I love Origami and I have often used it in the classroom as an exercise to help students learn how to follow directions. The kids love doing it and there's the quick gratification factor that not only makes them happy about doing something fun/new, but also helps to boost their self esteem.
This morning on Twitter I saw a link to 3D holiday origami on the Origami Kids blog, and when I followed the link, I saw another for a cute origami Santa. I immediately shared it on Facebook and emailed a couple people about it. The Santa would be a great activity to do with kids, adorable as a decoration on holiday gifts, or cute just dangling from a Christmas tree.
If you're making a lot of these with kids or to hang on your tree, purchase a roll of solid red gift wrap (no print) and cut the paper into squares yourself. It's not only economical, but you can make the squares the size you want and wrapping paper folds very well for origami.
There were some other nifty Christmas themed origami projects as well I started thinking about how neat it would be to have an entire tree covered in origami. This wreath, also from Origami Kids, is made from modular pieces: http://origami-kids-en.blogspot.com/2010/11/origami-christmas-wreath.html.
The site also has a diagram for an origami reindeer, and while the modular Christmas tree and the 3D origami Christmas tree are great, the origami snowflake is amazing! I've added the embed code below for the you tube Santa video, though you'll more than likely want to visit the blog yourself.
I started looking around online and found a whole gallery of origami Santas (four pages!) of varying design from very simple folds to 3D standing versions. I also found an awesome assortment of origami ornaments at the origami resource center. (I just LOVE playing with paper!) On the same site where I found the simple folded tree below (makes a great table centerpiece) there was great eight-pointed origami star.
Fans of modular origami will no doubt appreciate this life-sized origami Christmas tree by Sharon Turvey that took months to assemble. For those who are not quite that ambitious a simpler origami Christmas tree folded from a single piece of paper will have to suffice. This one can be done with children or seniors as part of a group project.
Of course now that I've been looking at all these diagrams I don't want to do any work! I just want to get out some paper and start playing! Look for pretty paper things coming soon!
