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DIY Origami Christmas Tree

Dec 19, 2011 09:54 PM
Dec 19, 2013 05:39 PM

This is how my version of an origami Christmas tree turned out based on the instructions I posted awhile back. Cory also made a version from white glossy paper, which looks great. I opted for the green and brown look, but it wasn't easy.

I tried making a really small version first, with the largest piece being 3 inches, and the smallest 1.5 inches. I even got some fancy green paper with light shades of white, which looked like natural snowfall. But it was impossible with as many folds as it required, at least for a novice origami folder like myself. It was frustrating, but I finally tried again.

This time I tried with different paper, with the largest piece being 6 inches, and the smallest 3 inches, as Sara Adams did in her video tutorial I shared. Once I got the hang of it, it went smoothly (almost), but the smaller pieces were still difficult to fold. The designer, Francesco Guarnieri, actually recommends using paper twice the size.

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Here's what it eventually looked like. Not perfect, but better than I expected after failing at my first attempt. With all of the folds, the green origami paper got kind of abused, so if I try it again I'd probably opt for thicker paper, like the paper I used for the tree base.

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What really attracted me to these trees were the symmetrical octogram star polygons that the green pieces turned into. I wanted to take a bunch of pictures from the top to highlight this, but my folds weren't perfect, so it didn't looked like I wanted. The pre-folded octagons looked better before I got into the more complicated valley and mountain folds.

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But it was still fun to try.

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Next time I will probably try larger squares of paper, and thicker sheets, so the folds look more crisp and the entire tree is sturdier.

What does yours look like? Post a pic of your results in the comments below so we can check it out.

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