Balloon lights tutorial

Here in New Zealand we are now in the middle of winter, and when playing around with some LED fairy lights I thought I would combine my love for origami and bringing some winter sparkle to our house. And so the balloon lights were born!! Ok let’s get started with the tutorial! This is what you need for this project: Pretty paper (appr. 20 sheets, mine were 90 x 90mm) on a white or light background. Here are my 20pcs of paper after I cut them with my guillotine. Now first make a water-bomb base. With the printed side of the paper facing up, valley fold in half. After that turn 90 degrees and valley fold in half again. Now turn the paper over and do the same diagonally. Now for the last part of the water-bomb base. Use the creases you have made so far and the paper should naturally fall into this shape. Here is your finished water-bomb base. Now to make the actual balloon. Fold the corner on the left hand side (top layer only) up to the middle. Now turn over and do the other side. All done!

Kusudama Tutorial part 2 Today I am showing you part 2 of how to make a kusudama ball. You can find the first part here. In part 1, I showed you have to make the individual flowers; you should now have 12 flowers made from 60 individual petals. For part 2 you will need: 12 flowers (made from 60 petals)GlueString or a ribbonBead(s) As you might be able to see from the finished kusudama at the top of the page, I made 6 flowers from blue paper and 6 flowers from a recycled map. Start to glue the flowers together one petal at the time – this will give the nicest result. When you add the 3rd flower, there are 3 petals to connect. After you have attached all 6 flowers you end up with 2 sets of half a kusudama. I used 3 beads on the bottom. Now take one of your 1/2 kusudamas and put some glue on the top. Glue your string down, making sure it is nice and straight. That’s it! In the last photo you can see another kusudama I finished earlier. If you are having a go with this 2 part tutorial we would love to see your work!

Paper Models of Polyhedra HaHa Bird