down to the bottom edge. Flip the sticky note over and fold up the bottom to the center, gluing the "pages". Fold the top in half again, horizontally. Next crease the vertical folds; then cut the pages and finish as above.)

Extreme Cards and Papercrafting: pop up cards, movable and mechanical cards, digital crafts and unusual papercrafts.

"Impatien Ball" Modular Origami Globe

Impatien Ball design from Ornamental Origami: Exploring 3D Geometric Designs by Meenakshi Mukerji, instructions posted with permission.

Select 12 origami papers. I used 4 each of three different colors.

Folding the units

Precrease in half each way, and diagonally each way.

Turn over and fold points into center.

Unfold the top and bottom, then fold each point toward the center. Fold the side points toward the outside.

Fold down the top, fold up the bottom. The points will be inside these folds.

Turn over. Fold all four points to the center.

Unfold. Fold the points toward the center up to the creases you just made.

Fold all four sides toward the center. The points will be inside these folds.

Flip it over and check that the back looks like this. Two opposite corners will have pockets, and the other two will have flaps. Here, I am holding a flap.

Flip piece over to front side. Crease and uncrease along the vertical and horizontal midlines.

Crease and uncrease each corner, folding them to the center.

Pinch the center of each side so the V folds stand up.

Assembling the globe

Attach two pieces together by slipping the flap of one unit into the pocket of the other, wrong sides facing each other. I use a bit of gluestick on the flap to keep it from slipping out of the pocket.

Slide four units together in a cross. Make another cross from another four units and set it aside.

Folding the cross in half slightly, attach another unit (green) to the two halves at the end of the cross.

Here you see it from the wrong side (inside of the globe).

Here you see it from the right side (the outside of the globe).

Attach the other cross assembly to the remaining two sides of the single (green) unit.

Inside view.

Outside view.

Rotate the globe 1/4 turn away from you and attach another single unit (green) to the next available sides of the two cross assemblies. Here it is pink on the left and orange on the right.

Here is the inside view.

Attach the bottom half of the single (green) unit to the next open sides. (Orange on the left, pink on the right.)

Add a third single unit, and then the fourth single unit, in the same way. Sliding in the last two flaps can be frustrating. Just keep working at it!

If you have a battery operated tealight, you can slash one of the units and stick the "flame" through to light the globe.

Extreme Cards and Papercrafting: pop up cards, movable and mechanical cards, digital crafts and unusual papercrafts.