Fold Along...24 Holiday Origami Projects!

Welcome to the Origami Advent Calendar Fold Along! 24 holiday related origami projects have been collected, one for each day from now until Christmas.  Links have been posted to all 24 projects and photos and comments will be added as we fold each project. Join us, and fold along!  Please feel free to post pictures in the comments.  


24.  Five Point Origami Star:  The 5 pointed star was very fun to fold, and excellent instructions are provided on Homemade Gifts Made Easy.  We made some out of magazine pages.  The magazine pages did not prove to be the easiest to work with, but not impossible.  We also made a couple from origami paper.  The origami paper held the folds better, making it was easier to work with.  

23.  Babbo Natale (that's Italian for Father Chirstmas):  In order to have red paper with a white back I simply printed large red squares on regular printer paper, it worked well. We struggled with this one a bit between steps 5-7, but my daughter figured it out!  It helps to look a step ahead and just try to make your paper look the way it does in the next step.  After we figured out the folding the little Babbo Natale was fun to personalize.  The children enjoyed adding their own touches, my daughter added a cotton beard and my son added an origami toy sack.  

22.  Candy Cane: The candy canes are super easy to fold....perfect for even the youngest origami connoisseur!  We decided to add bows to our candy canes for a greater folding challenge.  I found the directions for the bows at Origami-Instructions.com.  This is an excellent site!  The instructions and photographs are very well done.  We made one minor change to the bow. The way the instructions are written there is white that shows on the back of the tails of the bow.  I folded them so all the white was tucked into the inside, so they will look more "finished" when hanging as ornaments. 
  

21.  Song Bird:  I love bird ornaments!  I have several bird ornaments for the tree, so I thought I would sprinkle in a few bird origami projects.  The whole family folded a Song Bird this evening.  Once again, excellent instructions from Origami-Instructions.com.

20.  Reindeer:  The folding of the reindeer was our most challenging project to date, but the directions were good, and we are pleased with the results. My daughter decided some of the reindeer should be female and therefore, without antlers.  The paper we used was an ancient marbleized paper I made 18 very long years ago, but managed to keep, and literally move around the world.  I had to cut the paper to make squares so I made smaller squares with the leftovers...small squares turned out to be perfect for "baby" reindeer, ergo the reindeer family was born.  

19.  Sheriff's Star:  I really love this one!  Super easy to fold and it looks beautiful.  Excellent instructions provided by Origami-Instructions.com. The star takes 2 1/2 square pieces of paper, this is modular origami.  I cut up some scrapbook paper I had around the house.  The paper had a bandanna print on it, which I thought was fitting for the Sheriff's Star.  My daughter is busy now folding more and more sheriff's stars!  

18.  Wreath:  This is our second modular origami project, and like the Sherriff's Star, the Wreath is very easy to fold.  You need 18 squares to make the wreath.  My 6 year old folded the pieces while I cut out the squares out of some wrapping paper. I had a little bit of trouble getting with the wreath wanting to come apart, but I think it was due to the slick nature of the wrapping paper.  I finally got it all to stay all together and the wreath is now hanging in the window!  

17.  Fir Tree: We had a trouble with the fir tree, when got to almost the last step and could not figure out what to do and got to frustrated to continue.  I was going to find another tree, with a video,  but have not had the opportunity yet. 

16.  Santa: As soon as I let go of my need to know precisely where to make the folds this little Santa went fairly smoothly.  At the request of my daughter, after we were finished folding we embellished Santa with some buttons, beads, and a little cotton.  My son had other ideas...
  

He decided to add a bit of creative folding at the end and make Orangutan Santa instead...Orangutan Santa, very popular with the 9 year old crowd.  

15.  Snowflake: I was very happy to find both the written instructions and a video for the snowflake!  We used parchment paper to fold the snowflake.  I think vellum would have made crisper more accurate folds.  The more accurate the snowflake, the more crystalline the snowflake looks.  Ours looked a little "melted" in places, but pretty none the less.  Folding the little ones were especially challenging.  I recommend folding with a hexagon that has sides that are at least 4 inches.  I also found making an accurate hexagon difficult with the parchment paper and ended up printing out a template and using it instead of folding and cutting a hexagon.  

14.  Owl:  This owl is tiny and so very cute.  There is a great video tutorial available on Origami-kids.com.  The instructions are straight forward and the pace of the video is just right to fold along as you watch.  

As I was looking through the Origami-kids website, I found another owl I couldn't resist folding.  It is the Larger Owl shown below.  You can find a video tutorial on Origami-kids.com.  This was a fun owl to fold, the base is different than anything we have folded so far, I enjoyed folding something different.  I added the googly eyes...they were already out and handy and looked so cute on the little owls.  

Why fold just two owls when you can fold 3? Right? My folding buddy had already gone to bed when I folded Owl #3, but it is very straight forward and I am going to show her how to do it tomorrow.  I think she will love it.  The instructions are very well illustrated, easy to follow and can be found on Origami-fun.com.  Now I am thinking a tree covered all in owls would be really fun...

13.  Humming Bird:  We struggled a bit with the humming bird, but finally figured it out.  The wings on the humming bird move up and down if you hold it just right.  

12.  Robin Star:  A modular star made with 8 pieces, this was exciting to fold. Excellent, illustrated instructions can be found on goorigami.com.  My daughter and I folded this one together.  

When we were finished we put it together with on of the Sheriff's Stars we folded earlier and hung it on top of the tree!

  
11.  Christmas Tree:  These Christmas trees turned our really quite lovely.  I found the instructions and supplemental video on myLifeboxblog.com.  These are actually pretty easy once you understand what to do.  My daughter says they even feel like a real Christmas tree.  She was very happy with the trees... 

So happy the trees ended up becoming part of the children's Playmobil Advent calendar.  

10.  Reindeer 2:  This is the second reindeer we have folded.  The first one was a little more challenging, but both my daughter and I decided we like it better.  The proportions on this one were a little odd, I made some extra folds on the leg so they weren't so huge...but fun to fold all the same.

  9.  Santa 2:  This was our third Santa Claus.  An quick and fun fold.  We all choose very different papers, which I think gave each Santa a very different feel.  After all this folding, the paper supply is getting a little low!  

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  8.  Peace Crane:  The origami classic!  I love folding cranes.  Turns out my daughter also loves folding cranes.  We made a string of them interspersed with beads.  They are hanging in front of the mirror by the door.  After our paper shortage yesterday, I bought a very large pack of scrapbook paper, so we chose the winter themed paper for our cranes.  We cut the scrapbook paper in fourths, for the perfect folding size.  I don't know where to purchase origami paper here.  In our string of cranes I included one my mom folded when she was here this Summer.  Hers is the silver one, it is made from a chocolate bar wrapper!

My daughter folded more Peace Cranes to add to bags filled with homemade cookies to give to teachers.  

  7.  Santa's Cap:  The Santa's Cap is fun easy to fold.  I found a great use for them...instead of a bow on the top of a wine bottle gift, how about a little Santa Cap. It's perfect for holiday parties!  
  

  6.  Snowman:  After folding the first snowman we decided to change the proportions just a bit.  When you fold the snowman like the instructions show the hat ends up being very, very small.  At step 5, by folding all the way to the mid-line, the had ends up a bit bigger.  We added some beads for the eyes and mouth, some buttons, and a bead for the nose. 

  5.  Santa's Face:  I was busy finishing up some work on the computer, when I turned to look my daughter had folded 7 Santa Faces!  The Santa Face has easy to follow directions and is an easy, fun fold.  We turned 4 into ornaments, she has given one away already.....
  

...and the remaining 3 we turned into cards.  I love the cards.  The backs of the Santa's Face are not finished, so putting them onto a card was a great solution.  

  4.  Navigator Star
  3.  Star Ornament
  2.  Penguin
  1.  Santa Claus