Folding Trees

Here in New Zealand we are now in the middle of winter, and when playing around with some LED fairy lights I thought I would combine my love for origami and bringing some winter sparkle to our house. And so the balloon lights were born!!

Ok let’s get started with the tutorial!

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The Folding Trees Reviews are here to make your decisions easier. For each review, we make a project and report back on the difficulty, costs and time involved, plus any handy hints we developed along the way.

Whilst looking for resources to highlight on Folding Trees, I’ve come across several sites that offer printable origami patterns. Origami paper can be expensive and/or difficult to find, so to be able to print your favourite designs on demand sounds like a great solution. But what’s the print quality like? And how does it hold up to being folded into origami? Let’s find out…

In progress

First impressions: looks good! Although it doesn’t have the texture or richness of the best origami papers, the pattern was distinct and the colours were lovely. The pattern I downloaded was a 8.5×11″ pdf file, so it filled an entire sheet of paper when I printed it onto regular white printer paper.

I decided to cut it into smaller squares, and I calculated that I could make 30 (5×6) 4cm squares from one sheet of printed paper – what a bargain! (Tip: a paper cutter is invaluable to speed up this stage!)

After cutting it into squares, it still looks great, but the real test is in the folding. I like to strongly crease my folds with my fingernail, and I thought this homemade origami paper might develop white lines along the folds after creasing…

Finished piece

No problem! No white lines, and the paper stood up well to folding. The paper was probably slightly thicker than regular origami paper, but it still came together well.

Verdict

Print only the designs and colours you like, on demand, at any time.

Notes

I folded all 30 of my 30 squares into one stellated icosahedron - I’m addicted to making them!

Level of difficulty

 to print the paper (I’m not rating the folding as that’s not the point of this review!)

Time

Cost

 - as long as you already own a printer, this is essentially free!

Links

Here are some sites with origami paper patterns available to download and print:

• Canon Chiyogami patterns (I printed Akikusa-mon in blue for this review)
• thekhans Origami Papers
• Origami Club: Japanese patterns
• Origami Club: Other patterns

If you try printing some origami paper, show us what you do with it in the Folding Trees flickr group!