Making a TON of Origami Flowers

I'm not sure what happened to me in February, but I do know where I was in March!! I was making 7 DOZEN origami flowers for my boss who was decorating a friend's baby shower. The type of origami flower I was making was called a Kusudama Flower, instructions can be found here.

I had the whole month of March to make them, but I only really got into gear the last week and a half of the month, like a good craft procrastinator...lol But hey, in my defense, 84 flowers, each with 6 petals to add up to 504 petals total?! That's a LOT of work!!

I helped myself a little though and bought a fantastic cutter that fits a 12" sheet of paper and it made the paper cutting part especially easy!!

Since I had so many petals to fold, I just tossed them in a box as I finished folding them....

Once I was done folding them all, the box was FULL!! 

Then came the task of matching up all the petals...

This was also about the point that boyfriend had told me he didn't think I had enough petals. I looked at him and even though I assured him, "Are you kidding?! I counted like, 3 times!!!" He was saying this because he helped me glue the petals since I had class that night (which was an AWESOME help since we were on the last week deadline!!) but when he glued the individual petals closed, he used paper clips and said the count had to be off based on how many paper clips he used and how many the box said there were in the case....

Laying them out in the above way however assured me (and my sanity) that I had in fact made enough petals!! YAY!!

Next came the dowel rods I was going to be gluing the petals to. He also helped me paint these, what a trooper!! :D

Once I had all the petals grouped together, it was time to pair them up...

All the petals paired up!!

The flowers in action at the baby shower:

The soon-to-be mother was happy and the party went off fantastically, or so I hear. I was also told that there was a clamor to claim flowers by just about everyone at the party!! Talk about a job well done!!

It doesn't end there, either! I had 6 dowel rods left over and my boss told me the leftover paper was mine!! ALL MINE!!! WHEEEE!!!!! So what's a girl to do with this knowledge and these supplies???

Why, make MORE FLOWERS! Duh! Only, I made them smaller; 3" square petals to the original 4" square size.

That's it for this post, I hope you guys enjoyed!!

Craft ya laters!!

Origami flower bunch in purple and black

My friend asked me to help her make some origami flowers for her wedding reception decorations. The style was this, called kusudama:

Simple enough, yeah?

Well, I got so intrigued with trying different colors and patterns, I went and got an old used copy of Jane Eyre to use those pages. It was pretty funny as I was doing this in the living room while watching a movie with my boyfriend and he looks at me funny and this is the conversation we had:

Him: Are you cutting up a book?!?

Me: Yes, yes I am.

Him: Why would you do that?!

Me: I'm crafting, duh?

Him: Well, is it a good book?

Me: *shows him the book title* Have you heard of it or read it?

Him: Oh. No. Carry on.

Now granted, I haven't read the book yet and I plan on one day reading it, but it wasn't that great a copy and I was making a flower primarily for personal practice and to recall how to make them, then the 2nd was going to be for my bff, Airon.

I used regular Elmer's glue for the pieces to be closed on themselves and to each other in the pairs, but then used hot glue to attach to these silver foil-like pipe cleaners I had in my stash, folded in half to be sturdier.

Then this last weekend I decided to make a whole bunch of flowers to give my boss cuz she's awesome!! Her favorite colors are purple, black and silver so I went to Hobby Lobby and got some 12"x12" sheets of scrapbooking paper, cut out 4" squares, painted some 1/8" (I think) dowel rods silver with acrylic paint, 2 layers and...

There are 8 total flowers in this bouquet and my hands didn't really start hurting/cramping until flower 8, so I call that a total win! I think it also helps when you assembly line the flower parts and then space it out with gluing together. Fold petals for 2-3 flowers...glue...fold 2-3 more...etc.

I tried to get a picture of the full bunch at a distance in front of one of the windows at work... didn't realize the colors were so bad, but you get the idea of how they look, right? I used some simple white/clear/AB glass marbles in the vase to give it a little more color.

Needless to say, my boss LOVES them!! ^_^ I'm thinking I might have to try making myself a bunch or two or ten! I do however want to try making them smaller, maybe see how small they would be with 3" square pieces of paper, but I also saw this and want to try it as I had the idea in my head and seeing it really does encourage me to have some to display cuz they look awesome!!

I just LOVE how that looks!!! I like the idea of using the alternate color as the leaves, but I'm also wondering how it'll look to have the 6 petal flowers (like what I did) and use an alternate color that's a little darker or lighter and try to mimic a real flower with layers of petals....

Don't worry, I'll definitely show you guys what I try and how they look!!

Anyone that hasn't heard of these and/or wants to try making some, this tutorial is fantastic and the site also has a bunch more tutorials for making all kinds of other origami things!!

http://www.origami-instructions.com/origami-kusudama-flower.html

Craft ya laters!