Origami Cubes

It took me about two hours to make it, I suppose (which is actually more than I expected, since only 12 units are needed).  But I’m very pleased with the result – congratulations to me!

Spiral Faced Cube

This star has lots of names – Froebel Star, German Star, Swedish Star, Danish Star or Moravian Star are just a few to mention. You can read more about the history of Froebel Star (and learn which name is not correct) here.

The star is made out of four rather long strips of paper, a width-to-length ratio may vary from 1:25 to 1:30. This is not exactly an easy star, it takes at least a few tries to get it right, but after folding around 20 of them I feel like I’ll never forget it! They are so addictive!

There are plenty of tutorials on the net explaining how to make it, so I just added a couple of links to the ones I used.

Once you have mastered the star,  you may want to make something more challenging out of them! I made this kusudama with a total of 6 stars (they’re only 3D on one side) – check out the video below to learn how it can be done.

To make a Christmas wreath with Froebel stars you will need 8 of them.  Insert points of one star into another one (look at the picture to see how they are positioned relative to each other). Before you insert the points, add a dab of glue to hold them in place.

I used tracing paper for all these stars because it’s not only thin and strong at the same time, but also available in large sheets, which is pretty handy when it comes to cutting long strips.

Froebel Star

And when I think of origami polyhedrons, two books in particular come to mind – Unit Origami Essence and Unit Origami Wonderland by Tomoko Fuse. I have already folded plenty of models from the first book, but only now I started to study the second one. These are models I found there and I’m surely going to fold something else from this book soon!

Modular Origami Polyhedra

These are two different stars I folded last weekend – 8-Pointed Star by Francisco J. Caboblanco and Simple Star by Kalami. Find out more about them below.

(front and back view)

Name:	Estrella de Ocho Puntas (8-Pointed Star)
Designer:	Francisco J. Caboblanco
Units:	8
Paper ratio:	square
Assembled with:	no glue
Paper size:	5 cm
Model size:	~ 7 cm
Paper:	Japanese foil
Diagram:	Published in “Origami for Beginners” by Vicente Palacios

Also be sure to check out Christine’s blog for even more origami stars!

Origami Stars

Origami Wreath

Eifel Star

It is possible to make this kusudama without glue, and that’s exactly how I did it at first (photos above). But the modular wasn’t very stable, at least in my case, so I took it apart and assembled once again but with glue this time (photo below the description section). It looks pretty much the same of course but a bit more tight and neat.

30 Point Sunken Star

I was very lucky last year to buy this wrapping foil paper during the holiday sale. There was only one roll of it and I never saw this paper again since then. It folds like a dream and even though the reverse side is not pure white, I’m very happy with this paper anyway. So with the holiday season coming up, I hope I find something interesting this year too!

8-Pointed Origami Stars

6-Pointed Origami Stars