Introduction
Origami Holiday Decorations shows you how to brighten Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa with paper ornaments. Origami is the craft of folding a piece of paper into a recognizable object using only your hands. Many people are fascinated with origami and find it to be a relaxing, yet challenging hobby
Decorating Christmas trees with origami has become a tradition in many homes, libraries, and museums. Origami ornaments have also found their way into Hanukkah celebrations, but this is the first time that a book includes such ideas for Kwanzaa. Some of the projects relate to a specific holiday, but most of them make wonderful decorations for any of the three holidays.
In Origami Holiday Decorations you will find a lot of practical information, including:
• Step-by-step instructions
• How to make unique ornaments and decorations
• How to create new designs
• How to use different papers
• How to teach origami to others
• How to use origami as an educational tool
• How origami fits into the world of computers and technology
I hope you will find that it's great fun to make holiday ornaments that can produce "oohs" and "aahs" year after year.
About Origami Techniques
To help you make sense of the lines and arrows on the drawings, you should study the explanations of a few basic techniques. It will be well worth a few minutes to learn to recognize the "Four Important Symbols" and "Three Procedures," which are international standards for origami.
Any action to be taken at each step is shown in red on the diagrams.
FOUR IMPORTANT SYMBOLS
Learn to recognize these four simple clues, which are often overlooked by beginners.
1. Valley Fold
Fold the square in half by bringing one edge of the paper toward you and matching it to the opposite edge.
A valley fold is always shown by a line of dashes. You have made a valley fold.
With this one simple fold, you have made a greeting card.
2. Mountain Fold
Fold the square in half by guiding one edge of the paper to the back and matching it to the opposite edge. A mountain fold is shown by a dash-dot-dash line and an arrow.
"You have made a mountain fold.
With this one simple fold you have made a tent.
3. Arrows
Make a valley fold.
Double arrow—Fold and unfold.
Make a mountain fold.
Curly arrow—Turn the paper over.
4. Existing Crease
An existing crease, made previously, is shown by a thin line that does not touch the edges.
Existing crease
THREE PROCEDURES
In these three procedures, which occur frequently in paperfolding, several steps are combined into one standard process.
1. Inside Reverse Fold
One of the most common procedures is called an inside reverse fold.
1. Fold a small square from corner to corner.
2. Place the paper exactly as shown. Fold the top corner over to the right, so that it peeks over the open edge.
3a. Let the paper open up and push the corner in between the two layers of paper, on the creases you made in Step 2.
3b. Close up the paper.
4. Completed inside reverse fold
The instructions for making an inside reverse fold are indicated with a dash-dot-dash line, the same as for a mountain fold, but the text states that you must make an inside reverse fold.
You may wonder why this procedure is called a reverse fold: In Step 2 you will see that the doubled paper is made up of a mountain fold on the front layer and a valley fold on the back layer. After you have pushed the corner in between the two layers of paper in Step 3, you have "reversed" the valley fold into a mountain fold.
2. Outside Reverse Fold
With an outside reverse fold, the paper is wrapped around the outside of a corner.
1. Fold a small square from corner to corner.
2. Place the paper exactly as shown. Valley fold the top corner over to the left, so that it peeks over the folded edge.
3a. Unfold Step 2.
3b. Let the paper open up and valley fold on the creases made in Step 2.
4.