Origami Day-2: the cranes are flying

What can you make with just one square piece of paper? Apparently an awful lot only if you’ve enough patience to fold it a few times 🙂

Yesterday I was at my neighbor’s home. Their little girl was incredibly busy – folding paper cranes, as I soon found out. “Why so many?”, I asked. “I’m making a senbazuru”. It’s a group of one thousand origami paper cranes held together by strings. The senbazuru comes from an ancient Japanese legend that says a wish will be granted to anyone who folds 1000 paper cranes.

Attagirl!

When I was little, all I made were a few paper boats and airplanes..and although my paper boats often sank without a trace and my paper planes seldom took off , it was my paper cranes that never failed to flap their wings and delight all..or so I always thought 🙂

Reminiscing  my good old ‘talent’, I put together a hanging mobile with paper cranes. Here’s what I used:

• Square color paper (I used yellow post-it sticky notes because that’s what I could lay my hands on when I raided the stationery stock)
• Chopsticks
• White thread
• A ceiling hook
• Dollops of patience

For paper cranes mobile:

• Fold the paper cranes as shown here on wikiHow.
• Thread the needle. Suspend the cranes vertically on the thread by pushing the needle through their bodies from the bottom towards the top. Tie a knot above and below each crane to hold it in place.
• Create a cross with chopsticks by tying them together at the center to make a base for the mobile.
• Tie threads to each end of the chopsticks and join the threads at the top by tying a knot. This is where you will attach the mobile to the ceiling.
• Tie the threads containing the origami cranes to each side of the chopstick cross until you are satisfied with the design of your mobile.
• Attach the mobile to the ceiling using a ceiling hook.

It’s pretty awesome when the suspended cranes ‘fly’ with the breeze…so worth it!

Posted in Flickr Comments’ Story Challenge: Letter “O”.