Origami #5: Seven Lilies

In dream and other symbolism, the lily is most often associated with hope, cleansing, renewal, purity, and remembrance.


It is perhaps appropriate that 4 of these lilies are folded from pages of the UCC Global Ministries calendar, a resource designed in part to remind us of all the places and people on earth that need our prayer. Each of these lilies is a prayer: 7 of them, one for each of the 6 who died in the shooting spree that shook my beloved Tucson yesterday and one for the rest of us, that we may all find hope, cleansing, and renewal in the wake of this tragedy.


Pattern is "Lily" from "Origami for the First Time" by Soonboke Smith.

In Memoriam:
Phyllis Schneck, 79
Dorwan Stoddard, 76
Dorothy Morris, 76
John Roll, 63
Gabe Zimmerman, 30
Christina-Taylor Green, 9

Nine-years-old, for goodness sake! Just a baby wanting to see how government works. Which makes this story all the more disturbing. As if those "people" weren't disturbing enough.

Origami #4: A Simple Assortment

My Congressperson was shot today just yards from our church; a 9-year-old child, a federal judge and a number of other bystanders are dead. Forgive me for feeling a bit like I've been run over by a truck. Nothing complex -- today I played with the simple patterns for week 1 in the "Origami-a-Day" calendar.


A drinking cup -- which actually does hold water.


A paper airplane -- which flies quite well.


A racecar -- which would probably look more like a racecar if I did a bit of decoration.


A cat -- who reminds me very much of the current incarnation of Chester Cheeto

Origami #3: A Pen Cup

Today's project comes from Origami for the First Time by Soonboke Smith. It's a fun little book (I hope to write some origami book reviews as the year progresses), and this project just caught my eye.

It's made starting with two mat bases which are turned over and folded a couple more times before the flaps are created and the two pieces are slipped together to make the pen cup.


The material for this project was two matching 8.5" calendar pages. This made a slightly smaller pen cup, since the pattern calls for 10" paper. (As you can probably see -- this was the picture for July.)


Yesterday M came home from work and errand running with five more calendars she bought at Michael's for $0.50 each and a whole pile of pages from calendars they were just going to recycle at the office -- and she'd even cut those pages so they were square. I was touched.

Today she bought me the Accord Publishing Origami-a-Day calendar. She found it on sale and thought it would be fun. Some of the projects are a bit basic (and I'm not one to start with basic generally), but it should be fun to start most days with a simple origami project, and if nothing else, there's pretty paper in the calendar.


My koala (the first project in the calendar) looks an awful lot like a puppy.

Origami #2: A Surprise

Today's origami project is a surprise. I found it while reading about origami at Wikipedia (possibly the exact resource the inventors of the hyperlink had in mind -- I mean, really, where else can you start out looking for information about the rings of Saturn and find yourself reading about the fight to legalize industrial hemp production in the US -- it's a long and winding rabbit hole that Wikipedia, but I digress).

So I found this cool surprise origami project from the British Origami Society that claims to require no previous origami experience and be suitable for ages 9 and up (so essentially this is a test to see if Sandy is smarter than -- or at least as smart as -- a British fifth-grader). Should be something I can handle, no?

Basically, print off the page from the website (I actually had to open the .gif file separately and print it that way since Firefox "print preview" was cutting off the image), follow the instructions, and you'll have your surprise origami -- there's even a suggested game with it.



Want any more than that? Well, to avoid giving away the surprise, you'll have to follow the link below to read the rest of the project.

Origami #1: A Table

First origami project of the year is a table. Pattern was found at Origami-Instructions.com. Chosen medium for this project was the Ruby Tuesday ad from this morning's paper. It was the perfect medium for this specific origami project, witness the table top:

And the table from the side:

While M and I were at Michael's tonight (great coupon on my rewards card, and we needed a potholder loom and a heckuvalot of ecru crochet cotton for a yardage project I have in mind), we picked up a couple of calendars ($0.50 each) because they're square and have pretty colors. No need to spend a buck a sheet or more for nice paper while I'm still learning, right?

Tomorrow is library night, so I will check out the origami books in our local branch (have already requested a few that are in other branches).