It’s that time of the year again! Time to fold origami stars and Christmas decorations.

For this project you will need 30 square sheets of paper, preferably double-sided. For the model pictured above I used 6 cm squares of red-yellow colored origami paper by Toyo (Japan). It worked out nicely, but I actually recommend using larger sheets, at least 7.5 cm (3 inch) in length.

Follow the video tutorial created by Sara Adams of HappyFolding.com where she demonstrates how to fold the unit and assemble all 30 of them into a modular ball:

Star Sonobe

IvaMia Kusudama

You don’t have to use glue to make it, but a bit of patience will definitely help! Find a link to a tutorial for this beauty below!

Primrose Kusudama

This is a great model indeed and I’m always sorry to hear that many people have trouble assembling it.  The secret to easy and flawless assembly is to unfold and open up pockets before trying to tuck flaps inside! Just open the pocket, put the flap in place and close the pocket. That’s it. No struggle at all.

I also watched a few videos trying to find a good one to link to, but with no luck. Well, at least this one is an excellent example of how NOT to do it.

Cherry Blossom Ball

There are two variations of this model, I only folded the “curled” one. The other version of this kusudama doesn’t have curls, but I think should be even easier to assemble.

Geranium Kusudama

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

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

Unnamed Modular